Obama Is a New Kind of Candidate with the Old Kind of Staffers

From the same folks who brought you video of Rudy's BFF John Deady comes video of Obama's staff trying so damn hard to control the Obama message that they try their darndest to control Suzanne Goldenberg, a reporter for a British Labour newspaper. It, um, isn't very successful and her full piece, that starts off being about Obama's optimistic message, turns into one chronicling the stupidity and paranoia of his staff. This is sorta especially off-message, since Obama is supposedly the anti-candidate-y candidate and message control is so old school, but there's no irony to see here, people (especially once they boot you out of their offices or corral you in the press pen).

This comes on the heels of the news this weekend of some scuffle between Bill O'Reilly and an Obama staffer that was maybe sorta caught on tape but not really. I mean, far be it from us to side with O'Reilly, who we rightly abhor for being a sexually-harassing right-wing shill with nary an original thought, but blocking his shot is straight out of Campaign Staffer 101. It's a dick move, but it's one everyone does to try to protect their guy in this political game. The problem is, Obama staffers, that your candidate is running on not being part of that game -- so by being controlling dicks to everyone from a reporter from a goddamned UK paper associated with Labour to Bill O'Reilly you're actually doing more damage to Obama than a O'Reilly hit piece ever could. Chill the fuck out.

 Obama's paranoia factor: a GuardianFilms special [The Guardian]