Insight is an online weekly political intelligence report that provides political intelligence background to its subscribers.

Insight reported on January 17 that the opposition research war room of presidential contender Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was conducting a background check on Senator Barack Obama's years in Jakarta, Indonesia, which would conclude that “the young Obama was enrolled in a Madrassa and was raised and educated as a Muslim.”

Under the headline, “Hillary's team has questions about Obama's Muslim background,” Insight cited reports from its very credible sources that the opposition research is seeking hard evidence that Mr. Obama is still a Muslim or has ties to Islam. A Hillary Clinton spokesman has denied any involvement.

The Insight report ignited a controversy with numerous articles and columns from mainstream media operations including CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Some from the mainstream media reported that the claims about Obama were being made by Insight. This is incorrect. Rather, Insight was reporting information our sources said was part of the Clinton camp’s opposition research and potential campaign strategy against an opponent.

CNN, and others in the traditional print and broadcast media followed up on Insight’s intelligence report and went to the school in Indonesia Obama attended as a boy. CNN reported that the school is not now and never was a Madrassa.

Some reporters drew an inaccurate conclusion that because information from Indonesia discredited the idea that Obama’s school was a Madrassa,  Insight’s article was false.  Some even went on to suggest that the story was intended to denigrate Islam or even Sen. Obama’s religious beliefs. This is false. Insight abhors religious or racial intolerance. Such prejudice or bigotry has no place in society, including journalism.

If read carefully, one can see that Insight’s story simply reported on a potential attack strategy on Obama by his Democratic Party opponents.

Insight stands by its story. Having laid the ground, we now leave it to the mainstream print and broadcast news organizations to ferret out more facts and make judgment calls on relevance. We are pleased that our inside-Washington knowledge and contacts could contribute to the political debate. Such a debate is, however, not within Insight's purview as a subscriber-based political intelligence report.