It is not the first time that Democrats have attacked Obama for running dishonest campaign ads. Breitbart News has unearthed a long-overlooked report of an off-air argument between Obama and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) during a break in a debate on a Chicago radio station during Obama’s ill-fated primary challenge in 2000.
Curtis Lawrence, reporting at the time for the Chicago Sun-Times, covered the debate between then-state Senator Obama, Rush, and State Senator Donne E. Trotter, held on WVON-AM 1690 on Feb. 18, 2000.
Lawrence described the exchanges as polite, and that the three candidates “agreed most of the time” on the issues. “But during breaks--which included an Obama commercial accusing Rush of being insensitive to seniors' concerns about prescription drugs--the tension rose,” Lawrence reported on Feb. 20.
As Lawrence had noted in an earlier, Feb. 19 report on the radio debate, the Obama attack ad set off a fierce fight, and the candidates went from “behaving like perfect gentlemen on the airwaves” to “letting the venom fly when the microphones were off.”
..."One of the things that really galls me about this guy," Rush said, "is that he says one thing about you in your presence and then. . . ."
The break was over and it was time for more polite discourse.
But Rush was glad to finish his thoughts on Obama after the program.
"It's a lie, a fabrication," Rush said of Obama's commercial. "It's the worst form of campaign advertising I've been privy to."
