Obama says he has no Illinois records

[AlonzoMourning23]

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Barack Obama, who's been scolding Hillary Rodham Clinton for not hastening the release of records from her time as first lady, says he can't step up and produce his own records from his days in the Illinois state Senate. He says he hasn't got any.

"I don't have - I don't maintain - a file of eight years of work in the state Senate because I didn't have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records," he said at a recent campaign stop in Iowa. He said he wasn't sure where any cache of records might have gone, adding, "It could have been thrown out. I haven't been in the state Senate now for quite some time."

Obama's statement that he has no papers from his time in the Illinois statehouse - he left in 2004 - stands in stark contrast to the massive Clinton file stored at the National Archives: an estimated 78 million pages of documents, plus 20 million e-mail messages, packed into 36,000 boxes. While any file from Obama's time in the state Senate would be far smaller, the idea that no papers exist at all is questioned by one historian.

"Most of those guys do keep this stuff, especially the favorable stuff. They've all got egos," said Taylor Pensoneau, a historian who has written about Illinois legislators and governors and worked with them as a lobbyist for the coal industry. "It goes in scrapbooks or maybe boxes. I don't think it's normal practice to say it's all discarded."

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said Wednesday that "Obama has a track record of leading the way on reform and disclosure," adding that "correspondence with state agencies and records of requests Obama made to them on behalf of his constituents are available to the public and have been accessed by our opponents and members of the news media."

Pressed for details, LaBolt said Obama did not keep any correspondence with the general public. Ditto for letters to or from state associations and lobbyists, memos on legislation and correspondence with Illinois state agencies. The campaign said Illinois agencies have copies of his requests for information or help, but accessing those records would involve contacting the agencies and asking them to comb though eight years of records to find correspondence from Obama......

Obama hasn't always claimed there were no papers left from his time in the state Senate. Earlier this year, campaign spokesman LaBolt asked The Associated Press to narrow a request for records on whether Obama had ever urged clemency for a convicted criminal.

"You're asking us to do an extremely exhaustive search into every record we have from the U.S. Senate and state Senate offices," LaBolt said at the time. At the news conference in Iowa last week, Obama said he didn't "have a whole bunch of records from those years," but told reporters to "let us know" if there are "particular documents that you are interested in."

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/11/15/news/doc473b8492b009e593715711.txt

I must have missed this when it came out.

[Wndrtch]

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Barack Obama, who's been scolding Hillary Rodham Clinton for not hastening the release of records from her time as first lady, says he can't step up and produce his own records from his days in the Illinois state Senate. He says he hasn't got any.

"I don't have - I don't maintain - a file of eight years of work in the state Senate because I didn't have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records," he said at a recent campaign stop in Iowa. He said he wasn't sure where any cache of records might have gone, adding, "It could have been thrown out. I haven't been in the state Senate now for quite some time."

Obama's statement that he has no papers from his time in the Illinois statehouse - he left in 2004 - stands in stark contrast to the massive Clinton file stored at the National Archives: an estimated 78 million pages of documents, plus 20 million e-mail messages, packed into 36,000 boxes. While any file from Obama's time in the state Senate would be far smaller, the idea that no papers exist at all is questioned by one historian.

"Most of those guys do keep this stuff, especially the favorable stuff. They've all got egos," said Taylor Pensoneau, a historian who has written about Illinois legislators and governors and worked with them as a lobbyist for the coal industry. "It goes in scrapbooks or maybe boxes. I don't think it's normal practice to say it's all discarded."

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said Wednesday that "Obama has a track record of leading the way on reform and disclosure," adding that "correspondence with state agencies and records of requests Obama made to them on behalf of his constituents are available to the public and have been accessed by our opponents and members of the news media."

Pressed for details, LaBolt said Obama did not keep any correspondence with the general public. Ditto for letters to or from state associations and lobbyists, memos on legislation and correspondence with Illinois state agencies. The campaign said Illinois agencies have copies of his requests for information or help, but accessing those records would involve contacting the agencies and asking them to comb though eight years of records to find correspondence from Obama......

Obama hasn't always claimed there were no papers left from his time in the state Senate. Earlier this year, campaign spokesman LaBolt asked The Associated Press to narrow a request for records on whether Obama had ever urged clemency for a convicted criminal.

"You're asking us to do an extremely exhaustive search into every record we have from the U.S. Senate and state Senate offices," LaBolt said at the time. At the news conference in Iowa last week, Obama said he didn't "have a whole bunch of records from those years," but told reporters to "let us know" if there are "particular documents that you are interested in."

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/11/15/news/doc473b8492b009e593715711.txt

I must have missed this when it came out.


LMAO!! :madlaugh:

"I didn't have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records,"

What, he couldn't find some manila folders and a filing cabinet?

Give me a break! What an empty suit this guy is. He makes my Governor, Deville Patrick look smart.

[cronic]

[quote]RALEIGH, N.C. -- Barack Obama, who's been scolding Hillary Rodham Clinton for not hastening the release of records from her time as first lady, says he can't step up and produce his own records from his days in the Illinois state Senate. He says he hasn't got any.

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/11/15/news/doc473b8492b009e593715711.txt

I must have missed this when it came out.



I always find your postings informative and interesting. I surely can't keep up with it all but if anyone can come close to doing so.. its you ZO... Isn't it something when one is criticized in the first part for not being able to produce said documents only to find out later that the criticizer's themselves also can't produce their said documents.. Thanks ZO for the great information once again and for being so on top of these things..
Yea, its a couple months old.. But.. the point is.. it didn't get past you.. maybe it was just buried under a plethora of other news!



LMAO!! Madlaugh

"I didn't have the resources available to maintain those kinds of records,"

What, he couldn't find some manila folders and a filing cabinet?

One can't argue with that!!

[AlonzoMourning23]

I'd vote for Patrick any day over Obama.

Let me guess, you're still whining about the fact that the same-sex marriage bill couldn't even muster 25% support?

[potter]

I sold or gave away all my records when I switched to CD. I imagine they did too.....

[cronic]

I sold or gave away all my records when I switched to CD. I imagine they did too.....


Hmmm.. maybe one should check Ebay?

[AlonzoMourning23]

I always find your postings informative and interesting. I surely can't keep up with it all but if anyone can come close to doing so.. its you ZO... Isn't it something when one is criticized in the first part for not being able to produce said documents only to find out later that the criticizer's themselves also can't produce their said documents.. Thanks ZO for the great information once again and for being so on top of these things..
Yea, its a couple months old.. But.. the point is.. it didn't get past you.. maybe it was just buried under a plethora of other news!

Thanks! :embarrased:

Often, instead of simply reading the front page, I just type random things into google news. And, believe it or not, I also find a decent amount of stuff at free republic.

[Tsky]

Alonzo -

I generally respect your posts and your intellect but what other ridiculous articles will you post due to your blind devotion to HRC? The records of a first lady who claims to have 35 years of experience (certainly she must be including her years of experience as a first lady) vs. a State Senator who passed his documents on to his succesor? Give me a break. What is he supposed to do, find post it notes and stickies? This is Clinton politics at its best and they say the uneducated and unread are most likely to vote for her, I know you aren't in that category but the article you post and your logic behind doing so gives thinking people a reason for pause. Obama's record is open for the public to see, why in da hell should or would he be required to keep or turn over a schedule? Clinton is running on her experience and as such her records as first lady are required by law to be revealed and yet she and her shady husband have gone thru hell and high water to keep them sealed for years to come. Why? She keeps talking about 35 years of experience, is that 35 years of political experience or 35 years in the workforce. What is it?

The Clintons = Karl Rove.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/67939

[AlonzoMourning23]

I generally respect your posts and your intellect but what other ridiculous articles will you post due to your blind devotion to HRC?

Blind devotion suggests I have no reasons or my decision to choose hillary is without a rational basis.

What is he supposed to do, find post it notes and stickies?

"Most of those guys do keep this stuff, especially the favorable stuff. They've all got egos," said Taylor Pensoneau, a historian who has written about Illinois legislators and governors and worked with them as a lobbyist for the coal industry. "It goes in scrapbooks or maybe boxes. I don't think it's normal practice to say it's all discarded."

Maybe he should have done what the others did.

The Clintons = Karl Rove.

That was great! The whole post reads like someone getting more and more agitated before finally losing it. Clintons=Karl Rove? :madlaugh:

[Tsky]

I generally respect your posts and your intellect but what other ridiculous articles will you post due to your blind devotion to HRC?

Blind devotion suggests I have no reasons or my decision to choose hillary is without a rational basis.

What is he supposed to do, find post it notes and stickies?

"Most of those guys do keep this stuff, especially the favorable stuff. They've all got egos," said Taylor Pensoneau, a historian who has written about Illinois legislators and governors and worked with them as a lobbyist for the coal industry. "It goes in scrapbooks or maybe boxes. I don't think it's normal practice to say it's all discarded."

Maybe he should have done what the others did.

The Clintons = Karl Rove.

That was great! The whole post reads like someone getting more and more agitated before finally losing it. Clintons=Karl Rove? :madlaugh:


The fact that HRC would even bring up the records of Obama while not releasing her own, which by law she should do, reeks of shady politics, business as usual and hypocrisy. If HRC can proof up her 35 yrs of experience then I'd leave this alone but you have a woman who supposedly has experience and no one, including you, knows what her 35 yrs have entailed. From what I gather, she got her first job around the age of 26 so she apparently counting all of her years in the workforce as her 35 yrs of experience. If that's the criteria and Obama started throwing newspapers at the age of 8 then he has more experience than she does. She's a joke.

[ViolaLee]

Yeah, I guess Clinton supporters like the smear campaign style of campaining, as that's what the Clinton machine is good at...I haven't smeared Hillary a bit, (that sentence right there was pretty much the first bad thing I've said about her) and it's not that there isn't plenty of ammo, it's because I know that if she wins, I'm going to vote for her, even though I'm a strong Obama supporter. I don't want to help the right wing smear machine in any way.

Why do you, Alonzo?