Talk:Barack Obama

Religious chronology @ infobox

Since John McCain's change from Episcopalian to Baptist is given in the infobox at "John McCain," I figured I'd fill out the religious information at "Barack Obama" to spell out that while Obama's been with the United Church of Christ since 1992, previously he'd retained what he termed in his 2006 "Call to Renewal" speech a "skepticism of organized religion," while acknowledging his maternal grandparents as "non-practicing Methodists and Baptists." — Justmeherenow (   ) 12:29, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with that, and don't believe I've ever seen anything like that in an infobox. This is precisely the kind of change you should discuss rather than just make, as it is significant and likely controversial. First of all I see no reason why we would refer to his grandparents' religion - the infobox is not about what church his grandparents did or did not go to (and why only mention his maternal grandparents?). Secondly, I don't believe we generally include earlier religious skepticism under the "religion" category of the infobox. George W. Bush became a born-again Christian in his early forties and continues to identify as such, but we don't explain in his infobox that he had a religious conversion (he switched from Episcopalian to United Methodist, which we explain in the article, not the infobox, though in that case we could probably mention that in the infobox). Thomas Jefferson was raised in the Church of England but we don't say that in the infobox, nor do we say that he was anti-Catholic nor that he did not believe in the divinity of Jesus (again we discuss these things in the article). When Richard Nixon was young he believed in the inerrancy of the Bible but abandoned that later, and despite nominally being a Quaker he was pretty far from a pacifist, but in his infobox we simply say "Quaker" (one could argue whether that was even really true by the time he was president). McCain completely switched denominations which is worth mentioning, but in general that infobox should really just identify someone's current religion, not say "in his 20s he struggled to find his spiritual identity" which is basically the case with Obama and half the rest of the world. Where that can be discussed is in the article itself. It's already largely there, but I think we can slightly expand the last paragraph of the "personal life" section. I'm strongly tempted to revert your change but will hold off pending further discussion and actually hope you might self-revert. Again, in the future please discuss these kind of changes before making them. You're adding new material and if you have any sense it may be even minimally controversial you should bring it to the talk page first.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 15:05, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Self-reverted, pending consensus----as it's conceivable some portion of it might be controversial. — Justmeherenow (   ) 15:36, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, we'll see what others think, but if you want folks to come around to your view you might want to find examples where we list "skepticism of organized religion" or something similar in an infobox to note that someone was not in a church their whole life. If there are few or no examples of that it would suggest we should not start doing it here. The other problem I didn't mention is the way it appears on the screen with "skepticism of organized religion" being the first thing someone would read. Because of the formatting it's not immediately clear you are talking about a former belief, so someone who casually peruses the infobox (which is probably exactly what most people do) might only notice the first line about skepticism. It doesn't make much sense to display his past belief (or lack thereof) more prominently than his religion of the past 16 years.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 15:43, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah-hah----yes! true. — Justmeherenow (   ) 16:28, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

The infobox is fine as is. Shem^(talk) 04:45, 17 June 2008 (UTC) Malik Obama, his half brother, says he was raised a muslim.Andycjp (talk) 01:21, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

The word Muslim is only mentioned once in this entire article and that seems wholly absurd, given how much attention has been given to the issue of Obama's religiosity. Here are a couple of articles to considera

• Was Barack Obama a Muslim?, Daniel Pipes Frontpagemagazine.com
• President Apostate, New York Times

Rezko problems

I am returning from my self-imposed exile to make a point about why the Rezko stuff is proving so difficult to include. Various attempts have been made to add the Rezko-related information, and they have all failed. The problem has been identified by Wikidemo, actually, although his proposed solution hasn't been any more successful than previous attempts. The facts are these:

1. Tony Rezko played a fairly significant role in the earlier part of Obama's career, chiefly as a fundraiser - nothing wrong with that.
2. Obama bought a house, and Rezko bought a vacant lot next door because the sellers wanted to sell both at the same time - nothing wrong with that.
3. Rezko sold a strip of land to Obama, which helped to improve the Obama property - nothing wrong with that, although Obama himself indicated that Rezko was "doing him a favor".
4. During the course of Rezko's fundraising activities he engaged in illegal activities, for which he was indicted and later convicted - big alarm bells ringing, extensive coverage at Tony Rezko.
5. Worried about how this might look, Obama gave a couple of interviews explaining his actions, and donated the estimated sum of Rezko-sourced funds to charity - nothing wrong with that.

Taken individually, there is nothing improper (or even notable) about any of Obama's actions. It is only when these disparate facts are combined that some form of "controversy" unfolds. The "controversy" relies on the details surrounding Rezko's indictment, none of which involved Obama. By cramming all of these details into a single section, we are essentially talking about manufacturing a controversy. This has been described by some editors as "context", but really it is just conflation. It would be one thing if this "controversy" received masses of media attention, but it has barely received a mention.

But if we separate the details and "weave" them into the article, as suggested by WorkerBee74, the details fade into insignificance because none of them are really notable. The difficulty of fitting this stuff in is because it really isn't appropriate. The "negative" stuff revolves around Tony Rezko, with Obama only catching a whiff of it. It is for this reason that I think the details (or "context") should not be in this BLP. We should refer to the association as having drawn scrutiny during the primary season, but we should provide a hyperlink to Tony Rezko where the actual details can be found. This should appear in the campaign section, preferably as a single, concise sentence. And that is all there should be for the time being. Obviously it is possible that this will becoming a bigger issue during the general election campaign, but we should reevaluate if and when that happens.

So what we need is for the various interested parties to get together and try to come up with a sentence for the campaign section that can do this without violating WP:NPOV. I've been thinking about it, but I'm struggling to come up with something succinct. Does anyone have any ideas? -- Scjessey (talk) 22:38, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

The above editor's repeated statements to the effect of "nothing wrong with that" make clear that his editing conduct is fair game to raise as an issue hre. The term "nothing wrong with that" is not a fact-based statement, nor is it neutral. It is clearly conclusionary and it's also clearly POV. "Wrong" or "right" are inherently POV viewpoints. By stating "nothing wrong with that" Scjessey is clearly making 'conclusions' and sitting as judge. We are not judges and we do not render opinions. Whther or not Scjessey thinks there's "nothing wrong" wiht something is irrelevant to whther or not it should be mentioned in this article. I challenge Scjessey to show me where in wiki editing guidelines it's written that we are free to exclude mention of things, notable or not, if we feel there's "nothing wrong with that". I feel that Scjessey is trying to insert his moral opinions as a screen and use them to filter content from the article based on that screening. I believe that this is a user conduct issue and I feel that I am within bounds to draw attention to that. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 05:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

In the article, we currently have two long sentences: "...The land adjacent to their house was simultaneously sold to the wife of developer Tony Rezko, a fundraiser for several prominent Illinois politicians from both major political parties[156], and the transaction later drew scrutiny from news outlets over Obama's dealings with Rezko. While Obama was never accused of wrongdoing, Rezko was under investigation for and later convicted of unrelated corruption charges, and Obama donated $150,000 in Rezko-linked campaign contributions to charity.[157]". Thus, I don't think we can manage with fewer words than this, and Lots of details we could get rid of, but just about anything is too much weight in the campaign section. Its also not all that relevant to his personal life section, but Rezko is somewhat relevant to tarnishing his political image as viewed by some. So we could breakup the last paragraph in the cultural and political image section and include whatever is needed there. Modocc (talk) 23:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

After rereading your comment, I agree that we could lose many of the details. Perhaps editors that have wanted to add something to the cultural and political image section can come up with what is needed. Modocc (talk) 00:47, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

The sources

Scjessey and Modocc, you are not reflecting the broad consensus out there on this issue, so please do some reading. I went to the Tony Rezko article and found some of these sources, and I did a simple Google and Google News search and found some of the others, so I think this is a pretty good representative sample of 23 sources. This gives you an idea of the shape of the coverage. Note the importance of the point that the Rezko relationship raises questions about Obama's judgment:

• http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/353829,CST-NWS-rez23.article#
• http://talkingpointsmemo.com/rezkotimeline.php
• http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/obama_spends_3_hours_with_chic.php
• http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/us/politics/14rezko.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1213719873-DTNCapgN21KSAc1N8oRPUQ&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
• http://www.suntimes.com/news/124171,CST-NWS-obama05.article#
• http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/121104,CST-NWS-brown02.article
• http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/02/01/rezko/print.html
• http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0316edit1mar16,0,4441703,print.story
• http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=4111483
• http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/01/by_frank_james_in_monday.html
• http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/23/nation/na-rezko23
• http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/8855.html
• http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/766605,CST-NWS-obama30.article#
• http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=289698788263978 -- this one seems to be a bit inaccurate
• http://www.examiner.com/x-268-Right-Side-Politics-Examiner~y2008m6d6-Rezko-And-Obamas-Judgement
• http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/03/7518_obama_and_rezko.html
• http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/04/obamarezko.html
• http://www.minnpost.com/politicalagenda/2008/06/05/2136/rncs_duncan_slams_obamas_ties_to_rezko
• http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-rezko-letterjun12,0,5678036,print.story
• http://news.bostonherald.com/news/national/politics/2008/view.bg?articleid=1100458&format=text
• http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/353797,CST-NWS-rezdavis23.article#
• http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/obama/
• http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=ZTQyNjk1MmZhNDYyZjQ0OGNlMDIzOGMzZDQwMjk3NTY=

I know, this is just a dump of links, but I'll be referring to these later and there's a lot here, so you may want to look them over. This doesn't mean I want to use a lot of information, but note that while they're just about all reliable sources, they're all over the map in terms of type of source: they're both commentary (including Mother Jones and National Review) and straight news reporting, and yet they are remarkably in agreement: Obama did a stupid thing, he continued associating with a guy, and got into a real estate deal with him, after it became obvious the guy was under investigation, and this raises questions about Obama's judgment. Some (not all) say it raises questions about his ethics. Even two media supporters say this raises questions about his judgment (Chicago Trib editorial and David Corn in Mother Jones). I'll make a proposal later and give some quotes from these sources and provide specific links at that time, but feel free to look over just about my whole database, even just to pick through it at random, and come up with your own conclusions. Some supporters say this whole thing is not important, but that's not the consensus view that I found. Noroton (talk) 02:12, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that Obama's association/involvement with Rezko matters. Here's an example to illustrate how I see it: If you have a college roommate when you are 20 years old and 10 years later, he turns out to be an embezzler, that's not on you. But, if you are running for the office of City Auditor (a position requiring probity) and it becomes public knowledge that you were associated with your ex-rommate and did deals with him, even AFTER there was public news of his being in problems, then it becomes clear that this is a controversy that involves YOUR reputation also. The presidency is a role that requires great probity. Anyone who aspires to it, is naturally held to a standard of very strict scrutiny. To deny that the Rezko/Obama link is notable, is foolhardy and turns a blind eye to the fact that this obviously does matter. All notable public leaders seeking high elective office are ALWAYS called on the carpet for "controversial associations". The Obama/Rezko association is controverial and therefore notable in regards to Obama. The association AND the controversy (in brief) must be mentioned in THIS article or this article is a farce. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 04:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Noroton, I'm not sure what broad consensus there is that I, for one, am not reflecting, but there is considerable rhetoric that I tend to ignore. I've been reading as requested, and so far its pretty much repetitive stuff. I was struck though by how many of the sources questioned the affairs' importance, asking if the trial or Rezko himself will reveal anything, and asking if it is Obama's Achilles heal. The "appearance of impropriety", the scrutiny and the scattered coverage are not a manufactured political stunt. Yet it is still a minor affair and we can prevent redundancy, further instability and too much weight by selecting just the most relevant article section, and I still think the political image section is best. Content there is more likely to stay put and we won't have to rehash the issue of "either too few or too many details" (which I assume are important to some extent) or argue about its relative importance to other events when the campaign section needs significant revision again. Modocc (talk) 05:28, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

All four of you are missing a crucial point, which is that it is not our job as Wikipedians to come up with the "correct" POV and decide whether Obama is in the right or in the wrong concerning Rezko or anything else. Our job is simply to report relevant and notable POVs that exist concerning Obama. Can we please focus on that and leave the political discussions aside? No one is manufacturing a controversy. The controversy exists. It's a fact. It doesn't matter what anyone thinks about whether it should or should not exist. Our job is to report it because it is there. Part of that is making it clear what the controversy is about by displaying the pertinent details (which are also facts). --Floorsheim (talk) 15:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

More specifically, Wikipedia should report notable and relevant POV. The issue here is that the "controversy" only exists when a group of disparate facts concerning Rezko and Obama are conflated. Even if we assume for a second that this approach is legitimate, it seems to be a very Illinois-specific issue. It has received very little media attention outside of Chicago, with almost all national sources simply regurgitating the Tribune/SunTimes stuff. Reporting both "sides" is only important if what you are reporting is notable, otherwise you are just giving something non-notable undue weight. The order of precedence here is WP:BLP, WP:WEIGHT and then WP:NPOV. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:49, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Whether or not the national sources are 'regurgitating' is irrelevant. The plain fact is that the issue has received significant media attention on the state of Illinois and national levels, including the front page of cnn.com. We are obliged to discuss it in the article. Commentary about why it has received this attention could be appropriate for the article as well, provided there were enough secondary sources making the commentary. --Floorsheim (talk) 19:45, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

He's a senator from Illinois; the subject of the article is Illinois-specific. The sources are both Illinois-specific and national. It has received enormous national coverage, with probably every daily newspaper in the country running at least an AP article on the trial results. I agree with Floorsheim that we're not here to argue the politics, but I did want to demonstrate that it's an important aspect of Obama's life, a matter that's been public not just because he's in a campaign, but because ethical issues have been raised. I won't beat a dead horse. Noroton (talk) 21:03, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

"It has received enormous national coverage"

I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true. I've seen hardly any coverage at all, and I watch political programming for pleasure. By way of comparison, I've seen considerably more coverage of McCain's Shia/Sunni mistake, and orders of magnitude more for his "100 years" in Iraq. Even the "bittergate" nonsense has received more coverage than Rezko, even though it was just a misstatement. This is simply a gross overstatement of importance, and I think the text I have proposed below is more than adequate coverage. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:41, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

This issue raises bona-fide questions about Obama's probity. It's not good that leaving it out is even being considered. I think we need to invoke a formal procedure such as asking the wider community to discuss this. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 18:50, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Obvious sockpuppetry

I'd encourage other editors to ignore this IP sock's goading. It's only made two edits to this Talk discussion, but is clearly familiar with the page's participants. Don't feed the troll. Shem^(talk) 05:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Shem, I think you are leaping to conclusions and are doing precisely what you said I was doing, that being "attacking" and "goading". I have carefully read and responded to each of your comments. Please see my comments regarding SCJessey's "nothing wrong with that" moral conclusions. There is an issue with SJC's approach here and I feel that it's within bounds to draw attention to it. No less so than you attempting (nay, lobbying) to draw attention to (or actually away from) my edits. Neither SCJ nor you "own" this page and I am also able to edit here. Furthermore, I am making a full effort to hear and and dialog witth you - but you are not. You made one overture - a threatening one, then you quickly lambasted me again and posted a note on this page actively lobbying against me all within a few minutes. No reasonable person can think through and respond fast enough to keep up with your leaping at me. Frankly, you should strike your provocative plea to "ignore" my edits and reconsider your approach. Perhaps the tension on this page stems from the approach of several "camping" editors here - rather than the prespective of the few new ones who dare to try to stick a toe in the water. That said, as you can see, I have stricken my text which you say offends. I ask that you do likewise to yours [4] 216.153.214.89 (talk) 05:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Since you are just an IP editor (although it is obvious from your editing history that you are an experienced one), you should be aware that my comments above were the first I had made in days following a self-imposed break, sp I completely reject your baseless accusations of bias. My "nothing wrong with that" statements were carefully-considered conclusions based on the facts. Using these conclusions, I port forward a very reasonable proposal for Rezko language which has attracted some support. I'm sorry if it doesn't fit in with your personal point-of-view. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

There really needs to be a cease-fire on this page on all of these sockpuppetry accusations. A couple of editors who are clearly in the minority, and fighting a losing battle against consensus, have reached the conclusion that the only way they can win the edit war is to delegitimize their opponents. Any new editor who disagrees with them is, by definition, a sockpuppet. If this handful of editors can get enough people who disagree with them blocked or topic banned, they will be in the majority. So they make these false accusations. Take your accusations to WP:SSP and WP:RFCU, present your evidence and see if you can get an admin to block the alleged puppets.

Furthermore, only one account here has been proven via RFCU to be a sockpuppet and blocked. It was an account that was taking the side of the same editors who are hurling these accusations. So if anyone should be talking about the sockpuppetry of others and making accusations, perhaps it should be Noroton, Floorsheim, Justmeherenow and Kossack4Truth.

Making your accusations and insinuations here on this page, particularly when the accusations are unaccompanied by a filed case supported by strong evidence at WP:SSP, is an outrageous violation of WP:AGF and WP:NPA. Take your accusations to WP:SSP, or keep them to yourselves and try to stick to the merits of your argument about content. WorkerBee74 (talk) 17:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, if there ever is actual block evasion or other sockpuppetry it does need to be found and dealt with because it tends to undermine consensus and the entire editing process. A well-founded sockpuppetry accusation can never be considered a breach of assuming good faith, and refraining from it (much less tolerating sockpuppets) should never be a term of a truce in an edit war. However, I'm at a loss for how and where such things should be brought up. It's pretty normal for editors to discuss among themselves their suspicions about sockpuppetry in order to do a reality check and gather evidence before filing a formal case. Perhaps we could use some administrative guidance on how to deal with suspicions of sockpuppetry without stirring up trouble here on this page. Wikidemo (talk) 19:17, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

So says WorkerBee74, the account clearly masquerading as a new ("So how do I get started?") editor. Heck, even those in agreement with your POV have chided you for your poor theatrics. Shem Shem^(talk) 04:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

On a related note, User:Fovean Author just received a six-month block for sockpuppetry and disruption. Shem^(talk) 04:00, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

It's a completely unrelated and irrelevant note, since the single alleged sockpuppetry incident happened in an AfD discussion three months ago, not on this article. The one and only proven incident of sockpuppetry on this article was by User:Life.temp, proven by Checkuser to be the sockpuppet of an indefinitely blocked user, who twice tried to erase any sign of controversy from this article. A friend of yours, Shem? WorkerBee74 (talk) 00:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Keep making attacks, my dear "So how do I get started?" single-purpose account. Right now, you're riding in the same lane as Andyvphil and Fovean Author. Shem^(talk) 00:44, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Back on topic

SCJ, you are again *missing* the point. By your most recent comment, you ADMIT that you are making "conclusions" and indeed the conclusions you are making are moral ones. There is nothing which fits the definition of "moral" more closely than to say something is "right" or something is "wrong". I am amazed that you are defending your efforts in that regard. The point is that YOU ARE NOT THE JUDGE of whether or not Rezko's/Obama's behavior/associations are "wrong" or "right". I implore you, please stop lecturing us on your opinion (your POV) that there's "nothing wrong" with the various things which have been reported regarding Resko. It is the job of THE READERS to draw their own conclusions on this - not for you to spoon feed them (or withhold information). We have established that you ADMIT you are making conclusions about the morality of Resko's actions (as described by the public facts) and you are, I contend, in error for doing that. It is of no interest to me WHATSOEVER (nor should it be to you) if Obama/Rezko are good or bad or have done right ot wrong. Rather, what we as editors MUST DO is compose a cogent article which conveys the relevant known facts regarding Obama in a manner which informs the readers. I contend that these issues regarding Resko are relevant to this article and I have stated my reasons: They are notable and verifiable and they directly inform the readers regarding Obama's association with an possibly in-trouble person. It is up to the readers to decide if that matters or if it's "wrong", not you. I will repeat my request: Please step back from this article and recuse yourself. You have over-stepped the bounds of good editing - you are insisting that we abide by your personal moral conclusions. Such actions by an editor are pure POV and must not stand. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 16:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with "216." If there's conflation, it's being done by a wide swath of media, from Talking Points Memo and Mother Jones on the left, to National Review on the right, and the entire neutral mainstream news media community in between. The secondary sources have overruled the objection by SCJ. WorkerBee74 (talk) 17:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

We're each free to reach conclusions and state them here, even to have POV biases and admit them here as part of the discussion. The goal is a result for the article that is well supported and neutral, not that every argument has to be. Instead of calling foul, why not simply say thank you for your contribution but I disagree and think it is unsupported and would bias the neutrality of the article? You can read "nothing wrong with that" in at least three ways: (1) shorthand for "I conclude that this statement is okay to include in the article"; (2) shorthand for "this fact does not by itself suggest that Obama engaged in unethical conduct"; or (3) shorthand for "obama did nothing wrong in taking this action". It's only the last one, I think, that miscasts this talk page discussion into a debate about Obama's worthiness. Why not ask SJC in what sense he means it, and if it is the last version say that you don't think we should be evaluating each fact for whehter Obama is "wrong"? Wikidemo (talk) 19:23, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

It's quite evident from his post that SJC meant precisely that, #3). Indeed he goes on at length to argue against allowing the facts in because they don't matter - and because they don't matter, we ought not to allow them to be "conflated" together in the article. My point is that SJC is not (and neither are we) the judge of what matters or not. If it's notable and verifiable, it belongs in the article. Frankly, I feel that the probity of Presidential Candidates/Senators is of paramount concern to many readers. And frankly yes, I feel that this information could reflect poorly on Obama's probity, but the fairness answer to that is to not give it undue or excessive weight. On the other had, to cavalierly dismiss it as not mattering via a there's "nothing wrong with that", is to insert our judgement for the readers. Let the readers decide for themselves. Our duty is to avoid taking sides for or against Obama and not try to pile on over this issue. Even so, the Resko connection/issue as reported in the media must be in this article or as I said, this is a farce. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 20:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, that's a solid argument, that it's up to the sources and not us editors to decide what is important and that we should not dismiss and refuse to report things that are issues to the public as a whole. I won't bother restating my position here, which is somewhere in between. You don't have much to worry about the "farce" version being the outcome - it looks pretty likely that the Rezko information will be in the article in some form, so the only question is how much of it, how it's worded, and where it's put. People seem to be coalescing around a 3-5 (I'm not going to bother counting) sentence version that's pretty dry and factual. And for the details they can follow the links and citations. Wikidemo (talk) 21:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Centralizing Rezko discussion

I know this kind of thing has been tried before for the Ayers issue and perhaps others, but I think this is a good point at which to centralize the discussion on Rezko. I think we've made some good progress on this question above and there is proposed language from different people with which multiple editors have expressed at least some agreement. As often happens though the discussion is kind of all over the place now and perhaps too unwieldy to be effective. I propose we centralize discussion here and avoid new subsections that take us off track. I most certainly don't want to impose this approach if others disagree with it and see a better route, it's just my personal view that we need to try to zero in and discuss this in one place.

If folks agree, let's have a two step process: 1) Editors can propose language to discuss Obama's ties to Rezko, while explaining where they want it in the article (don't editorialize, just word it as you want it worded and put links to your sources); 2) We discuss, not vote on, the various proposals, probably ending up with something slightly different from anything proposed, but keeping our eyes on the prize at all times, which is coming to some sort of rough consensus and ending the debate over Rezko.

Let's try to keep the focus on specific wording and avoid philosophizing or general statements. In the scheme of things this is not a major issue and we should come to some agreement soon, knowing we can always make adjustments later. I would also propose we set a bit of a time limit on discussion (maybe five days or a week) and bring it to a close at the end, making every effort to arrive at some form of consensus even if not everyone is happy.

Let's think of this not just as a way to discuss and put to rest the Rezko issue, but also as a model (if it actually works!) for future discussions on difficult topics.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:24, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Rezko language

Let's try to keep this to about four or five proposals AT MOST, bearing in mind that this is not a vote for a certain version and we can tweak anything proposed here (i.e., if someone has proposed something close to what you want, just discuss differences you have with it in the discussion section below). If you add new proposed language, start your own subsection and make sure you point out which section or sections of the article you want the proposed language to live in.

Proposal 1: Current language slightly altered

The existing language isn't too bad, but I would make some minor modifications:

The land adjacent to their house was simultaneously sold to the wife of developer Tony Rezko, a fundraiser for several prominent Illinois politicians from both major political parties, and the transaction later attracted some media scrutiny. Rezko was investigated for unrelated corruption charges, for which he was later convicted. Although Obama was not accused of any wrongdoing, he donated $150,000 in Rezko-linked campaign contributions to charity.

I would suggest that the stability of the previous version was more a consequence of many editors stepping away from the article for a few days; however, my proposed language is very similar. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Support

1. Support -- Scjessey (talk) 18:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
2. Support. Slightly better language and more fluent. --Floridianed (talk) 18:30, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Support. This is pretty much the same as the one above, but the language isn't quite so clumsy. --Loonymonkey (talk) 18:32, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
4. Support Yeah, this is slightly better wording. LotLE×talk 18:22, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
5. Support as a better wording of our earlier compromise. Keeping the stability of that compromise is what's important. Shem^(talk) 22:30, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
6. Support This is fine. Tvoz/talk 23:20, 20 June 2008 (UTC) support

Oppose

1. Oppose too vague, too incomplete, see discussion below. Noroton (talk) 23:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
2. Oppose Proposal 2 is best so far. Arkon (talk) 16:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Strongly Oppose. WorkerBee74 (talk) 18:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC) — WorkerBee74 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
4. Oppose. 74.94.99.17 (talk) 23:03, 19 June 2008 (UTC) — 74.94.99.17 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
5. Oppose. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 04:55, 20 June 2008 (UTC) — 216.153.214.89 (talk • contribs) may be a sock puppet of Rex071404 (SSP • ArbCom)
6. Oppose. 68.31.185.221 (talk) 11:09, 20 June 2008 (UTC) — 68.31.185.221 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
7. Strongly Oppose. Kossack4Truth (talk) 23:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC) (((posting as per message to my talk page -- Noroton (talk) 23:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC))))

Proposal 2 by Noroton

The easiest thing to do was take Scjessey's language as a base, although Wikidemo's and Workerbee74's previous proposals could have been reworked as well:

The land adjacent to their house was simultaneously sold to the wife of developer Tony Rezko, a friend and key fundraiser for Obama and other Illinois politicians from both major parties. The transaction later raised questions from many quarters about Obama's judgment. The purchases were made after Rezko was reported to be under investigation for unrelated corruption charges, for which he was later convicted. Later, a strip of the Rezko lot was sold to widen the Obama property. Obama later said it was "boneheaded" and "a mistake" for him to create the appearance of impropriety by involving Rezko in the real estate deals. Although Obama was not accused of any wrongdoing, he donated $150,000 in Rezko-linked campaign contributions to charity.

Aside from this, I might also propose language at another spot in the article, but I have to think about that. I can provide quotes and weblinks to articles to back up each statement (and footnotes will be added anyway), and I'm open to wording changes. Noroton (talk) 23:56, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Support

1. Support -- as author/proposer Noroton (talk) 23:56, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
2. Support -- Best so far. Arkon (talk) 00:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Strongly Support. This is consistent with established Wikipedia practice and with WP:NPOV. It provides a proportionate amount of space to the POV that finds these real estate deals to be questionable. WorkerBee74 (talk) 16:35, 19 June 2008 (UTC) — WorkerBee74 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
4. Support. 74.94.99.17 (talk) 23:03, 19 June 2008 (UTC) — 74.94.99.17 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
5. Support. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 04:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC) — 216.153.214.89 (talk • contribs) may be a sock puppet of Rex071404 (SSP • ArbCom)
6. Weak Support 68.31.185.221 (talk) 11:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC) — 68.31.185.221 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
7. Support if a sentence is added that briefly describes the January 2006 sale of a portion of Rezko's land to Obama. Obama admits that this was done after he knew that Rezko was under investigation, so I believe it is significant. Kossack4Truth (talk) 23:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC) (((posted as per message on my talk page -- Noroton (talk) 23:55, 20 June 2008 (UTC))))

Oppose

1. Oppose - Some parts are not written in a neutral manner. Pretty sure "to widen the Obama property" is a synthesis, along with the biased "raised questions from many quarters about Obama's judgment." -- Scjessey (talk) 00:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
2. Opposed. Doubles the length of the paragraph, and "raised questions from many quarters about Obama's judgment" is complete editorializing (intended to, by your own admission, imply that Obama has contradicted his campaign themes). Shem^(talk) 00:47, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Strongly Oppose. Adds more words for no good effect. Rambling; flows badly; and all the additions seem to amount to "throw stuff at the wall and hope something sticks". LotLE×talk 02:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
4. Strongly Oppose. Some of this is blatantly POV, particularly the "raise questions about judgement" part. Further, the last sentence is a classic weasel word structure. What does his not being accused of wrongdoing have to do with his giving money to charity? --Loonymonkey (talk) 16:52, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
5. Oppose - Aside from what is mentioned above, it includes a factual error. The investigation into Rezko didn't hit the presses until after Obama purchased the house and Rita purchased the land. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 23:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
6. Oppose - POV and overly long, also inaccurate. Tvoz/talk 23:18, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Other

1. Very good -- I may be offline for a while and may change to support (with caveats) on further reflection when I get back, but I like this approach. Wikidemo (talk) 00:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 3 by Rick Block

The land adjacent to their house was simultaneously purchased by the wife of developer Tony Rezko, who Obama has characterized as a friend. Rezko had been a fundraiser for Obama and other Illinois politicians from both major parties. The transaction and subsequent purchase of a portion of the adjacent lot by Obama later attracted media scrutiny due to unrelated corruption charges of which Rezko was ultimately convicted. In a 92-minute interview with three dozen journalists from the Chicago Tribune, Obama answered all questions about his personal and political connections with Rezko saying it was a "boneheaded move" and "in retrospect, this was an error" for him to be involved with Rezko in real estate transactions. Even though Obama was not accused of any wrongdoing and has never been accused of doing any personal or political favors for Rezko, he donated $150,000 in Rezko-linked campaign contributions to charity.

The point is if we're going to go into any detail at all we should go into enough detail to explain what happened here, and I think it's appropriate to lean primarily on [5]. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Support

1. Support -- Rick Block (talk) (assumed, so added by Scjessey (talk) 18:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC))
2. Strongly support. This is the best of the three, but I'd also support No. 2. WorkerBee74 (talk) 18:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC) — WorkerBee74 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
3. Strongly support. 74.94.99.17 (talk) 23:03, 19 June 2008 (UTC) — 74.94.99.17 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
4. Strong Support. 68.31.185.221 (talk) 11:23, 20 June 2008 (UTC) — 68.31.185.221 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
5. Strongly Support. Kossack4Truth (talk) 23:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC) (((posted as per message on my talk page -- Noroton (talk) 23:57, 20 June 2008 (UTC))))

Oppose

1. Oppose - reasonably neutral, but extraneous detail and extra length puts us into undue weight territory. Not sure what the point is of saying "three dozen journalists". -- Scjessey (talk) 12:34, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
2. Strongly oppose. Even more needless words than Proposal 2. LotLE×talk 17:41, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Oppose very mildly - I think the additions are unnecessary detail which would be better in the election article; should include "questioned his judgment" language, which I'll provide conclusive evidence for very soon; the Chicago Trib mention is inappropriate, I think, because Obama gave much the same quotes elsehwere and gave the Trib's rival, the Sun-Times an interview the same day that was about as long (one source says 80 minutes, others say 90 minutes). Obama has been accused of doing a favor for Rezko, although it's a pretty minor thing (he once wrote a letter urging funding for a project that benefitted Rezko). Noroton (talk) 20:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
4. Weak opposition - This one isn't really objectionable but I think it uses too much space for the relatively unimportant issue of the interview, and the "never been accused" is a bit of overkill in my opinion.Wikidemo (talk) 00:45, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
5. Oppose, and note: User:Fovean Author's now been blocked for sockpuppetry; both he and the IP address he's claiming above have edit-warred and double-voted together on AfDs in the past. Please see Wikipedia:Suspected_sock_puppets/Fovean_Author for more information. Shem^(talk) 02:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
6. Oppose - too much exculpatory disclaimers for Obama, re: "has never been accused" would reqquire day-to-day monitoring in case that changes. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 04:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC) — 216.153.214.89 (talk • contribs) may be a sock puppet of Rex071404 (SSP • ArbCom)
7. Oppose Too long, raising weight issues. This level of detail not appropriate for a biography of an individual's whole life. Tvoz/talk 23:24, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 4 by Bobblehead

Obama would later admit that the simultaneous purchase of the land adjacent to their house by the wife of developer Tony Rezko, a friend and key fundraiser for Obama and other Illinois politicians from both major parties that was later convicted on political corruption charges unrelated to Obama, and Obama's subsequent purchase of a 10-foot wide strip of the Rezko lot created an appearance of impropriety.

I don't have an opinion on this, just throwing out a proposal that seems to include much of what everyone wants without being overly long. I also didn't think the donation of the money was that important. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 00:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Support

Oppose

1. Oppose - awkward-sounding sentence. When I try to read it, the clause "a friend... unrelated to Obama" creates a confusing interruption. Probably too much to squeeze into a single sentence. Actual content is okay. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:34, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Other

Proposal 5 by Newross

Features: “a friend and major fundraiser for Obama’s five previous campaigns”, “a mistake”, wikilink to Tony Rezko article.

An adjacent vacant lot was simultaneously sold by the previous owners of the house to the wife of real estate developer Tony Rezko, a friend and major fundraiser for Obama's five previous campaigns. Six months later Obama purchased a 10-foot-wide strip of Rezko's lot. Obama subsequently said it was a mistake to not discourage Rezko from purchasing the adjacent lot and a larger mistake to purchase the 10-foot-wide-strip of land from Rezko because Rezko had been a political contributor and because Rezko had by then been reported to be under Federal investigation for corruption (unrelated to Obama), for which Rezko was later indicted and convicted.

As with Proposal 4, since this is Obama's encyclopedia biography and not an article about the operation of the Obama 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign, the Obama 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign’s donation to charity of all identified Rezko-linked contributions ($160,000) to the $14.9 million Obama 2004 U.S. Senate campaign is not discussed here. It is however discussed at length in the Ties to Barack Obama section that takes up over 30% of Tony Rezko's encyclopedia biography, to which a wikilink is thoughtfully provided.

Support

1. Support -- Newross (talk) 04:51, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

Other

Discussion of Rezko language

Proposal 1 discussion

Oppose -- after looking through a long representative sample of the sources, including some key sources often cited elsewhere, I have to conclude that this is too vague and incomplete for quite a few reasons (citations & quotes available for every point, even the minor ones):

• 1. Rezko must be identified as a "friend", something Obama characterized him as on March 15, 2008;
  2. Rezko must be identified as an important fundraiser for Obama, who has said just that about him, and plenty of reliable sources have said this as well; anything less masks the importance of the connection, and it can be fixed with a few words;
  3. It should be mentioned that Rezko advised Obama on the purchase; we don't need to say so, but we know this was at Obama's request, that Rezko visited the house with him, that Obama said he knew it was to his advantage that a friend buy the adjoining lot, and therefore this worked like a favor to Obama;
  4. The transaction attracted more than "some media scrutiny", it raised questions from many quarters about Obama's judgment, and if you think that sounds strong, just look: the questions have come from two or three Chicago good-government groups, the Chicago Tribune editorial board (which continues to endorse Obama), newspaper columnists in Chicago, reporters in Chicago and elsewhere, David Corn of Mother Jones magazine, and numerious national commentators across the political spectrum (including supporters), and then there's the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Republican National Committee -- obviously this list is only partial -- and the fact that Obama has been questioned about this has been itself reported; the Republican National Committee says this will definitely be a campaign issue in the fall; what made the matter more important is that central themes of Obama's campaign have been ethics and judgment;
  5. "unrelated corruption charges" isn't good enough -- they were corruption charges very closely related to the fact that he was a key fundraiser for Gov. Blagojevich (dating back to when Blagojevich was a state legislator); the fact that his crimes could only have occurred because he had entree into the Blogevich administration due to the fact that he built up a friendship/fundraising relationship with the politician is important to mention because that was the type of relationship he had with Obama; to put it into a metaphor, this was a house built by the same builder on a similar foundation at the same time in the same housing development -- if one foundation is faulty it may or may not mean that the other one is, but when considering the other house you pay attention to what happened with the first; the language can be fixed with: an Obama friend and key fundraiser for Illinois politicians of both major parties (if we can find one GOP friend of Rezko, we can word it slightly differently; numerous sources note he wasn't just any fundraiser for Obama but an important one);
  6. The transaction took place after it was prominently reported that Rezko was under investigation for corruption with a politician (Blagojevich) with whom he was a friend and important fundraiser, and that is specifically what raises the judgment question; so add to the second sentence The transaction took place after Rezko was reported to be under investigation for unrelated corruption charges, for which he was later convicted.
  7. This proposed language lacks the following statement that Obama repeated over and over again for more than a year: Obama later said that it was "boneheaded" and "a mistake" to create the appearance of impropriety by involving Rezko in the real estate transactions. If that's wordy, it's because I'm trying to be fair to Obama;
  8. I think the $150,000 figure is inaccurate by now, but I'm not sure. I'm suggesting a major rewrite, but not much longer. Obviously, I need to propose my own language; I'll do that soon. Noroton (talk) 22:37, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I read your suggestion with an open mind 'til I reached Points #4 and 5, Noroton. On your fourth point: "Media scrutiny" is perfectly neutral, and you want to replace it with a plainly subjective interpretation. On your fifth point: They are unrelated charges, nor has Obama been accused of any wrongdoing; I can tell you upfront that any attempt at diluting those two points will almost certainly invoke WP:BLP concerns and fail miserably. Shem^(talk) 22:48, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Shem, please reread. I'm not calling for removing the statement that the crimes were unrelated to Obama; my point is that the similarity of the relationships Rezko-Blagojevich and Rezko-Obama simply justifies a bit more attention. Neutrality for Wikipedia simply means that we cover the topic without a point of view, not that we make things unnecesarily vague -- it's a simple fact that this has been said about Obama. I repeat: a simple fact. WP:NPOV specifically allows us to describe a range of opinions. News of the Rezko-Obama dealings produced just this reaction; the reaction is worthy of our mention; the extra space I'm proposing is minuscule.

Thanks. As I've said elsewhere, for the most part these appear true, fairly and neutrally described, and verifiable / properly sourced. So for me it is a question of weight and relevancy (with too much weight or too little relevance creating a POV/balance issue even if unintended). Of them I am sympathetic to #2 (but not the specific word "important"), #6 (if we include Obama's claim that he did not know and took Rezko's assurances), and #7. #4 is arguable regarding "judgment" but not as to the extent of the criticism, which is minimal, and overall I don't think sufficiently relevant. #1 and 3 suffer from both weight and relevancy issues. #5 is tenuous and requires several leaps (or at least steps) of logic. #8, if true, is something we ought to fix. Wikidemo (talk) 22:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

By weight, you mean essentially a space issue, right? I'll write up my version and we'll see how much longer it is, but I think what I'll propose won't be much longer. As for relevancy, please keep that in mind and feel free to ask me about it when you see my language -- I'm going to need to footnote it, and I should be able to provide multiple quotes that I think will show relevancy, accuracy, importance, etc. When you see the sourcing and quotes, I think a lot of your other objections may disappear. Noroton (talk) 23:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Weight = volume X density x gravity. I'm game. Wikidemo (talk) 23:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal 2 discussion

unrelated corruption charges -- in both proposals so far and the current language of the article -- is meant to say that the corruption charges against Rezko are not related to Obama, but that language might imply that there are "corruption charges" related to Obama. Obama, of course, has not been charged or accused of corruption with Rezko, just criticized for acting in a way that could create the appearance of an impropriety, something different. What about rewriting that sentence to: The purchases were made after Rezko was reported to be under investigation for corruption, for which he was later convicted in a case matter unrelated to Obama. Noroton (talk) 00:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC) -- Replaced "case" with "matter" for additional clarity -- don't want to imply an Obama criminal "case" -- whew! Noroton (talk) 00:38, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

• Scjessey's objections — (a) Pretty sure "to widen the Obama property" is a synthesis -- I'll find quotes/weblinks for you; (b) with the biased "raised questions from many quarters about Obama's judgment." See my point #4 in the Proposal 1 discussion; they say things like "raises questions about Obama's judgment" or "Senator Obama, doesn't this raise questions about your judgment?" No synthesis involved. Bias? Who rejects the idea that it doesn't raise questions about his judgment? It seems to be the widespread, consensus view. I can show the wide variety of numerous sources, so why not say "many"? Noroton (talk) 00:35, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Rather than respond specifically to your comment, let me instead point you to the comment I posted earlier that addresses this very issue of notability and coverage. -- Scjessey (talk) 01:34, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Sjessey, this is what you said, and it appears to be a different point entirely:

"It has received enormous national coverage"

I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true. I've seen hardly any coverage at all, and I watch political programming for pleasure. By way of comparison, I've seen considerably more coverage of McCain's Shia/Sunni mistake, and orders of magnitude more for his "100 years" in Iraq. Even the "bittergate" nonsense has received more coverage than Rezko, even though it was just a misstatement. This is simply a gross overstatement of importance, and I think the text I have proposed below is more than adequate coverage. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:41, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

You bring up two points, I offer to get evidence to counter your points, and when I ask you a question (so why not say "many"?) you bring up a different point, in effect telling me that no matter what evidence I bring to the table, you will not support it because in general you just don't believe it's important because of the coverage that you yourself have seen elsewhere. The difference in our proposals is about three lines, and yet those three lines amount to "a gross overstatement of importance." I think I'm just wasting my time and this space responding to your objections. Or is there any evidence I could bring that would sway you? I'm willing to try to work with anybody, but it's got to be a two-way street. If anyone else wants your questions answered, and if it would make a difference in what they would support, I invite them to ask, but I'm only going to spend time on something productive. Noroton (talk) 03:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Scjessey's objection on length (and Shem's and LotLE's): Also, to answer your last point (the one-paragraph quote above), the way to judge national coverage is to compare this coverage with other coverage of elements of Obama's life and how important these elements are. How many other five-line elements of Obama's life have received more coverage than this? This has been one of the more serious topics of coverage of Obama's life. I'm not talking about campaign comments -- this is biographical information having to do with a controversial person he's associated with, and it's been addressed by every single major news outlet in the United States and received coverage abroad. I have doubts that any changes in my proposed language would change LotLE's mind. Shem, is there any evidence (quotes, weblinks) that might change your mind? If so, I'm willing to present them. Noroton (talk) 03:19, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how many links/sources/references you find. You have made up your mind about how much coverage you think there should be, based on your personal point of view, and now you are hunting for sources to justify your decision. And you keep saying that this has received a lot of media coverage, but it simply hasn't. We all know what transpired, and we are all quite capable of finding eleventy-billion references to support the facts, but doing so would violate WP:WEIGHT. It's a minor blip on the radar. A single tree in a huge forest. A little molehill in a mountain range. A grain of sand on a beach. An ordinary, yellow star in a galaxy of 100 billion others. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:48, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

This response is pretty full of self contradictory thought. If there are "eleventy-billion references", its silly to state that it is a minor blip. Arkon (talk) 16:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Er...no it isn't. The point I was making is that news organizations all regurgitate the same stories because of common sources like AP and Reuters. A minor event can be repeated on literally thousands of news sites automatically. This is not so with television coverage, however, which has not given the Rezko story any more than the barest minimum coverage. As I said before, it received orders of magnitude less coverage than McCain's "100 years" comment. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I really hope I am wrong here, but you seem to not only be infering the tv coverage is somehow more weighty than written coverage, but also that tv news doesn't duplicate coverage. Lastly, are you stating that all the references that can be found are just duplicates of an ap or reuters story? Arkon (talk) 21:23, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

"Obama's judgment / many quarters"

This is long, but no one else indicated they were looking into the matter, and I was getting objections to this language. So here's proof. I have some other quotes on other topics, which I expect to add later (they won't be this long). I don't know of a better way of proving this other than posting these quotes. I think they nail it. Noroton (talk) 23:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC) (((-- added a phrase to this comment for clarity. Noroton (talk) 02:16, 20 June 2008 (UTC))))

LANGUAGE: The transaction later raised questions from many quarters about Obama's judgment.

OBJECTIONS:

• Shem: — "raised questions from many quarters about Obama's judgment" is complete editorializing (intended to, by your own admission, imply that Obama has contradicted his campaign themes).
• Scjessey: — the biased "raised questions from many quarters about Obama's judgment."
• Loonymonkey — Some of this is blatantly POV, particularly the "raise questions about judgement" part.
• Bobblehead — [...] what is mentioned above [...]

JUSTIFICATION:

• Many quarters: See the number of citations here from a wide variety of sources and keep in mind that this is only representative -- I stopped when I thought I had what any fair person would consider "many".
• Judgment: This word is either specifically used in the sources or the source clearly alludes to it. In every single case cited. This is not an exaggeration. Some sources refer to a "lapse in judgment", some use language akin to "judgment in this case", but it all amounts to the same thing: his judgment was called into question.
• The transaction "raised questions" in any way you want to interpret that language: Some commented that they worried about or doubted his judgment, and reporters are quoted specifically asking Obama whether his association should raise doubts about his judgment. Obama's answers were interpreted in a number of news accounts as admitting that he had acted with a lack of judgment

KEEP IN MIND:

• This has been treated in the media and by Obama himself as not just a political controversy but an ethical lapse
• This is coverage (almost entirely) from influential and highly respected news organizations
• News articles are generally written by reporters who attempt to be fair and examined by multiple editors before publication
• The matter arose separately from the campaign, from news reporters scrutinizing Obama, and criticism has come from across the political spectrum; even those who don't criticize indicate they understand the matter is important
• Sources state that the matter of judgment and the ethical implications are particularly important to someone who campaigned on having judgment and having higher ethics

EVIDENCE:

-- DIRECT CRITICISM

• 1. Mark Brown, columnist, Sun-Times, November 2, 2006: I'm one of those who nominated Obama for his place in American history before he even got to Washington. [...] But now we must question his judgment — no small matter in a man who would be president.
  2. John Dickerson in Slate magazine, December 14, 2006, TITLE OF ARTICLE: Barack Obama has a little real-estate scandal that raises questions about his judgment." Slate article mentioned by Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post, December 18, 2006.
  3. Louis Weisberg, editor of Free Press in Chicago (as quoted in Sun-Times article), May 27, 2007: “It’s like the [Tony] Rezko thing: It’s association with someone he perceives might be able to do him some good, but somebody who has a tarnished image,” said Louis Weisberg, founding editor of the gay-oriented Free Press. “Between Rezko and Bauer, I wouldn’t vote for Obama. I question his judgment.”
  4. Cindi Canary, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, (news article, New York Times) June 14, 2007: “Senator Obama is a very intelligent man, and everyone by then was very familiar with who Tony Rezko was,” said Cindi Canary, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a nonpartisan research group. “So it was a little stunning that so late in the game Senator Obama would still have such close involvement with Rezko.” An ABC News report called Canary's organization, "a group that has worked closely with Obama and supported his legislative efforts."
  5. Dan Morain, writing in what appears to be a column in the Los Angeles Times "national" section, September 08, 2007: Already the senator has had to admit to poor judgment in a personal transaction involving his financial patron. It arose during Obama’s purchase of his current house.
  6. The Swamp blog at The Baltimore Sun, January 23, 2008 (not sure this is an expression of opinion or more like news analysis but I'll put it here): But the Obama-Rezko relationship that's even more troubling for Obama, because it goes to the heart of his campaign's argument about his judgment being superior to the other candidates, is the personal real-estate deal the two men did. Title of this blog post: Obama's Rezko problem; it's about judgment
  7. Los Angeles Times article, January 23, 2008, Lead paragraph: Hillary Rodham Clinton dropped the name of Barack Obama’s Chicago patron into the South Carolina debate Monday night, putting front and center a tangled relationship that has the potential to undermine Obama’s image as a candidate whose ethical standards are distinctly higher than those of his main opponent." [...] “Everybody in this town knew that Tony Rezko was headed for trouble,” said Jay Stewart of the Better Government Assn. in Chicago. “When he got indicted, there wasn’t a single insider who was surprised. It was viewed as a long time coming… . Why would you be having anything to do with Tony Rezko, particularly if you’re planning to run for president?”
  8. Steve Huntley, columnist, Chicago Sun-Times, June 6, 2008: Do his Wright-Rezko lapses inspire confidence that Obama has the judgment, insight and discernment to accurately size up the likes of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
  9. David Corn, Mojo blog at the Mother Jones magazine website, March 11, 2008: So how big a deal is this? Obama was dumb to enter into a deal with Rezko after news accounts disclosed he was under investigation for corruption. Does this show Obama's judgment was faulty? Certainly to a degree — especially since he has made ethics and clean government a top-of-the-list issue. And he has not been as transparent as possible in addressing questions about the deal.
  10. Chicago Tribune editorial, March 16, 2008 (overall, supportive of Obama, they say they still think his judgment is good, but notice that they address the issue): When we endorsed Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination Jan. 27, we said we had formed our opinions of him during 12 years of scrutiny. We concluded that the professional judgment and personal decency with which he has managed himself and his ambition distinguish him. Nothing Obama said in our editorial board room Friday diminishes that verdict.
  11. Richard Cohen, editorial columnist, The Washington Post, March 18, 2008: But a presidential candidate [...] operates in a different context. We examine everything about him for the slightest clue about character. On Wright, Obama has shown a worrisome tic. He has done so also with his relationship with Tony Rezko, the shadowy Chicago political figure. Obama last week submitted to a grilling on this matter by the staff of the Chicago Tribune and was given a clean bill of health. I accept it. But that hardly changes the fact that Obama should never have done business with Rezko in the first place. He concedes that now, but it was still a failure of judgment.
  12. Carol Marin, Sun-Times columnist, April 30, 2008: It took a relentless chorus of Chicago media almost a year to finally get Obama and his people to deliver long-asked-for documents and answer what were, at best, incompletely answered questions about his former friend and now-indicted fund-raiser, Tony Rezko. He finally did so in March. There are judgment questions, fair ones, to be asked about Obama's past dealings with controversial people.

-- REPORTERS' QUESTIONS:

• 1. Long Chicago Sun-Times interview, March 15, 2008: Q: You talk a lot about judgment in your campaign. Was this a judgment issue? A: It was a mistake. I said it was a boneheaded move, I think it is further evidence I am not perfect. I would put it in the context now of somebody who has been in politics for 11 or 12 years and other than this has had a blemishless record in a political context where it's very easy to get blemished. I think I've conducted myself with the highest ethical standards.
  2. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Gwen Ifill interview with Obama, March 17, 2008: MS. IFILL: The distinction between you and Senator Clinton that’s been drawn by both of you over the last several weeks has been judgment versus experience. So let me ask you about your judgment on some issues, not only Reverend Wright and your association with him over the years but also Tony Rezko who you’ve talked a lot about recently, the Chicago developer who is now on trial on federal charges. Do you think that your association with those two people or people we don’t know about would raise questions about your judgment? SEN. OBAMA: Well, no, look, all of us have people in our lives who we meet, we get to know, in some cases form friendships with, who end up getting themselves into trouble or say things that we don’t agree with. [...] MS. IFILL: But let’s talk about political judgment. Neither of these are new issues. Are these things you could have laid to rest some months ago?
  3. Fox News political editor mentioned in a Sun-Times account, June 6, 2008: But Obama shrugged off Fox Political Editor Jack Conaty's question about whether his friendship with Rezko raised concerns about his judgment.

-- IN NEWS ACCOUNTS

• 1. New York Times, June 14, 2007: The land sale occurred after it had been reported that Mr. Rezko was under federal investigation. That awkward fact prompted Mr. Obama, who has cast himself as largely free from the normal influences of politics, to express regret over what he called his own bad judgment.
  2. ABC News report by Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz, January 10, 2008: In sharp contrast to his tough talk about ethics reform in government, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., approached a well-known Illinois political fixer under active federal investigation, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, for "advice" as he sought to find a way to buy a house [...] Obama maintains his relationship with Rezko was "above board and legal" but has admitted bad judgment, calling his decision to involve Rezko "a bone-headed mistake."
  3. New York Times, January 29, 2008: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, has raised questions about Mr. Obama’s judgment in dealing with Mr. Rezko,
  4. Newsweek, (end of article) March 1, 2008: Even so, by Obama's own account his real-estate entanglement with Rezko was a "boneheaded" mistake. It's a chapter that the candidate, who is running on the strength of his good "judgment," would just as soon put behind him. And one that his opponents are all too happy to keep squarely out front.
  5. Washington Post article, March 4, 2008, page 3: Ethics watchdogs in Chicago accept Obama's account, noting that he was instrumental in passing the strongest state ethics law in 25 years as a freshman state senator. But they have called the real estate deal and his failure to distance himself from Rezko a lapse in judgment.
  6. New York Times, March 15, 2008, lead paragraph: WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama said Friday that he had made repeated lapses of judgment in dealing with an indicted Chicago real estate developer, Antoin Rezko [...] Voters concerned about his judgment, Mr. Obama said, should view the transaction as “a mistake in not seeing the potential conflicts of interest.”
  7. Mark Halperin, "The Page" blog at TIME magazine, which appears to be a news blog but may be an opinion blog, March 15, 2008, Headline: "Obama admits repeated poor judgment with Rezko"

-- OBAMA'S OWN RESPONSE: IT'S A MATTER OF ETHICS:

Obama does not react to his judgment being questioned with outrage or by saying reporters are biased or by saying it's only a political charge with nothing to it. Instead, he answers the question, admits problems and treats it like an ethical issue involving conflict of interest perceptions:

• 1. It's a matter of ethics, he told the Chicago Sun-Times, November 5, 2006: "With respect to the purchase of my home, I am confident that everything was handled ethically and above board. But I regret that while I tried to pay close attention to the specific requirements of ethical conduct, I misgauged the appearance presented by my purchase of the additional land from Mr. Rezko," Obama said.
  2. "The Trail" blog at The Washington Post, March 14, 2008: Obama, who has made ethics a centerpiece of his career, told the Chicago Tribune that he made a mistake "in not seeing the potential conflicts of interest."
  3. Long Chicago Sun-Times interview, March 15, 2008: But it's fair to say at that time a red light might have gone off in my mind in terms of him purchasing his property next to mine, and the potential conflicts of interest.
  4. Chicago Tribune editorial, March 16, 2008: Obama said Friday that his "smaller lapse of judgment" was inviting Rezko to help him evaluate the house before he purchased it. [...] Obama's "bigger lapse of judgment," he said, came later when he bought a strip of the Rezko lot to expand his own yard. That embroiled the two men in negotiations over fencing and other issues at a time when Rezko was under increasing suspicion. That involvement with Rezko in the land deal, Obama said Friday, was the "boneheaded move" to which he's previously confessed. "In retrospect," he said Friday, "this was an error."

-- EXPECTATIONS THAT THIS WILL COME UP IN THE GENERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN:

Both Obama nor the Republican National Committee both expect this to be a feature of the general election campaign:

• 1. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Gwen Ifill interview with Obama, March 17, 2008: SEN. OBAMA: I understand though that I’m now a presidential candidate. So having done this six or nine months ago, it was probably important for us to do it again. And I suspect when I’m the nominee of the Democratic Party, the same crop of questions will come up. We’ll have to do it again three months from now.
  2. Republican National Committee statement quoted in The Daily Telegraph in the U.K., June 5, 2008: The Republican party's national committee said in a statement: "This is further proof that Obama's high-flying rhetoric is just that.... today's verdict and Obama's friendship with Rezko raise serious questions about whether he has the judgment to serve as president." RNC Chairman in the Washington Post, same day as the Daily Telegraph article: GOP Chairman Robert M. Duncan soon followed with a contention that the verdict creates doubts about Obama's judgment, and Duncan's staff posted a video designed to highlight Obama's connections to Rezko [...]
  3. McClatchy Newspapers news service, Boston Herald, June 12, 2008: the Republican Party plans to use Barack Obama’s relationships with controversial figures to undermine the public’s view of his character, according to the chairman of the Republican National Committee. The party will make an issue out of Obama’s ties to such people as Chicago developer Antoin Rezko [...]

I've removed Scjessey's WP:CRYSTAL notification box. It is not acceptable to change others' comments on a talk page. Make your point if you want, Scjessey, but don't change comments. By the way, WP:CRYSTAL applies to article space, not talk space. The point is to counter comments from other editors that this is some kind of unimportant, passing issue. This section is actually thematically separate from the rest.Noroton (talk) 00:26, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to tell where to add my $0.02, but I agree that "many sources" is an editorial comment / analysis that's unnecessary and not supported by evidence. No amount of counting individual examples can really prove it, and for every source that actually describes the criticism as widespread there will be other sources that describe the criticism as minimal or a ploy by political opponents (in which case it's an attack, not criticism). Also, "raises questions" serves to adopt the question. On the other hand, the phrase can be reworded to mean almost the same thing without these problems, something like "a number of commentators questioned Obama's judgment after..." Wikidemo (talk) 00:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

@Noroton, after edit conflict: - I didn't change your comment. Since you created no section headers, it was the only way I could think of highlighting a whole section. The point I was making is that you cannot use speculation of some possible future event as a way to justify putting extra details into a BLP. Furthermore, what you don't seem to be able to understand is that there is no dispute about what should be included, only about how it should be included. Your proposed version cherry-picks negative language from various sources in order to present the Rezko relationship in the worst possible light. You have misrepresented the media coverage, bombarding us with sources to make it look as if there has been a lot of coverage (when in fact there has been very little). -- Scjessey (talk) 00:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Scjessey, you may be more effective in swaying Noroton and others (me too!), if, like he has you back up your statements with sources. Repeating things like "very little coverage", "misrepresented media", are by themselves not very convincing when they are compared to scores of cites displaying the opposite. Arkon (talk) 00:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Let me get this straight - you are asking me to provide sources for a lack of coverage? How does one do that, exactly? That's like asking me to prove the non-existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. -- Scjessey (talk) 11:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

No, not really. It was an attempt to get the point across that the only thing you have supporting your arguments in regards to undue weight and misrepresentation, are your comments. Others have sources disputing these claims. I hope you see why it is hard to argree with you in this instance. Arkon (talk) 16:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

No, I don't see why at all. It is impossible to provide sources to prove an absence of coverage. I think it is clear to anyone that the Rezko-related issues do not get a tiny fraction of the coverage that "100 years", "Wright", "sniper fire", "Keating Five", or even "Jesse Jackson won twice in SC" get. Ask anyone in the street to describe the relationship between Obama and Rezko and they will most likely answer, "who is Rezko?". Do you think they'd have trouble identifying who said we should stay in Iraq for 100 years? If I could be bothered (and I'm totally not) I could probably provide a significantly greater number of reliable sources to document these other "issues" than Noroton could ever find about Rezko. It is incredible to me that so much effort is being wasted on something so insignificant. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:50, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

(after dueling edit conflict) Another thought...one issue is that "many" has several distinct meanings. First, it means a large count, e.g. "there are many things on that list." Probably any number over 20 qualifies. Second, it can mean a large number under the circumstances or given the context, e.g. "there are many ants in that yard" probably means thousands. Third, it can mean a sizable proportion, e.g. "many Americans caught flu this year" means millions, but "Many Americans suffer from multiple personality disorder" is not true even though the actual number could be hundreds of people. The term is just not precise enough, and it's too easy to misunderstand.Wikidemo (talk) 00:42, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

(I guess it was a triple edit conflict -- a first for me!) Wikidemo, I'm not trying to prove this is the dominant view, I'm trying to prove exactly what I said. And as long as this is, it isn't the full list -- it's just literally an "exhaustive" list because I got exhausted and figured I had to stop somewhere. I mean, this is already looking like the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" scene in Fantasia. Not that it matters, but I only found one single source saying that this did not cause them to question Obama's judgment (Chicago Trib editorial in first section). Really, how else would you prove that something is prevalent other than by showing it's prevalent. I'll think about your suggested change. It doesn't cover the news organizations that brought up the matter on news pages -- many examples of news rooms trying not to be biased but drawing public attention to the question. And remember, journalists haven't exactly been known to be anti-Obama, by and large. This evidence should also show that this part of Obama's biography has engaged quite a bit of interest from very serious quarters, not just Obama's opponents. And all I want to do is note it in a very short way. I'm not "adopting" the question. I'm reporting that it was raised in a significant way, again and again and again. From 2006 to the present. Noroton (talk) 00:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that would be more than enough for most articles but it's a controversial claim in a heavily editied and read article, and perhaps something that's unprovable (hence an endless task). Even if you could show that some huge number, say 10% of all news writers, questioned Obama's judgment, there would be a valid objection that given the context of a partisan issue in a major election a 10% opinion is not "many" as a proportion. So, again, perhaps there is a word or phrasing that is not subject to multiple meanings and interpretations.Wikidemo (talk) 01:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

• This proof has answered every one of the following objections, but the editors have either ignored it or, in Scjessey's case, refused to concede the obvious -- that the proposal was based on facts. In response, Scjessey has either changed the subject or simply asserted in the face of evidence that his own perceptions are unbiased while the cited, referenced language is the result of bias, a lack of assumption of good faith which he simply asserts.

Again, here are the statements made by editors that my evidence has shown is not biased, not POV, and yet when presented with the evidence, no adjustment has been made:

• • Shem: — "raised questions from many quarters about Obama's judgment" is complete editorializing (intended to, by your own admission, imply that Obama has contradicted his campaign themes).
  • Scjessey: — the biased "raised questions from many quarters about Obama's judgment."
  • Loonymonkey — Some of this is blatantly POV, particularly the "raise questions about judgement" part.
  • Bobblehead — [...] what is mentioned above [...]

I would like to ask Shem, Loonymonkey and Bobblehead to respond to the evidence, and I would like Sjessey to admit that my proposing the phrase was not the result of bias, but the result of research. In their !votes on Proposal 2, other editors have challenged the accuracy of some parts, and I can defend them with evidence, but frankly, what is the point of taking the time and effort to respond if editors ignore evidence? If you object to something, respond when your objections have been met. The quotes above, and further evidence I can provide, show that the imply that Obama has contradicted his campaign themes has been a part of the record from reliable sources. You can see it in some of the quotes and there are additional reliable sources. If there were a point of view that said Obama's real estate deal did NOT provide reason to question his judgment, would there not be sources for it, since the issue came up repeatedly over the past two years? There is one source for it: The Chicago Tribune editorial I quote above. But it is the only one I found. Look, I don't mind compromising in order to get a consensus, but just do me the courtesy of actually thinking about the evidence I've bothered to gather. Noroton (talk) 14:17, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I also do not see sufficient justification to include the phrase "many quarters", and as noted elsewhere think the proposition is more or less unprovable given the lack of precision of the word "many" and different senses in which the word can be used. I suggest rewording in some more neutral or precise way - that should not be hard. Also, "judgment" is a bit biased and it tends to characterize the criticisms too much. That may be the issue for some people, but not all. Again, it should not be a big deal to make a small wording change to avoid the problem. Wikidemo (talk) 14:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to wait to talk about specific wording like "many" concerning the large amount of critical comment on his judgment until some of the editors who said my proposal was blatantly biased and then ignored the evidence that I wasn't operating out of bias have responded. Noroton (talk) 15:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary break in discussion of Proposal 2

This is a different point from my point about "questioning his judgment". The following passage from a June 14, New York Times article shows that this matter is a significant, serious part of the coverage of Obama's life:

And when Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, bought a house in 2005, Mr. Rezko stepped in again. Even though his finances were deteriorating, Mr. Rezko arranged for his wife to buy an adjacent lot, and she later sold the Obamas a 10-foot-wide strip of land that expanded their yard.

The land sale occurred after it had been reported that Mr. Rezko was under federal investigation. That awkward fact prompted Mr. Obama, who has cast himself as largely free from the normal influences of politics, to express regret over what he called his own bad judgment.

“Senator Obama is a very intelligent man, and everyone by then was very familiar with who Tony Rezko was,” said Cindi Canary, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a nonpartisan research group. “So it was a little stunning that so late in the game Senator Obama would still have such close involvement with Rezko.”

Surely, the most important points here are that (1) Obama dealt with Rezko after it had been reported that Mr. Rezko was under federal investigation and surely when (2) Obama himself is prompted to express regret over what he called his own bad judgment then THAT is worth including, and surely when criticism of Obama's judgment is coming from so many quarters, we can at the very least find some way of including (3) mention that he has been criticized in the article, especially absent any defense of Obama's judgment in this case including from Barack Obama himself. So WHY haven't we seen ANY recognition at all that these are significant, serious, important facts worth mentioning in this biography article from:

• SCJESSEY -- whose many comments have not addressed 1 & 2 and whose objections to 3 are not falsifiable, therefore not constructive
• SHEM
• BOBBLEHEAD -- who addresses some of this, but not all, in his Proposal 4
• LOONYMONKEY
• LOTLE
• TVOZ
• MODOCC
• BIGTIMEPEACE

I challenge each one of you to explain why this significant information -- in some form -- should not be in the article. I challenge you to tell us, if you don't believe it is significant, why it is not significant. I challenge you to follow the facts in an unbiased way as I have done, to provide evidence to back up your position, to show logically why you hold that position (and to refrain from questioning my biases without proof, as some of you have done). Noroton (talk) 15:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

If you don't get it now, Noroton, you are never going to get it. I've already explained, in great length, over a period of weeks, why this sort of language is unacceptable. You have responded by simply bombarding this talk page with "evidence", totally missing the point. I am quite sure you are doing this in good faith, but your reasoning is still flawed. Your proposed language overstates the importance of Obama's relationship with Rezko. As I've explained to Arkon above, it is not possible to prove how little coverage this issue has received - you just have to use common sense. Let me ask you some questions which demonstrate how little coverage the Rezko issue gets:

• Which issue has received more media attention? Obama's relationship with Rezko or McCain's "100 years" comment? - McCain's comment is not mentioned in his BLP.
• Which issue has received more media attention? Obama's relationship with Rezko or McCain's relationships with Falwell and Hagee? - Only McCain's criticism of Falwell is covered in his BLP.
• Which issue has received more media attention? Obama's relationship with Rezko or Clinton's lie about dodging sniper fire? - Her lie gets a single phrase in her BLP.
• Which issue has received more media attention? Obama's relationship with Rezko or Bill Clinton's comment about Jesse Jackson winning in South Carolina twice, that sparked a huge racism debate? - Bill's comment is not mentioned in Hillary Clinton's BLP.

All of these issues have received much more coverage than Rezko (who most American's have never heard of), yet they are not discussed (or only mentioned briefly) in the BLPs of the other candidates. Do you see where I'm coming from? -- Scjessey (talk) 16:05, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Let's talk about "common sense", Scjessey:

McCain's 100 years comment is not biography material aside from the campaign, and the same can be said for McCain/Falwell and McCain/Hagee, and the same can be said for Clinton dodging sniper fire or anything else you've mentioned. Therefore the amount of coverage is irrelevant. The flaw in your reasoning is that you only consider this a campaign issue because, despite the many references above, you don't recognize that this has been a feature of coverage of Obama since November 2006 and Rezko has been an important part of Obama's life. This is a biography article.

Obama's relationship with Rezko is important because:

• (and this is the least of it) Rezko was connected in important ways with people in the 12-attorney firm Obama joined in 1993: Allison, the managing partner and Obama's boss, as well as senior partner Davis (whose name forms part of the firm's name) both became business partners with Rezko in various ventures. The firm itself, including 4-5 of Obama's billable hours, was involved in drawing up proposals and contracts for the Rezko/nonprofit organizations who applied for housing grants. So Obama had a number of people he knew well who also knew Rezko well. He had multiple ways of knowing whether there was anything fishy or problematic about Rezko. Both Allison and Davis have said they saw no ethical problems with Rezko, for what it's worth.
• Obama says he got to know Rezko well starting in 1995 when Obama started his campaign for state Senate. He has said Rezko was a valuable early financial backer. It's in the long March 15 Sun-Times interview. Bigtimepeace has compared Rezko to Ken Lay, but I've never heard that Ken Lay played such an important role in the career of George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush.
• Obama said in that March 15 interview that he still considered Rezko a "friend". This friendship seems to have largely centered around Rezko's fundraising activities, but also included the two spending time together along with each other's wives. After the Sun-Times brought up the point that an FBI mole had said Obama and Rezko would sometimes be in daily contact -- and only until that was brought up to Obama in that interview, did Obama admit that, yes, there were periods when he was in daily contact with Rezko. In fact, Obama originally said he very infrequently met with Rezko, and only after reporters who had more information pressed Obama did Obama admit more contact.
• Rezko's importance as a fundraiser extends well beyond the raw amount of money: It's been reported repeatedly that he provided early money to Obama, and Obama himself has said that that was valuable (March 15 Sun-Times interview and elsewhere). I can provide quotes from quite a few sources on this.
• Rezko has a pattern of siding up to politicians, helping them with campaign financing, and eventually asking them for more and more favors, eventually leading to corruption. This is why he's in jail now. We have no evidence whatever that he ever asked Obama for anything but the most minor favors (he invited him to a meeting with important Middle Eastern investors once during the 2004 campaign -- the only favor we really know he ever asked). A Chicago commentator, a supporter of Obama, said Rezko was a long-term operator who didn't quickly demand paybacks for his campaign financing support. Obama has repeatedly said Rezko never asked him for a favor.
• I've quoted two good-government types, one heading an organization that worked with Obama in the state legislature, who questioned Obama's judgment; I've quoted supporters of Obama who have noted that his relationship with Rezko raised judgment questions; I've quoted news reporters, national commentators, analysts who have said that Obama based much of his campaign on ethics and judgment and that this episode raises serious questions on that topic. Even if you don't think that language should be included, you must admit that it lends significant, serious weight to this matter.
• Just as the Keating connection is important for the McCain biography and the Pendergast connection is important for the Truman biography (although this is not as important as either of those connections).
• Obama brought Rezko into his real estate purchase at a time when Obama says he was having trouble reaching agreement with the owners of the house on a lower price; during the months it took for the price to come down, Obama visited the house with Rezko. Before the purchase was made in June, Rezko was widely reported, on the front page of the Chicago Tribune and elsewhere, to be in the thick of the investigation into a corruption scandal involving campaign financing and kickbacks for favors. Rezko was widely known to be a key player as someone to go to for jobs and as a key campaign finance person for the governor. All this was known before Obama bought the house. Obama admits he made a mistake in judgment because of the public perception that the dual purchase of the Obama lot and the Rezko lot would incur. Scjessey, this matter in June 2005 was not just a campaign issue, nor one that was about Obama's politicking or public-office holding. It was about how he conducted his private life in accordance with ethical standards, and when he talks about it he talks about it in those terms: conflict-of-interest, public perception.
• After it was revealed that Rezko was himself being investigated, Obama bought the strip of land from the Rezko property. Obama has called this a bigger lapse in judgment, more important than the first.

Based on all this we can conclude that Obama himself entered into a relationship with a corrupt political wheeler-dealer, whether or not he knew how bad Rezko was, and that he got even closer to Rezko when Rezko's corruption had become public, and that this matter was considered important enough for important observers to voice their concerns in public, and that this is in sharp contrast to the theme of ethics that Obama concentrated on throughout his political career and the theme of judgment that also featured prominently in his campaign for president.

Scjessey, none of this is deniable. Its importance can't be gauged by comparing Google hits for news stories. It is considered very serious by the two news organizations that have covered Obama more than any others: The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. Its importance has been verified by coverage from all of the major news organizations in the United States and several abroad (I'm not counting wire-service articles printed in major or minor publications either). You have provided no reason that six lines of this long biography cannot be devoted to this.

Anyone: feel free to ask me to back this up with citations. Noroton (talk) 17:15, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

This is about notability and weight. The neutral language I proposed gives sufficient coverage to the actual facts of what happened, and includes a blue link to Tony Rezko that makes it easy for interested readers to get additional information. Your version offers up additional superfluous details and uses a negatively-biased tone. You have cherry-picked whatever bad language you can find in your sources to make sure the language reflects your own characterization. You must stop trying to impose your own point-of-view on BLPs and adopt a neutral tone. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Yet again, for the umpteenth time, you have accused me of bad faith when you have no evidence whatsoever that I "cherry picked" anything at all. Please explain how I am supposed to have done that and from what larger coverage of the Obama/Rezko matter I've "cherrypicked" just the worst examples. If you can't, then you need to take back that charge. I've just explained why notability and weight mean that the details I want in are important enough for inclusion (how do you define "superfluous" in this case? Why is it "superfluous" that Obama has been widely criticized for this? Why is it "superfluous" that Obama himself called it "boneheaded" and an example of mistaken judgment? Why is it "superfluous" to say that Rezko has been a friend and key fundraiser of Obama? These are details that don't take up much room but give just enough basic facts for the reader to decide how important this matter is in considering the overall subject of Obama's life. I make reasoned arguments with citations, you offer your simple opinion combined with personal attacks. What is not neutral about these additional facts? What is the "negatively-biased tone" I use -- does that mean that the same facts could be written in a different "tone"? If so, suggest a rewrite of the same facts that would lose the "tone" you detect. These are not rhetorical questions. Please answer them. Noroton (talk) 19:03, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

First of all, I have not accused you of bad faith. In fact, I specifically stated in my earlier comment that "I am quite sure you are doing this in good faith." Secondly, you only have to read your proposal to see that you have chosen particularly negative language. It is plain for all to see, and other editors have agreed with me. Finally, there is already a version which states all the relevant facts in the proper neutral tone. My version. I shall not be arguing with you anymore on this matter, because you are refusing to be reasonable and acknowledge what appears to be the prevailing consensus. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:05, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec with WB74, below) How can you claim not to have accused me of bad faith when you said this: You have cherry-picked whatever bad language you can find in your sources to make sure the language reflects your own characterization. You must stop trying to impose your own point-of-view on BLPs and adopt a neutral tone. How could I have possibly done this without bad faith? And by the way, how could I possibly have done this? Did I pick 20+ items out of 400? Is there a vast number of sources saying "There's no poor judgment shown here! This in no way reflects on Obama's judgment!" If I cherry picked, then it should be easy to find the other sources, right? Scjessey, are you embarassed that you haven't got those sources? Are you embarassed that you accuse me of bias when you can't prove it? When you don't answer my questions, don't provide your own evidence and don't respond to my points and when your position is more protective of Obama than he is of himself and more positive about Obama in this episode than he is himself (comparing the language of your proposal and how he himself has characterized the episode), does that make you uncomfortable? Since you didn't answer my non-rhetorical questions, feel free to ignore these rhetorical ones. Noroton (talk) 21:33, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Noroton on the thrust of his comments. The Rezko connection is getting a kid glove treament in this article and that's not up to full wiki standards. And while Klieg light scrutiny might not be warranted, this matter should not be soft soap'd by us either. The Chicago press has the best perch to see this from. Our article should not soft-sell those Rezko negatives which the chicago press has carped about regarding this. Obama has indeed stepped into a cow pie with Rezko and that should be evident in our article. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 07:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Section break

Perhaps, Noroton, since you feel so passionately about this Rezko thing, you should find a blog or other publication source in which to devote your many thousand words. None of this is appropriate for an encyclopedia article (nor even really to an article talk page), but many other publication avenues exist which are better suited for publication of your personal political opinions.

FWIW, if you could do anything to convince the hordes of SPAs and sock-puppets not to "vote" in favor of all your suggestions, that would improve the quality of discussion. I don't think they are you, but their participation most definitely "poisons the well". LotLE×talk 19:16, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Seriously? If the well wasn't poisoned before, this comment surely does it. Arkon (talk) 19:28, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec with WB74) LotLE, I'm trying to avoid personal attacks and incivility with editors who are personally attacking me (Scjessey, for one) and being uncivil (you, for one). What possible reply could I make to a comment like yours that wouldn't lead us away from eventual consensus. If consensus is a goal of yours, you have a strange way of demonstrating it. As you well know, if I had anything to do with any socks here, I wouldn't bother to put so much effort into research and argument -- I'd just create more socks. I can't ask check users to check me out (it's against the rules, apparently), but you can feel free to do so. You wouldn't be offending me at all. Not that offending me has ever held you back. Feel free also to accept my challenge above and actually defend your position. Noroton (talk) 21:33, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The well isn't poisoned. The only poison here is in the attitudes of a few editors who are on the losing end of a consensus decision. They think they can turn it around by hurling "sockpuppet," "SPA" and "cherry picking" accusations at every account that disagrees with them. But at Wikipedia, the word "consensus" is a term of art. It refers not just to the number of editors who support the proposed content change, but also the strength of their position in light of Wikipedia policy and established WP practices.

Noroton has done stellar work here. The logic of his position and the overwhelming amount of reliable sources he cites are a powerful combination. It comes as no surprise that new editors arriving on this page are drawn to agree with him.

I will again direct everyone's attention to well-established Wikipedia practice in the biographies of famous politicians such as George W. Bush, which had 13 separate conjugations of the words "critic," "criticize" and "criticism" in October 2004, during a hotly-contested re-election campaign; Hillary Clinton, which had entire sections with the bold headers "Lewinsky scandal" and "Whitewater and other investigations" during the hotly-contested 2008 primaries; and John McCain, which had two paragraphs (plus a sentence prominently positioned in the lead of the article) on the Keating Five investigation during the 2008 primaries.

All three of these examples occurred despite the existence of separate articles about the Lewinsky scandal, Whitewater and the Keating case, and several separate articles covering the multitude of criticisms and controversies surrounding Bush. The fact that their political rivals have used all these controversies as ammunition against them does not mean they're disqualified from the respective biographies.

The opposite, in fact, is true. Because such a broad array of neutral, reliable secondary sources has covered the use of this ammunition (and asked many of the same questions), Wikipedia policy and well-established practice require their coverage in these biographies. A certain level of contextual detail is also required.

I suggest that we have consensus here, supporting the version Noroton has proposed. WorkerBee74 (talk) 21:16, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

No way is there any consensus for Noroton's proposal. Most of the "support" comments come from single-purpose accounts like your own. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Your attempt to dismiss the opinions of several IP address accounts because they don't SHOW an extensive and varied edit history is duly noted and refuted (in fact completely destroyed) by the excellent essay found here.

I will also point out that you believe your attempt to delegitimize the many editors who disagree with you to be sufficient. You have carefully avoided any discussion of the merits of Noroton's arguments and mine, believing that the "SPA" canard is sufficient to carry the day.

Consensus isn't just about numbers, even though we have the numbers. Consensus is also about the strength of the arguments. By avoiding any discussion on the merits, you have apparently conceded that our arguments are unassailable. I accept that concession. We have consensus. WorkerBee74 (talk) 22:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

You go right ahead and attempt editing the article with that attitude, WorkerBee. See how long you last. Shem^(talk) 23:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

• Please don't dare to make any changes. There is no real consensus established yet and the result would be just another useless destructive edit war. All want to have it cleared and done ASAP but without some more patience it'll make it only worse. --Floridianed (talk) 23:42, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

It's obvious from their previous participation on this page that such editors as Fovean Author, Justmeherenow, Andyvphil and Floorsheim would support Noroton and me. They're not sockpuppets or SPAs, so that defense won't even start to work.

I continue to wait for Scjessey, Shem and LotLE to come out from behind their attitudes and their many, many accusations (without any evidence to support them) and present an argument on the merits.

I will wait another day for an argument on the merits that would explain why, when it comes to controversy and criticism, Barack Obama must be treated differently than George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, John Kerry, Tony Blair, John Howard, Stephen Harper, Vladimir Putin, Nicolas Sarkozy, etc., etc.

I will wait another day for an argument on the merits that refutes Noroton's argument and explains why, even though Scjessey is outnumbered, his version should be the one that goes into the article.

But I won't wait forever. WorkerBee74 (talk) 00:06, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Grandstanding doesn't help your case, WB74. I can't count the number of times that you've abandoned the actual discussion in order to fall back on general statements of how those who disagree with you aren't "arguing on the merits" and that you "just want this article to conform to Wikipedia practices." The discussion is not whether this article should be correct and encyclopedic (as we all want) it's whether the edits you are vehemently pushing for accomplish such a thing. Quite a number of editors feel that they don't. --Loonymonkey (talk) 00:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Those "general statements" of mine are accurate, and your "quite a number" are obviously in the minority. I will concede to a strong argument on the merits, but we refuse to be bullied by false claims of sockpuppetry, SPA, cherry picking, or whatever other maneuver is about to pop out of the bottomless bag of tricks. WorkerBee74 (talk) 00:52, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no point arguing the merits in the sort of editing environment WorkerBee74 is proposing. Either we have to keep on talking, or give up and declare that there is no consensus to improve this part of the article. WorkerBee74's recent contributions seem needlessly provocative, so another possibility is to admonish him to tone things down and ask him to spend time away from the article if he will not. Wikidemo (talk) 01:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

The editing environment I've continuously proposed is for those who are inclined to make sockpuppetry, SPA or cherry picking accusations to refrain from doing so, because it poisons the atmosphere as Arkon and Noroton have accurately observed. If they can't keep such accusations to themselves then they should be the ones taking time away from the article. Present your argument on the merits. If you can't, and if false accusations are all you've got, we'll understand. WorkerBee74 (talk) 01:35, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow. I've finally read through all of the more recent comments on the Rezko issue (apologies for being inactive the last few days) and must say things have gone downhill fast. I don't think any particular person or persons are to blame, but the discussion has deteriorated to a dangerous and nonconstructive point. I'll try to suggest some alternative language above because some folks are getting pretty far away from the spirit of consensus at this point. With respect to this immediate thread, WB74 you need to dial it back a good number of notches. Consensus is obviously lacking at this point, and regardless supposed consensus is never a club with which to beat other good-faith editors over the head. Vaguely threatening statements like "But I won't wait forever" could not have less place on this talk page. Please change your tone.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 09:02, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I have grown very, very weary of the use of sockpuppet and SPA accusations by certain editors as a substitute for any discussion on the merits. Do you, or do you not agree that the discussion should not be focused on accusations against editors? Do you, or do you not not agree that the discussion should be focused on the content of the edits, and the Wikipedia policies and established practices that should guide our edits?

Direct your wrath against LotLE, Scjessey and Shem. As others have accurately observed, those three are poisoning the well with their false accusations, and the rest of us should not be forced to sit here silently and let them do it. They're in the minority. Noroton and I have presented arguments on the merits that form a powerful combination. You know it, they know it, and they believe that these false accusations are the way for them to gain the upper hand. Are you going to allow them to continue in this vein? WorkerBee74 (talk) 12:50, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Given that most of the support for Noroton's language relies on the IP/SPA editors, I think it is clear that this "powerful combination" is not as strong as you claim. Support for my own proposal is pretty stable and consists of established editors, while opposition is largely from the IP/SPA crowd who support Noroton's proposal. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:25, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

For those inclined to examine these SPA allegations under the harsh light of truth, I suggest a brief reading here. One of the editors accused of being an "IP/SPA" slices and dices Clubjuggle for adopting the position that SCJ has been advocating on this page. IP editor reports that he has been editing WP for years on hundreds of articles, but his ISP changes his IP address daily. He refuses to get a named account due to the "politics and the drama" associated with having an account. (Can't say as I blame him.)

This is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Anyone.

Without proof that they are actually SPA accounts, they must be given the same weight as everyone else.

I may fairly be labeled an SPA account. But I am not going to waste any time on other articles, because it is here that I've stumbled upon a substabtial problem, with an extremely high profile article, that needs to be resolved. I have presented a solid argument, well-grounded in cited precedents, proving that there is a well-established style for Wikipedia bios about similar people in similar situations, and that for this reason, we're bound to follow precedent.

Trying to wave off that argument by simply sticking his fingers in his ears and chanting "SPA, SPA" demonstrates to any neutral observer that SCJ has been defeated on the merits. He cannot respond on the merits. Neither can LotLE who keeps chanting, "Sockpuppet, sockpuppet" with his fingers in his ears. WorkerBee74 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 14:55, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

For established editors who have been around long enough to have suffered the presence of individuals like this, the problem of IP/SPA/Sock accounts is very real and very annoying. Popular articles like this are magnets for these 3 types of users, so established editors are naturally wary when new folks show up out of the blue and start vote-stacking and wikilawyering almost immediately. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Section break 2

Huh? If an account is an actual SPA/sockpuppet, more than likely, they are not new. Rightly speaking, new accounts would be editors with few previous edits of any kind ever. But, by definition a sock is a 'alternate' account of already established editor and a SPA (single purpose account) is and account which has an edit history that indicates narrow focus of edits.

Frankly, I don't see narrow focus as an issue at all. And unless one is "vote-stacking", I don't see how a sock account degrades the discourse here either. If an editor here is focusing on the article content, stays out of disputes and does not vote-stack, then to me it should not make any difference who suspects what about that editor. All this probing of interpersonal suspicions makes me think that some are just looking for excuses to label edits/editors who's suggestions they disagree with as "annoying" and therefore not worthy of inclusion in the group dialog, ie; their suggestions can be ignored or they should be blocked.

Other than people trying to vote-stack (which would not be good), I see no problem with anonymous editing and I think the regulars here would do better to examine the merits of the talk postings/article edits themselves - rather than all this scrutiny/complaining stuff.

I ask you to consider that maybe, just maybe there is a considerable constituency of people who would enjoy editing on wikipedia, are interested to get good at it, wish to avoid problems and are motivated to make positive contributions, but at the same time are not interested in interpersonal drama and as a matter of personal preference, either haven't yet decided to take an account name or don't think it's right that they should be forced to get one. Nobody likes to be bullied and all this pressure to have an account name is not someting that is fair to those who haven't decided yet, or have decided no.

Frankly, either IP only editing ought to be eliminated from the wiki, or the extreme scrutiny/attempted blackballing of IP only editors should stop. It's like being a second class citizen. There's too much gossiping, suspicions and harping about IP editors. It's IPism and it's discriminatory.

Also, since when did an IP only account start getting routinely labled "sockpuppet"? I thought souckpuppet meant addtional names for the purposes of fooling others. Indeed, according to this wiki Sockpuppet (Internet) "A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception". By defenition then, when one accuses an IP editor of being a sockpuppet, one is making an accusation in violation of WP:AGF as the very accusation of "sockpuppet" has by dffinition the premise that the person being called that is engaged in "deception". I failed to see how a non-identitity editor (IP only) is a de facto deceiver. And if not, why are they being called that? 216.153.214.89 (talk) 16:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) - I have never accused an IP editor of being a sock puppet who didn't already have more than one username as well. I see nothing wrong with IP editors as a whole, but many of the IP editors we see here have very few edits indeed. The fact remains, however, that an established username editor with a good record in a number of articles is going to carry more weight in a consensus discussion than an IP, SPA, or new editor. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:51, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec - X2) Nobody has defeated anybody on the merits, and we will not get to the merits as long as people making content proposals are confrontational and disruptive. Reasonable, well-placed suspicion that SPAs and IP editors may be sockpuppets or otherwise bad faith editors must be allowed, and quickly dealt with, because anything else plunges articles like this into chaos. Noroton makes good arguments (in my opinion), but there is obviously little support for Norton's position outside of IP editors / SPAs who have shown up to edit this article. There is considerable proof that at least some of those IP editors and SPAs are sock puppets - only the investigations have not been pursued or concluded yet. It is quite a stretch to read the discussion as license to make the changes Noroton proposes, or to dismiss most of the established editors as having nothing to say or being out-argued by the mass of SPAs. Under the circumstances renewed confrontation, taunting, grandstanding, etc., is at the very least unhelpful. Wikidemo (talk) 16:45, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

... we will not get to the merits as long as .... This sort of language is unhelpful. I want something; it's reasonable for me to request it. It is a discussion on the merits without any accusations, or attempts to classify those who disagree with you as second-class citizens. I want this discussion and you are refusing to give it to me. You are holding it hostage.

This is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. History and the law tell us that past attempts to discriminate in real life have ended badly, and are now known to be unfair. We now know that separate can never be equal. Why do we let such an attitude survive here? SPAs and IP address accounts have every right to be here and to be treated as equals.

Reasonable, well-placed suspicion that SPAs and IP editors may be sockpuppets or otherwise bad faith editors must be allowed, and quickly dealt with ... Bravo. Slight problem with that: they're not being quickly dealt with. Instead, LotLE, Shem and SCJ are allowed to keep repeating these false accusations and keep on poisoning the well, and the targets of these false accusations are expected to just keep on sitting here silently and letting them do it.

Quickly deal with these false accusations. You took them to WP:SSP where they have been sitting around for a month. Take them to WP:RFCU. Get told by a Checkuser that all of these accounts are unrelated. Let everyone know with certainty that all of these accusations, with the sole exception of exclusionist User:Life.temp, are false.

Noroton has presented a very solid and well-supported argument, refuting the argument that claims, " 'raised questions ... about Obama's judgment' is complete editorializing ..." I have also presented a solid and well-supported argument about existing WP practices. If SCJ and LotLE were capable of presenting an effective rebuttal, they would have done it already. Instead, they hide behind false accusations, and claims that essentially say, "We've been here longer, so we win." Seniority should not be allowed to trump what Noroton and I have done here. If you must look at it as a contest between veterans and newbies, then in my opinion, the newbies have beaten the veterans on the merits, because the veterans refuse to even try to present their case. WorkerBee74 (talk) 19:14, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

"Let everyone know with certainty that all of these accusations, with the sole exception of exclusionist User:Life.temp, are false."

Let everyone know with certainty that you are wrong about that. Since you only started editing this article recently (presumably when it dawned on you that Obama might become the next POTUS), you will not be aware of the history this BLP has had with socks, SPAs and hit-and-run IPs. Of particular note, for example, is the continued activity of this individual - he/she may well be participating in this very conversation, for all I know. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:02, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Let everyone know with certainty that you are wrong about that. Dereks1x is ancient history. I am sure that the Checkuser administrators have already been running RFCUs on some of these accounts. That's how User:Life.temp was caught. Out of the current batch of accusations, I can assure you that at least one or two are false accusations, based on weak, circumstantial evidence and bad attitude on the part of the accuser, and nothing more.

... presumably when it dawned on you that Obama might become the next POTUS ... That is a snide remark. It is the sort of thing that is unhelpful, like treating some users as less than your equals, dismissing them as SPAs or puppets and therefore unworthy of attention or weight in a discussion, etc. SPA accusations go to the issue of bias, SCJ. If I am so biased, then surely you'll be able to easily crush my arguments on their merits, just by pointing to the spots where my bias shows. So let's see what you've got. WorkerBee74 (talk) 22:50, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

No, Dereks1x is not at all ancient history. Just last week one of his socks was blocked, and there are several others who are being watched as we speak. A few who have posted on this talk page recently. Tvoz/talk 04:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not out to "crush" your arguments. They lack merit without any help from me. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:52, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

A lot of people disagree with that assessment. Let's see what the others have to say about my position and Noroton's. WorkerBee74 (talk) 00:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Section break 3

SCJ, I am wondering; when you posted this sentence "presumably when it dawned on you that Obama might become the next POTUS", were you trying to be snide to WB74? Please clarify - I'd like to be allowed the same leeway in my comments on this page as you are. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 21:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

No, it wasn't intended as a snide remark. I was merely stating the obvious fact that WB74, an SPA himself, begun editing around the time Obama's campaign took control of the Democratic primaries (and by extension, the General Election). As I understand it, your own conduct with respect to accounts is under suspicion so it might be a good idea to avoid drawing attention to yourself unduly. -- Scjessey (talk) 21:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I interpret it as a snide remark, consistent with your many other snide remarks. WorkerBee74 (talk) 11:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Thaanks for your swift reply SCJ. Please clarify: Are you saying that the phrase "presumably when it dawned on you" is not snide? Also, if I am not mistaken, I don't believe my "conduct" is under suspicion at the link you posted. Rather, I believe it's me personally who is. And regarding me as a person, I've made my views on that clear (you've no doubt seen my talk page posting). Therefor, since you know where I stand, I ask you to please stop trying to focus your attention on me a person and stay on the matter at hand, which is; trying to improve this article. And do please answer regarding your phrase "presumably when it dawned on you". I want to be sure it's ok to add that to my talk page vernacular and also to direct it to you - perhaps along these lines: Though you've been editing this page longer than some others (presumably when it dawned on you that Obama might be defeated by McCain) that doesn't make you an authority on which (if any) aspects of this BLP's history other editors are aware of, does it? So tell me SCJ, is that an acceptably non-snide usage of the phrase "presumably when it dawned on you"? Please let me know ASAP. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 22:00, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I first turned my attention to editing this page when I heard it mentioned on TV, although I forget which show. At the time, I was hoping Joe Biden would win the Democratic nomination (I live quite close to Delaware, and I like Biden's foreign policy approach). The rest of your presumption is inaccurate, since I don't believe McCain has a shot at winning the election in the current political climate. Please understand that my reasons for being here are to ensure the article remains neutral, not to advance the cause of any particular candidate. I am a Wikipedian first and foremost. -- Scjessey (talk) 23:52, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

... your own conduct with respect to accounts is under suspicion so it might be a good idea to avoid drawing attention to yourself unduly. This is what I mean when I say, "bullying." SCJ is bullying the anonymous IP editor by using the sockpuppetry accusation to steer the discussion. I wonder if this is what he really means: "Shut up and drop it, or I'll out you as a sock." WorkerBee74 (talk) 00:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I ask WorkerBee74, again, as well as the IP account 216.153.214.89, to stop making collateral attacks on the process, stop declaring their arguments to have prevailed, and stop complaining about other editors, and instead concentrate on any constructive comments regarding article content. There are strong, well-grounded suspicions that 216.153.214.89 is a block-evading sockpuppet (which would mean that the editor's numerous contributions to this talk page are therefore illegitimate) and that some other IP "votes" are problematic as well. The SPA / sockpuppet situation still awaits resolution. The merits of the Rezko material have been discussed at length over a period of several weeks now but attempts at consensus have reset several times. They seem to have stalled again, and bickering is not going to get things moving one way or another. Please confine your contributions to discussion of the material itself, and don't interfere with good faith efforts to figure out who are the fake accounts and who is real.Wikidemo (talk) 04:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikidemo, this sentence "There are strong, well-grounded suspicions that 216.153.214.89 is a block-evading sockpuppet..." is malarkey. Please stop trying to delegitimize my edits. There is nothing "fake" about editing as an IP only - and the sooner you accept that and stop focusing on stigmatizing IP editors, the sooner we can all focus on improving the article. If seeking fair treatment and honest dialog is going to be characterized by you as "making collateral attacks", then frankly there is no point in talking with you at all. Therefore, unless and until you post something on this page I feel is good for the article, I'll likely not respond to you again after this post. I am here to improve this article and I hope everyone else will focus on that too! 216.153.214.89 (talk) 04:23, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The suspicions raised here[6] and here[7] have not been answered. I do not wish to debate on this page whether accusations of sockpuppetry against any particular editor are true or not, but there are clearly serious, grounded, and strongly held suspicions - six sock puppetry reports I know of regarding recent contributors here (see section below) and several sock puppets found already. It is obviously a serious concern. I think we need the assistance of administrators experienced in sock puppetry and arbcom enforcement to make sense of this. To establish consensus for any disputed changes to this article we will need both productive discussion and also a sense of who here is legitimate. Wikidemo (talk) 04:55, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Serious? No. Strongly grounded? Hell no. Strongly held? That much is obvious, because without these accusations, the exclusionists can't muster an argument to refute Noroton's or mine. Noroton's argument has been sitting here unchallenged all weekend, and mine has been sitting here unchallenged for a week. No response, except to point fingers and make false accusations. Request Checkusers, or apologize for the false accusations and drop it immediately. To continue chanting these false accusations without any resolution is a sick parody of what editing an encyclopedia should be. Good editors are being driven off. WorkerBee74 (talk) 11:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

---

If this section gets too long we can create new discussion subsections, but let's keep it centralized. Stay calm and civil, assume good faith, and don't comment on the motivations of other editors.

Obama's religion in infobox

The infobox lists Obama's church as the United Church of Christ, but he quit the church as reported here http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/31/obama.church/index.html. How come it's still listed as United Church of Christ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Codwar (talk • contribs) 23:09, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Trinity is the Church, United Church of Christ is the denomination. He quit the church but not the denomination. --Loonymonkey (talk) 23:18, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

If you are familiar with the nomenclature of describing churches, you might conclude as I did that "United Church of Christ" is not in fact a "denomination" but an umbrella church. Its structural ethos is ecumenical and it's comprised mainly of congregational local churches. I think Obama's denomination is more accurately described as "Ecumenical-Congregational" than UCC. I would however, link to the UCC wiki page from the words "Ecumenical-Congregational". Thoughts? 216.153.214.89 (talk) 22:39, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

That seems a bit pedantic. I think "Ecumenical-Congregational" is far too arcane of a description for an infobox and I'm not sure if it's even accurate. He still belongs to the United Church of Christ, so we should leave it as is. --Loonymonkey (talk) 23:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The "United Church of Christ" is just that - a church, not a denomination. Also, I understand that some here take offense of the use of the word "pedantic". If that is true, why are you directing it at me? 216.153.214.89 (talk) 18:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Saying so over and over again doesn't make it so. I've cited multiple sources which state that UCC is a denomination. You've cited exactly none that say it isn't, despite the fact that I've asked for them. Also, there's a difference between calling a statement pedantic and calling a person pedantic. The first is acceptable, the second is a personal attack. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 18:48, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Eh, this point (as I stated below) is of no import to me. I can take it or leave it. I've shared my thoughts and so have you, now let's move on. By the way, I did feel you were calling me "pedantic" but I'll have you note, I was merely sarcastic in return, not attacking. The term I used (check the edit history to see) was "non-pedantic mind". I used that term to point out sarcastically that I was taken aback by your use of the word "pedantic" towards me. Anyway, it's good that we cleared that up. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 18:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. For whatever it's worth, though, the "pedantic" comment was not mine. In any case, I agree we should move on. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 21:04, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

United Church of Christ is a "mainline Protestant Christian denomination" (emphasis added), according to the Wikipedia article on same. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 05:24, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Then the McCain article religion note is imprecise. What type of Baptist is he? Southern? American? Actually though, the wiki article on UCC is simply wrong. The religion is Christinanity, the (macro) Denomination is Protestant and the Church is UCC. If UCC is the denomination, then what is the category "Protestant" as it relates to UCC? It's not the religion, Christianity is. I am not being obtuse here. UCC is not a religion and it's not a denomination - it's a church. UCC is not easy to categorize. It's not a traditional Protestant chuch. Rather, UCC churches have as their hallmark ecumenicalism. It's a newer key aspect of UCC and it's what sets them apart from other Protestant churches. Is this enough to call it a "denomination"? I don't think so. On the other hand, UCC may be positioning themselves as something somehwat unique - from their perspective at least. As I see it "Ecumenical-Congregational" would be more accurate, but on this point, I am content to drop it. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 07:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

If the McCain article is imprecise, I suppose the proper fix for that is to find a more precise source and then fix the McCain article (thanks for giving me a challenge to work on!). UCC also self-identifies as a "mostly progressive denomination that unabashedly engages heart and mind". Protestantism encompasses many denominations (including Baptists) and would be extremely imprecise for exactly the same reason that the McCain article is imprecise. In any case this is all just my quick research to help resolve the discussion, so if you have sources that contradict the ones I'm finding, by all means please do share them. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 07:38, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Cultural and Political Image

I have read, or sometimes skimmed, this wiki several times, and I can't help finally saying something about this section, and the ridiculous part about him being a "cultural Rorschach test".

1) There are too many people you could say this about. And

2) It has the distinct feel of something written about him by a detractor, which isn't, I think, what wikipedia is about.

He is who he is. His persona is not a canard, as this section very precisely supposes. And it is very, very not "neutral".

The first quotation used to support this is a single word from a New Yorker article: "everyman". I checked out the link. It's a biographical story, about a how the son of a kenyan lawyer comes to run against Jack Ryan for an Illinois Senate seat. The word "everyman" appears exactly once, in the title.

Come on! I mean, I was nowhere near this computer when I suddenly thought about this wiki that i had read weeks ago and how badly this "Rorschach" passage reeked of a smear. Now here i am making a case - but it's sad how little i have to work. The first quotation? An entry of this magnitude must have standards.

I'll rock the second quote - let's see: wait...what? It's a few sentences about how diverse he is. A quote from his book, a speech, and on the Oprah show.

A diverse person is not a neutral canvass upon which we all cast our own souls. This is straight up bullarky.

Please either file this under "criticism" or something, or toss it. It's neither scientific, nor successfully observant. It's a delicate, belabored smear, designed to appear insightful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by72.150.142.103 (talk) 10:05, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

This section was added in November 2006 to replace a list of trivia. As the originator of the "Rorschach" and "everyman" texts, I can attest that they were not intended as smears. However, I agree with 72 that not only this text, but the rest of the section as well has outlived its usefulness. We can use the article space it occupies more productively. I have BOLDly removed it. Discussion welcome. --HailFire (talk) 18:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Given the tempestuous history of this article, you don't think WP:BRD is a tiny bit aggressive? -- Scjessey (talk) 18:22, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

It has the whiff of a possible explosion. I don't think one post by an anon is quite a thorough discussion. That said, I tend to support HailFire's bold edit. The "Image" thing was a bit too informal in tone, and it's not clear that something as wiggly as that is really encyclopedic. However, call this weak support, since I'm also not convinced that there's not some good reclaimable material in there. LotLE×talk 18:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I support HailFire's removal. Now that he's shown why this section was created in the first place, I can see how it's outlived its usefulness. Shem^(talk) 03:04, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

We should do something about it but I'm not sure what. I think it's a bad idea to have long "image" sections in each politician's bio because the material, as useful and insightful as it may be about understanding sociology and pop culture, tends to trivialize the understanding of the people themselves. Deleting it probably goes too far because there is well-sourced notable material in there but we should refactor it, condense it down to a paragraph or two, and/or split it off into its own article. Wikidemo (talk) 19:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

when i woke up this afternoon (i work nights) and read that the passage had been deleted, i really fet for a minute like i had changed the world for the better. i'm new to this, hence the unsigned post. funny the way wikipedia gives you a sense of civic duty. Anyway, I see it's still there, and seems to change here and there.

I accept that the section may not have been intended as a smear - it seems that claim was heavy-handed.

The latest edit is an admirable improvement.

My worry was, and is, that the passage seemed to lend undue credence to arguments that Mr. Obama is somehow an "empty suit". That is the thrust of the Podhoritz piece in the New York Post. It claims, as many of his detractors have, that he is an idea, and not a person, and by extension that his supporters are delusional or lack the depth of understanding to comprehend his meaninglessness. As such, i suppose i don't argue for this section's complete exclusion, but i sincerely wish it were placed in a section devoted to criticisms, both overt and sidways.

Rollback 4 hours

I apologize for any editors who have made good-faith changes today. I just rolled back to a version from earlier today. The server is unresponsive, so it's hard to look through edit histories, but someone dug up a really old version of the article, and inserted either the whole thing or large blocks of it.

The version prior to my restoration had material that was widely agreed on as obsolete, such as the digression on Blair and Ryan, the old "Jr." that consensus replaces with "II", old infobox material (e.g. how religion is noted), it lacks uncontroversial additions like the Illinois Project Vote! involvement, lacks links like "list of bills" that are nice to have, and so on.

Anyone who has made helpful piecewise changes, please make them again in this restored (roughly agreed-upon) version. I know the work is annoying, but it seems like the only way to get back all the non-controversial improvements of the last couple weeks. LotLE×talk 21:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

• Seconding Lulu's request. An appeal here. If you want to make a bold edit or bold reversion, please think twice first of all and consider discussing it here first, and if people object don't re-revert whether that's an addition or deletion of material. Also, for goodness sake, please take the time to edit in or out exactly what you think should be changed and don't simply revert or cut-and-paste old language. Reverting mass deletions and additions has the tendency to mung things up so it takes a lot of hand effort to clean up and re-apply all kinds of constructive uncontroversial edits that you didn't mean to reverse. That's what Lulu is trying to do at the moment after a series of reversions. Thanks, Wikidemo (talk) 21:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

• • Following up, it looks like it is this edit that created the mess. I'm pretty sure that it is just a direct revert to an exact version from about two weeks ago. However, I don't know an easy way to determine what exact version that was. FWIW, the editor User:US - Jimmy Slade does not seem to have edited this page other than this mass reversion. The account itself has edited a variety of other pages (I haven't looked at the quality of those edits). LotLE×talk 21:41, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

In an indicator that I have too much time on my hands, it seems to be a reversion back to this May 14 edit by Scjessey.Diff A mere 1,187 edits ago.... --Bobblehead ^(rants) 22:44, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Odd. There isn't any obvious vandalism in that user's edit history and he's been around for over a year (mostly doing housekeeping on sports and entertainment related articles). I believe it was a good faith edit, but it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I wonder if he did it by mistake? --Loonymonkey (talk) 23:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it was an accidental save? Either that, or an edit he made not realizing he was looking at a diff? --Clubjuggle ^T/C 23:38, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

How on earth did you determine that, Bobblehead (the specific past version)? I suppose I'd know how to write a tool to the WP API to do diffs against version ranges (I've created a semi-bot in the past), but writing it would be almost as much work as figuring it out manually :-). LotLE×talk 23:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Presidential campaign section only mentioned Obama pulling ahead in superdelegates on May 12 and didn't include the West Virginia results so it had to be sometime between May 12 and May 14. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 23:55, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Bobble's being modest. Truth is, he is a wizard. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Tvoz/talk 16:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Campaign material?

Some recent edits added the below to the Cultural and Political Image section, but also somehow messed up the page rendering to lose the references and bottom infoboxes. I assume the latter issue was an innocent side effect of something like an unclosed tag. The added material, however, seems questionable to me; it reads more like campaign promotion than like neutral encyclopedic material:

In April 2008 hundreds of posters carrying a red, white, and blue image of Obama's face transposed above the words PROGRESS, HOPE, or CHANGE and designed by Los Angeles-based street artist Shepard Fairey were made and distributed through the Obama campaign web site.[191]

Does anyone want to argue for this material. I've taken it out as part of that edit for formatting, for now. LotLE×talk 01:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll argue for the campaign section addition. Shepard Fairey is a major street, pop, and political artist, and his images have become the major symbol of the campaign, repeated on t-shirts, stickers, etc. It's not a promotion of Obama, but speaks of the origins of the viral and artistic nature and origins of the culture and political material featured in his campaign. The reference deleting error was an innocent mistake. I am unaware as to what caused it, but I assure you it was unintentional. Resubmitting submission with cleaned ref links and better phrasing. Aaron Sawyer (talk) 17:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I've never heard of Shepard Fairey, so doubt that his contribution of work for the campaign is terribly biographically significant for Obama. Perhaps for the campaign child article, but not for general biography. It also appears that the only edits Aaronsawyer has made to this article is the insertion of this mention (in good faith, the first insertion was caught up in some bad reversions, so a second try can be treated as de novo). LotLE×talk 18:48, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with Lulu here - I'm not convinced that this makes the cut for the main biography either - it seems more suited to the campaign article. Tvoz/talk 23:11, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I would just rename the picture and incl. Shepard Fairey as WP-link and cut out the paragraph about it. --Floridianed (talk) 23:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Right, I don't object to the photo being in the article, just think the description that's now in the text is getting too much weight for a general bio. Tvoz/talk 03:56, 21 June 2008 (UTC).

Cleaning campaign section

We've made good steps now that Obama is presumptive nomineed, but I think it's worth trimming some more from the primary contest details to make room for the general campaign. It's definitely notable that Clinton and Obama ran a tightly contested primary race, and some of the major themes that arose in the primary. However, it feels like more of the details on who won this state versus that state should now only live in the campaign child article. LotLE×talk 02:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Race

The opening of this article states the following "He is the first African American to be a major party's presumptive nominee for President of the United States". While this is true and I do not disagree with it's useage, I think the sentence should be changed to state the following "He is the first African American and the first Arab American to be a major party's presumptive nominee for President of the United States. Obama's father had both African and Arab lineage. According to both the wikipedia articles on African Americans and on Arab Americans the terms apply to anyone who has ancestory which traces back to either the black racial groups in Africa or one or more of the countries in the Arab world, respectively. If his Arab ancestory is considered irrelevant for the purposes of this artical, then likewise so should his African ancestory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.101.1.5 (talk) 16:08, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Going back four generations (great-grandparents) I cannot find evidence of Arab lineage.[8] I can't find reliable records on his father's side going back farther than that. In any case, I doubt anyone who has perhaps a single arab-american relative five generations back would identify themselves as Arab-American, just as I doubt anyone with, for example, a single african ancestor five generations back would self-identify as African-American. --Clubjuggle ^T/C 16:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Clubjuggle, the "Obama's an Arab" meme is a fringe theory based on Obama's paternal grandfather and grandmother having "Arabic names" (Hussein Onyango and Akumu Obama). The claim is that in the Luo tribe "Arab Africans" are given Arabic names and "Black Africans" are given Christian names. Granted, Obama's grandfather was born Onyango Obama and added Hussein following his conversion to Islam and Onyango and Akumu are both uniquely African names, but why let the facts get in your way? --Bobblehead ^(rants) 17:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I suspected as much, but WP:AGF and all... --Clubjuggle ^T/C 17:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Pls add IW link

[[wuu:白拉克 欧白马]]

- Thanks !! 04:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Y Done Shem^(talk) 04:57, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Suspected Socks

There are a large number of votes and comments on this talk page by banned sock-puppets or suspected sock-puppets. This is, obviously, extremely disruptive of editing. The large number of IP addresses who show up to cast (identical) votes on polls greatly raises my suspicion that there is yet more not-yet-reported sock-puppetry going on. An incomplete list:

• Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Improve2009 (blocked)
• Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/216.153.214.89 (blocked)

... Alleged puppet master was blocked four years ago. No proof offered, besides a similarity in IP addresses. Edits have not been problematic. WorkerBee74 (talk) 11:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Fovean Author (blocked)

... for a double vote on an AfD three months ago. (Not this article.) No evidence of sockpuppetry by FA in this article space; in fact, no other evidence of sockpuppetry by FA at all. WorkerBee74 (talk) 11:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

(below by Wikidemo) Add, in the interest of completeness:

• Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Kossack4Truth (Andyvphil, Fovean Author blocked; Kossack4Truth, WorkerBee74 multiple expired blocks for 3RR/edit-warring)

... Editwarring is not sockpuppetry; "multiple" in this case means "two" and they expired a long time ago. Andy will be back in two weeks. The report has been sitting around at SSP for three weeks without an RFCU. Request a Checkuser or drop it. You have no evidence. WorkerBee74 (talk) 11:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters

... Also blocked multiple times for editwars; "multiple" in this case means "a lot more than two." It's interesting that you somehow overlooked this important fact. WorkerBee74 (talk) 11:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Bsharvy (blocked; but not active here, why listed?)

... This is the only proven case of sockpuppetry on this article and it was User:Life.temp, who tried on two separate occasions, despite warnings from admins, to delete every trace of Rezko, Wright and Ayers from this article. Again, it's interesting that you somehow overlooked this. WorkerBee74 (talk) 11:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Under the circumstances it is discouraging to participate in the discussion and hard to gage the legitimacy of any apparent consensus. Unless we have some confident that most editors here are legitimate there doesn't seem to be much point. It would be useful if someone with a lot of expertise in sockpuppet attacks could help us address this whole thing at once rather than piecemeal. Wikidemo (talk) 19:45, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately there really isn't a way to approach it except piecemeal. The high visibility and high emotions around Obama and his campaign are bound to unleash the sock hordes. This means that it is incumbent upon the established editors on this page to mark any new accounts/IP addresses with {{spa}} so that their opinion on the matter can be weighted accordingly and to keep an eye out for socks as they crop up and try to squish them just as quickly. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 20:10, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Getting philosophical. Martialists must defend against aggression, pacifists being useless for the job. Yet once a martialist, deciding what's right and making war to defend it, to complain about counter-aggression is rank hypocrisy: a death penalty for user A for assertions via edit warring, when User B remains to edit war another day, B's same behavior in self-described defense of the status quo. Rather than diss others' tactics that are the same as our own----sure, set down rules of engagement and adjudicate by em, but more importantly, let's debate what should be assaulted in an article and what defended.

Red sox, green sox, kind sox, mean sox. WB74 is a new account. I've no idea if it's a sock or even the exact particulars under which sox would be disallowed; however WB74's comments about not being able to cut and paste remind me of when I first I contributed to WP a dozen moons ago. I went to a contributor's talk page to comment, only to happen to read a private discussion expressing conviction that I myself must be a "sockpuppet," a term itself new to me then----reason being, I sure knew my way around Wikipedia for somebody supposedly a brand new account. I chuckled, knowing that, as WorkerBee's described, I still typed stuff all the way out to quote it, ignorant of the mysteries of how to "paint" text and then cut and paste it. I ignored the accusation except dismissively to deny it; yet here I'd come to Wikipedia to address its encyclopedic coverage of a particular issue----one that a faction of editors also championed, resulting in some more-or-less-agreed-upon blocks of text that remains to this day----only to find it was whether I was a jason voorhees that dominated my opponents' consciousness as much or more than the issues at hand. — Justmeherenow (   ) 22:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

The "rules of engagement" are pretty simple. Edit under one identity and don't come in under another identity or IP address to support your own position, or to argue with it for that matter (sometimes done trying to throw people off your trail). Follow the restrictions on number of reverts allowed in a day - and don't come in under another identity or IP address to do a few more reverts. If you're blocked for some misbehavior, don't come in under a different identity or IP address to continue editing. It's really not that complicated - editing an article under more than one account without disclosing that fact gives an impression that there are multiple people taking a position when in fact there may be only one, and doing so to evade any restrictions that have been placed on you or on everyone is deceitful and has no place here. Tvoz/talk 22:51, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Tvoz has it right, the rules are quite simple. Definitively detecting sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry can of course be more difficult. I'm not an expert, nor a total novice, on sockpuppetry investigations but if anyone has concerns they can feel free to bring them to me and I'll have a quick look when I get a chance (I've been a bit busy the last few days and will continue to be for the next week or so, but will have more time after that). Of course there's also always the option to file a report at WP:SSP or WP:RFCU, but in contentious situations like this that can often serve only to escalate tensions. Basically there are no easy answers for dealing with socks on a page like this, and we just have to take it case by case.

One thing I would say, when having discussions like the one on Rezko above, I think the comments of random (i.e. not regularly contributing) IP addresses and brand new accounts (particularly the former) should be taken with large grains of salt. I'm all in favor of anonymous editors and am sure a lot of new accounts will show up to edit this page and go on to make good contributions (I take WP:BITE very seriously), but there's nothing wrong with giving far more weight to the opinions of established users, be they editors with accounts or IP editors who have made a number of contributions. I say this only for lengthy discussions like the Rezko one above, which involve knotty and ongoing issues. We'll see lots of IPs and fairly new accounts show up and start new discussion topics and/or edit the page out of the blue and we should of course assume good faith of those users. When we're trying to have a focused discussion on a thorny problem though I think it's fine (and even necessary) to keep the conversation largely among established users.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:28, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

"[I] think it's fine (and even necessary) to keep the conversation largely among established users."... Needless to say, this is a carte blanche to pick & choose one's honest brokering; which of course, defeats the purpose of being an honest broker. Editors here have duty to address the merits of all reasonable comments on this page. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 08:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

The sock solution is easy. All accusations of socks must stop. All mention of consensus should only include the logic of an edit or the logic of a delete. Saying "I agree" should be discounted. If an edit can be explained as fair and neutral, even one person saying it is enough. If 100 established people favor a biased edit, even if they are in 100 countries, such violates Wikipedia's requirement for neutrality. Since it is very easy for campaign supporters (even Ralph Nader has 100 supporters) to form a "consensus", we must judge edits on neutrality and not say it's a consensus if I agree and a sock if I disagree. FridayCell7 (talk) 17:08, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

This discussion's become a parody of itself. An account which joined 22 hours ago and has only made 18 edits is now demanding no one highlight the barrage of SPA/sockpuppet activity taking place. Shem^(talk) 17:13, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

(EC X 2 - I wonder if we're being trolled, and not just socked). The IP editor above is, if you follow the second SSP report in the list, a case in point. Either the editor is, or is not, a block-evading IP sock of a user who has been gone, involuntarily, for years. If the editor is a sock, then the IP use is not for avoiding "drama" it is for avoiding detection, and clearly they should not be posting all over this page. It's a fallacious argument many ways over to say that we should evaluate the edits, and not the editor, when considering editors who are not entitled to be here at all. Most of those under suspicion are making bad edits too, so the question is not whether to dismiss good contributions but how to deal with the disruption. If the IP editor is not a sock, the lack of an account name or edit history leave us sorely unable to evaluate the editor's legitimacy or quality of contributions. Wikidemo (talk) 17:25, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

WD, you wrote: "If the IP editor is not a sock, the lack of an account name or edit history leave us sorely unable to evaluate the editor's legitimacy or quality of contributions." I am not persuaded by this sentence. If an IP editor comes to wiki and writes one sentence: "Water is a liquid at room temperature." - that sentence can be evaluated on it's merits. No outside reference to the editors account name or edit history is required. Likewise, if I an editor writes on this page, "I think we must make explicitly clear that Obama is biracial, with a white parent and a black parent" and then goes on to cite reasons; again, that sentence and the supporting reasons, can be evaluated on their merits. I do not see the merit of as sound argument changing based on who makes the argument (or on what we know about that editor). 216.153.214.89 (talk) 21:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Are you or are you not the person who formerly edited under the account name Rex071404 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), Merecat (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), and others? Until we answer that question everything else is moot. Wikidemo (talk) 04:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe he can be compelled to answer. His edits have not even been slightly problematic. AGF in this case, or run a Checkuser and rely on the result. In all these cases, we need to resolve these accusations. Run Checkusers or apologize for your false accusations and drop it. If the Checkusers prove sockpuppetry, block them. If they don't, apologize for your false accusations and drop it.

These false accusations are poisoning the well, destroying civility and the cooperative atmosphere necessary for good editing. Resolve these accusations, one way or the other, and let's move on. WorkerBee74 (talk) 11:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Cultural and political image

I question the merit of this section. It seems like puffery to me. Unless there is a wiki standard plan of having a "Cultural and political image" section for all major US politicians, it would seem we are putting undue weight on dissecting viewpoints about Mr. Obama. And if this section stays, the photo should go - it's a compaign poster/mural and doesn't belong here. Also, why are we conflating Mr. Obama's "Cultural" and "Political" images in the same section? Isn't it true that a "cultural" image is an image of someone that's held in the mind of the public - it's conclusions they've drawn of their own accord. But a "political" image is essentially an advertising image which is advanced by the supporters of a politician. That mural photo is sheer political advertising - and it's only prevelant in public preceptions because Mr. Obama's supporters are pushing it. My word - it's practically an Andy Wharhol! I see no reason that the poster/mural photo is anymore indicative of Mr. Obama's cultural image than say this photo. I'd like some disscusion on this point. 7390r0g (talk) 03:19, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The "mural" is essentially a photograph of a campaign advertisement. While it is a nicely done photo, I'm also a little surprised it has stayed up in an article about a current candidate for President on Wikipedia for so long. I've seen variations of this logo where the word "Hope" has been photoshopped to "Hype". I'll agree with you that either version of Obama, Hope or Hype, is inappropriate here. Both are pushing a viewpoint of the candidate. I think it should definitely be removed. As for the "Cultural and political image" section, it's not much better than a trivia section...it appears to be being used to dump factoids or viewpoints that can't or haven't been incorporated into the article elsewhere. They should either be added elsewhere in the piece or deleted. With that sweeping comment, I'd also like to add my kudos to long time editors here...I know how tough it is to edit a political piece like this, and you deserve a lot of credit for holding it together so far. 96.238.177.90 (talk) 03:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Meh, I think I mostly agree with 13790r0g. Nicely put. Arkon (talk) 04:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the section would be fine if it were more balanced and included some negative viewpoints of Obama, such as those concerning the "bitter" comment and the views of white blue collar workers he had so much trouble with in the later primaries. Agree that the mural is inappropriate. Wikipedia is not a campaign ad. --Floorsheim (talk) 16:21, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Political positions section

The article category "Political positions" appears to have too much content. Shouldn't this material be more succinct? We already have a full article on Obama's positions. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 17:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I think we should remove the second, ninth and tenth paragraphs completely. They all cover specifics that don't need to be in the main article. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:33, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Please delete those sections post haste. It would be a good start and may in fact be enough for now. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 00:08, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm in favor for it as long as there is a consensus built on which paragraphs to remove. --Floridianed (talk) 18:47, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Besides reverting obvious vandalism and correcting minor formatting issues, I would prefer not to get involved with editing the article itself. Deleting these three paragraphs, as I have proposed, could potentially spark a revert war that I would not wish to get involved with. It would be nice to get the opinions of others before cutting those out, although HailFire might be game! -- Scjessey (talk) 15:47, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I edit Howard Dean's article. There is no "political positions" section. This makes that article better than the Obama article. The political positions section is just advertising, which is not permitted in Wikipedia. It is also selective. All politicians have some good positions and some bad positions. The bad positions are not explained. The fair thing would be to remove the section or summarize it to 2-3 sentences. FridayCell7 (talk) 16:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Did you look at other pages too? --Floridianed (talk) 17:11, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Barack Obama is a politician. The policies and proposals that he chooses to advocate as leading issues are the defining characteristic of his professional life, and they belong in this article. Improve the section if you will, but put the wrecking ball aside, please. I would suggest, however, that this section, previously titled "Political advocacy", needs a more descriptive header. Barack Obama#Policies and proposals would be my choice. --HailFire (talk) 17:14, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Deeds, not words. What did the politician do. That's a biography. What is his campagin platform? That's an advertisement. Besides, how are you going to write a section comprehensively? What is his position of Sudan? Very important. How about his position on Iran? Iraq? Israel? Syria? All different Middle East issues. How about trade with Mexico? Trade with Canada? Trade with South Korea and the beef problem? How about foreign relations with Russia? How about drug traffic? How about farm subsidies? How about federal court vacancies? How about oil drilling? This is just one percent of the issues. There are other serious and important issues. All of these are not part of a biography but part of a campaign or political commentary, not suited for this Wikipedia article. As a compromise, you can put it in a separate article. FridayCell7 (talk) 17:24, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Proof this the section can be advertising

Barack Obama is a politician. The policies and proposals that he chooses to advocate as leading issues wrote HailFire.

This shows that the politician can choose what we should include in Wikipedia. This would be advertising. Thus, we must proceed with caution if we include it. The smarter thing to do would be to eliminate this very non-biographical section. FridayCell7 (talk) 17:28, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Then we would need to change it on all pages, especially the more recent ones but since there seems to be consensus established for the way they're now I don't see a need to argue for rewriting all affected articles. --Floridianed (talk) 17:31, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Floridianed, I'm using the same argument on the Rezko material: that well-established practice on the Wikipedia biographies of politicians compels us to decide a certain way on content issues. I'm glad you see things my way: that where there is precedent, and a well-established way of doing things, we are required to follow it. Established practice frequently creates a section on political positions. It's the Wikipedia way. WorkerBee74 (talk) 20:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Interesting point. A politician's positions are different things for different purposes. First there's their record of actual legislation sponsored, voted, alliances, amendments offered, etc., which reflects what they want and believe but also their deal-making, party loyalty, respect for constituent opinions, and so on. Second there's their agenda of legislation they want, endorse, or promise. Third there is their position (public, or in terms of beliefs) on what should be. Finally there is their platform of announced positions and campaign promises in the context of an election - a highly stylized set of advertisements / talking points, which may or may not be what they do, and which may or may not even be within their range of responsibilities in office. They are all potentially notable and encyclopedic, but we might have to tease these out because they belong in different articles. I do agree that we should shorten this section considerably, and concentrate on the actual record of accomplishments rather than campaign promises - especially because we have other articles for those. I am wondering if this article is stable enough to get started, though. Wikidemo (talk) 04:21, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Barack's interesting step-father

There is heated debate and editing over at Lolo Soetoro, Barack's one-time stepfather. I only mention it here because of the obvious connection, not to propose any edits to Soetoro on Obama's page. Those following the Wiki-record of Obama may want to know about this separate mini-epic Wiki project.--Utahredrock (talk) 19:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Race

I haven't been following this article, but why is there no mention of Obama as bi-racial. As an encyclopedia article, I think his ethnicity is not something to leave out. If there is such a debate as to whether he is the first bi-racial candidate, why is there no mention of that? I believe that his bi-racial status should be addressed and should be from a neutral viewpoint. I do not think it should be derogatory, and I do not think it should be attempted to be covered by Obama supporters. I assume that this has been discussed before, but I have not found it yet in the archives. I did see something about Arab decsent, but I am speaking of his mother, not his father. I do not intend to start anything, it is just an honest inquisition. Brinkley32 (talk) 00:09, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

You make a good point. The article lede calls Obama "the first African American to be a major party's presumptive nominee for President of the United States", but this is no less and no more accurate than to call him "the first bi-racial candidate to be a major party's presumptive nominee for President of the United States.". I am however, concerned that "biracial" inserted instead of "African American" may sound derisive/snide.

I would re-write that sentence this way:

Born of an American mother and a Kenyan father, Barack Obama is both the first biracial and first African American to be a major party's presumptive nominee for President of the United States.

Any other ideas on this? 216.153.214.89 (talk) 00:20, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that is a reasonable change. But without a big discussion on this talk page, as soon as you change it someone will probably revert it and claim it is vandalism. Brinkley32 (talk) 00:23, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

• We already had a very long discussion about his race. Please search the archives for it. --Floridianed (talk) 01:06, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion is not about Obama's race, it's about us having an NPOV and accurate article. I think my suggestion is more accurate that what we have now, but does not in any way inpugn Obama. Please go back and re-read what I am suggesting. The fact that Obama is biracial is an equally important first as the fact that he's African American. If we omit this fact, we do the personal history of Obama a disservice. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 03:05, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Please see this discussion or go to the archive index for all the discussion on Obama's race and how it is referenced here. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 03:19, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Once again: this suggstion of mine is not about race, per se. Rather it's about making clear that Obama is not only African American, which is a big first for a pres nominee - he's also biracial, which is another big 1st. Why would I want to slog through a whole huge archive? There are simple questions here that beg answering: By omitting the fact that Omaba is biracial, are we saying that we are ashamed of him becuase of that? Are we saying that it's insulting to him to mention that? There is nothing negative in any way on this point. On the contrary, it's a very notable 1st and whatever you discussed previously is mooted by the fact that Obama's current status in having captured the nomination makes his biracialness notable - because it's now a 1st. It's notably the 1st time ever in America this has been achived and it warrants a mention. 216.153.214.89 (talk) 06:44, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

The article body obviously explains that Obama has a white mother and a black father, which is sometimes referred to as being "biracial." Obama himself and the media identify him, the vast majority of the time, as African American or black. Thus we use this term in the introduction. As others have mentioned, this has been discussed multiple times in the last week or so, and who knows how many times in the last few months. Racial categories are complex and subjective and we are, per Wikipedia policies, going here with the racial term reliable sources and the subject himself generally use. We could call him the first "biracial" candidate or the first "half black half white" candidate or the first candidate with a parent born in Africa, but Wikipedia is a tertiary source which reports what other sources say, and most of those other sources say "first African American." Readers will learn more detail about his ethnic background in the article body.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:00, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Well said and succinct, Bigtimepeace. I've added your comments here to the article's FAQ [9]. Shem^(talk) 16:12, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for a thoughtful response, as opposed to Bobblehead. That discussion he mentioned actually supports my original question, and nothing was ever resolved, it just died. Bigtime's response is understandable, however, please show me how the article "obviously says that Obama has a white mother". Yes, it mentions his father's ethnicity, but just says what city and state his mother is from. There is no mention of her ethnicity, nor is it even hinted at that his parents were of different races. I do not think it is something that needs to be the highlight of his biographical information, but I think it is important, and as of yet it is not "obviously explained". The only thing I can think of at the moment is to change it to "and Anne Dunnham, a Caucasion from". I am not sure if that flows well, but I do not want it be a headline statement. I do not want to make it seem like a derogative aspect of his life, but I think it needs to be included. Do you have any suggestions as to who it should best be included? As far as other sources, I will look and will bring it up if I have anything relevant. Again, thank you for your response. Brinkley32 (talk) 17:27, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm with Brinkley32 here. We definitely need something on Ann Dunham being "white" in the bio text. For a while it had some stuff about her mostly-English, some-Irish, blah, blah ancestry... that seemed to cover the needed point, but was probably removed because it was more verbose than needed for Obama's bio. However, at least a word or two that incdicates Dunham was "European-American" or the like would definitely help clarify things. LotLE×talk 19:29, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the support. Initially, I was also wanting to include something about "First Bi-Racial Candidate", but it didn't look like that was going anywhere. For now, the clarity on the mother will suffice. I still don't know the best way to integrate it smoothly, but for now I do not see anything wrong with your edit. Thanks. Brinkley32 (talk) 19:46, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll also have to agree with you here. Despite what the FAQ says ("Readers will learn more detail about his ethnic background in the article body"), they actually don't. If anything the details provided and the strange "code" wording chosen simply confuses the issue even more. Is it that big of a deal to simply say he had a white (or Caucasian) mom and a black (or African American) dad, and that (sadly) in America today, to some people that is still an issue? That type of description of his race appears in numerous article about Obama, it's hardly a secret. If I had been stranded on a desert island for the last two years and while being rescued asked what had happened in American politics while I was gone, I'm betting the boat's captain would describe Obama that way. While arguably inelegant, it would be more accurate than the skirting around the issue we have now. 96.238.177.90 (talk) 21:25, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

With my recent edit to mention Dunham is European-American, I think that gap is remedied. I assume that when the FAQ was written, it was at one of those edits where the information was there (maybe in the overly verbose version that had quite a bit about Dunham's ancestors). We should not, however, say that Obama had an African-American dad because... well, because he did not. Obama Sr. was just plain African, not an American of whatever sort. Having a visa in good standing isn't the same as citizenship.

FWIW, I think European-American is a bit better than "white." I'm not sure the former is actually any less fuzzy in its boundries, but it is the current US Census language, so that has a certain semi-official meaning to it. LotLE×talk 22:31, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I had never even heard of that term until you just used it. The Wikipedia article on it says that it isn't being used by most government bodies. When I went to the federal government's census page here. I was given dozens of ethnic choices, but that wasn't one of them. For some reason, I don't think cops are suddenly going start announcing that a suspect is a six foot tall European American. 96.238.177.90 (talk) 00:07, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree it's absurd to call him African-American. It would be more accurate to say "half African-American." Of course there is a long history in the U.S. toward this sort of strange bias. If someone has a trace of black heritage they tend to be known as black or African-American or whatever the popular term of the day happens to be. Such biases leave out his white half. Is this racist? I don't think so, but it is a cultural problem/issue.--Utahredrock (talk) 09:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

This is an interesting dialog to have on race at the right place and time, but realistically, Obama is African-American: by his self-identification, the common usage of the term in the United States, and by the vast majority of reliable sources. Words mean whatever we agree them to mean, and for now the term "African-American" is applied to US residents with a significant degree of black African ancestry (or something like that - matters of race are rarely precise). Someday people will have a more subtle understanding of race but we cannot invent that for the world. The term, as applied to people of mixed ancestry, is not generally considered racist. There's not a whole lot more we can do. Anyway, this matter has been discussed for a while and will no doubt be discussed again. Wikidemo (talk) 09:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Objection to reversion--Obama has many famous relatives these need inclusion

There is well sourced information on relatives of Obama including Dick Cheney, Harry Truman, Supreme Court Justice Gabriel Duvall, etc. This is the kind of information that is normally included in biographies and yet before I could keep adding it, my edits were reverted due to supposed insignificance.

The common ancestor is Mareen Duvall. These facts are already well sourced on Wikipedia.

Why is there an aversion to adding such important facts to a bio?--Utahredrock (talk) 10:18, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

At a minimum a new article needs to be created on Obama's fascinating lineage--that includes his many famous relatives (mentioned above). The Bush's and Kennedy's are not the only storied American political families.--Utahredrock (talk) 10:29, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

See: WP:IINFO. These very, very distant relatives barely ascend to trivia, and definitely not to biography. LotLE×talk 10:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Lulu - this article is already very long and we have a great deal of territory to cover. This genealogy material is at best peripheral and much of it is so obscure that it is unnotable trivia. Tvoz/talk 03:59, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Unnotable trivia?!? Tv you're killing me. ; ) While I'll admit it's trivial, I am a Mayflower descendant through William Brewster (Pilgrim) and I think at minimum that's cool trivia. (Be sure to look at my Great x12 grandfather's wiki-article.)

Since Barack is slightly more notable than me, he deserves to have this sort of interesting triva known. All inquiring minds deserve to have this information more readily available. This is, after all, an online encyclopedia. Space is not an issue. Cheers, --Utahredrock (talk) 08:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

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Per six degrees of separation.......

... ... Comment moved from this page to here. ... ...

 — Justmeherenow (   ) 01:55, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

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What is the purpose of putting all this stuff on the talk page, exactly? -- Scjessey (talk) 02:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, Scjessey, since Redrock and I will surely eventually get around to creating an subarticle ("stub") on (President...<smiles>) Obama's family tree, I'm just putting some potentially àpropos information here to see if it generates any comment (even such as yours, sir). Peace. — Justmeherenow (   ) 02:26, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Would it not be more appropriate to dump this kind of stuff in your sandbox? -- Scjessey (talk) 02:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

that's an option. However----

1. how would I then get wide comment, or find collaboration from among readers of B's main-bio's Talk page?........
2. I sincerely anticipated that some fellow contributors might find this info I've presented, yes, fun.  — Justmeherenow (   ) 02:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

How? Set up something in your sandbox and leave one note here letting people know - don't fill this talk page with material that's not directly about improving this main article. We already have a great deal of material to deal with here. Please move this. Tvoz/talk 03:59, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Very well. Yet note that while I've gone ahead and moved an initial treatment of B's family tree to /Family tree sandbox, I've left the remainder of the commentary on the subject here (until such time as its potential daughter article would have its own talkpage). — Justmeherenow (   ) 04:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)