The Daily Background

This is probably the stupidest most implausible piece of blind-item reporting I’ve read since the National Enquirer “reported” that John Edwards had a secret lovechild. The NY Post’s Page Six “reports“:

PRESIDENTIAL hopeful Barack Obama claims to run a clean campaign, but someone in his camp took a swipe at Hillary Clinton through the candidate’s theme song.

As Obama and his wife, Michelle, strolled triumphantly into his victory party in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 3, Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” was blaring. In it, Jay raps, “I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain’t one.”

Some listeners took it as a not-so-sly reference to Hillary.

“We didn’t know he used that,” a shocked Clinton spokesperson said.

Hahaha are you kidding me? There is no way that actually happened. I feel completely confident in saying that the Obama campaign would A) not choose a hip hop song to play at a victory party in Iowa, a state that is 91% White, and B) a song like that that would cause such obvious media scrutiny.

Tell me, with literally thousands of reporters in Des Moines for the Iowa caucus, why is it that only the intrepid reporters at a tabloid’s gossip page based 3,000 miles away noticed this music? And why are they reporting it almost two weeks after it supposedly happened? In reality, the Post probably wasn’t there and this is probably just something from an anonymous tipster looking to stir up trouble.

Further, there’s a vague implied racial angle here: Barack is a scary Black man who likes hip hop that is offensive to women and while folk. The Post continues on with phrases like “Obama has no problem admitting he’s a rap fan” and doesn’t even bother to get a denial from the Obama campaign (though apparently the Post thought it was necessary to get indignant quotes from Clinton staffers). Obama’s alleged “theme song” is also contrasted with Mrs Clinton’s preferred theme song, “You and I” by Céline Dion.

The Post also quotes Obama as being a fan of such noted offensive rappers as Stevie Wonder and Beyoncé Knowles. Smirk. Memo to the Post: neither Wonder nor Knowles is actually a rapper. (Obama says he also likes Eminem “although he curses sometimes,” the Post points out).

Ben Smith over at The Politico says that despite trying, he can’t find any proof that the “99 Problems” incident actually ever happened:

It’s a provocative scene. But I can’t find any evidence that it happened, though it does seem to have been the subject of chatter among staffers of both campaigns.

According both to the Obama campaign and my sources out there, Obama only attended one “victory party” in Des Moines that night — at which he entered to a U2 song. He His supporters — though not the candidate — then then went to the Des Moines restaurant Centro, where nobody’s ever heard hip-hop, and didn’t that night. There was also a music-free victory conference call with Obama.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog