On KOA, "Gunny" Bob repeated false and misleading assertions about Obama and Pakistan, Hamas

Summary: "Gunny" Bob Newman falsely claimed that Sen. Barack Obama once said he "think[s] we should bomb Pakistan." In fact, Obama said, "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistani] President [Pervez] Musharraf won't act, we will." Newman also called Obama a "pansy ass" and asserted that "Muslim terrorists from Hamas to individual terrorists and other maniacs ... want him to be the president of the United States" without noting that a Hamas official has reportedly stated it is "not wishing for either [Obama or Sen. John McCain] to win."

Calling Sen. Barack Obama a "pansy ass" on his July 21 Newsradio 850 KOA broadcast, "Gunny" Bob Newman once again distorted the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's foreign policy positions by repeating the claim that Obama once said he "think[s] we should bomb Pakistan." However, as Colorado Media Matters noted when Newman made a similar assertion on February 28, during an August 1, 2007, foreign policy speech, Obama actually stated: "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistani] President [Pervez] Musharraf won't act, we will." Obama made any actions conditional and did not specify what actions he would take. Moreover, Newman failed to mention that, as Media Matters for America has noted, several media outlets, including The Washington Post, have reported that the United States in January used a CIA Predator aircraft to launch missile strikes at terrorist targets inside Pakistan and that "the U.S. spy agency did not seek approval" from the Pakistani government.

Further, as Media Matters has noted, in a July 15 foreign policy speech Obama echoed his earlier statements, saying: "We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps, and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like [Osama] bin Laden if we have them in our sights."

Newman's statement echoed instances in which the national media have claimed Obama said he would "invade" Pakistan or uncritically reported Sen. John McCain's false assertion that Obama "once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan," as Media Matters for America has documented.

Also on his July 21 show, Newman asserted that Obama exhibits "a level of -- of naïveté and ignorance that makes him so extraordinarily dangerous," adding, "And this is why Muslim terrorists from Hamas to individual terrorists and other maniacs like, you know, Moammar Gadhafi and so on want him to be the president of the United States. Because they can exploit his arrogance, ignorance, and -- and extraordinary ability to be naïve at a mind-blowing level. That's why they want him. Because they know they can exploit him and kill more of us. And he's not going to do a damn thing about it because he's a pansy ass."

Contrary to Newman's assertion that Hamas wants Obama elected president, while Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the prime minister of Hamas, reportedly said in an April 13 interview with conservative radio host John Batchelor and WorldNetDaily.com Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein that he liked Obama and hoped he would win the election, a Hamas official responded to Obama's June 4 remarks to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) by saying, according to Reuters, "Hamas does not differentiate between the two presidential candidates, Obama and McCain, because their policies regarding the Arab-Israel conflict are the same and are hostile to us, therefore we do have no preference and are not wishing for either of them to win."

In addition, Newman failed to note that Obama repeatedly has denounced Hamas as a terrorist organization, including in his AIPAC speech when Obama stated that "[w]e must isolate Hamas unless and until they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel's right to exist and abide by past agreements." And, as Colorado Media Matters has noted, the Obama campaign reportedly responded to Yousef's April 13 statement by saying, "Senator Obama has repeatedly rejected and denounced the actions of Hamas, a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of many innocents that is dedicated to Israel's destruction. As president, Obama will work with Israel to isolate terrorist groups like Hamas, target their resources, and support Israel's right and capability to defend itself from any attack."

From the July 21 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Gunny Bob Show:

NEWMAN: You do not go to the Germans and say, "I want to use your most holy shrine for a campaign rally." It -- you don't do it. You don't go there. Under no circumstances do you do that.

CALLER: Mm-hmm.

NEWMAN: But him, because -- because of this elitist, holier-than-thou, you know, "I am American royalty" attitude that he has, it blew up in his face. And now he's got the chancellor of Germany and a hell of a lot of Germans in a high state of piss-off at him, and he's not even the president.

CALLER: No, he's one person.

NEWMAN: And of course, what did he do a year or so ago, approximately? He comes out and instead of saying something like this - "Well you know we've got -- we've got some terrorists Taliban and Al Qaeda and other Muslim terrorist organization hiding out in North Waziristan in the -- in the, you know, the tribal regions of Western Pakistan --

CALLER: Right.

NEWMAN: -- and they're running cross border operations against, you know, our forces and our allies in Afghanistan in what we must do is work with [Afghani] President [Hamid] Karzai to find a way to, you know, to get a hold of that situation through, you know, through diplomatic and economic and military pressures as a combination that" -- and that's how you would approach that. But what did Obama do? Obama says, "I think we should bomb Pakistan." Now,what does -- what does that do immediately with the Pakistanis?

CALLER Pisses them off.

NEWMAN: They're -- they're flipping us off. Like, what the hell are you talking about? But -- the -- the -- the -- It's one gaffe after another with this character.

[...]

NEWMAN: Yeah, and we-- we -- we've got all of our military -- so many of our military personnel and politicians saying, you know what? The Iranians are responsible for the murders of hundreds, likely thousands, of our military personnel in Iraq because they send their terrorists over to kill them and -- and -- and Obama doesn't have really that big of a problem with it. He has so little of a problem with it that he says "No, we -- we should not hold them accountable militarily. We should -- I'll just personally sit down with that terrorist regime and -- um -- I'll get them to change their ways." This is a level of -- of naïveté and ignorance that makes him so extraordinarily dangerous.

And this is why Muslim terrorists from Hamas to individual terrorists and other maniacs like, you know, Moammar Gadhafi and so on want him to be the president of the United States. Because they can exploit his arrogance, ignorance, and -- and extraordinary ability to be naïve at a mind-blowing level. That's why they want him. Because they know they can exploit him and kill more of us. And he's not going to do a damn thing about it because he's a pansy ass.

—C.H.