Since Greg was mentioning the front page of the Wall Street Journal and imagining Al Gore eating worms, I’d like to congratulate ABC’s Good Morning America today for breaking from the pack and not soft-pedalling their questions to Barack Obama today, developing a substantive question from another front-page Journal article: Is Obama the Alleged Idealist making back-room deals and going soft on union corruption?
SAWYER: Want to turn to the news of the day. In the front page of Wall Street Journal today, it says that before you won the endorsement of the Teamsters, that you indicated to them that you would support ending strict federal oversight of the union, which was imposed back in the early ’90s to deal with corruption. Was that commitment made to them?
OBAMA: You know, I wouldn’t make any blanket commitments. What I’ ve said is we should take a look at what’s been happening over the Teamsters and at all unions to make sure that, in fact, you know, organized labor is able to represent its membership and engage in collective bargaining in accordance to what we’ve always believed.
SAWYER: But if they heard you to be saying that you did support, you did support lifting this strict federal oversight, are they wrong?
OBAMA: No. What I’ve said is that I would examine what is going on in terms of the federal oversight that’s been taking place, but it’s been in place for many years. The union has done a terrific job cleaning house, and the question is whether they’re going to be able to get treated just like every other union, whether that time has come and that’s something that I’ll absolutely examine when I’m president of the United States.
ABC didn’t ask a Reverend Wright question today — a useful reminder to Obamaniacs that there are more tough questions coming, on a variety of topics.