Seems that all the communists are closing ranks for their hero.
On Sun, 11 May 2008 09:15:03 -0400, "God's Chosen Person"
<baying46584@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>But a few months after the man began his work, the allegation that Obama
was
>educated in a madrassa appeared in an anonymous article in Insight
Magazine,
>an online publication of the Unification Church (Reverend Moon's cult),
in
>January 2007.
>
>One practitioner in Virginia, who hates Obama like a dog hates cats, led
a
>re****ter through his efforts. Because the man is a retired clandestine
CIA
>officer, identifying him could endanger officers or operations that
remain
>classified, so McClatchy will not reveal his name.
>
>Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton adviser, was criticized after the liberal
>Huffington Post blog revealed that he was circulating anti-Obama screeds
>
>
>http://www.mcclatchydc.com/254/story/36410.html
>
>Where did the Web rumors about Obama come from?
>By Matt Stearns | McClatchy Newspapers
>
> * Posted on Thursday, May 8, 2008
>
>WA****NGTON ? Some things about Barack Obama rub some voters the wrong
>way.
>
>"We don't need a Muslim," said Jannay Smith, a retiree from Kokomo, Ind.
>"Who's to say if he gets in there what he'll do?"
>
>Added Steve Shallenberger, a Kokomo electrician: "He's just calling
himself
>a Christian because he knows that's what we in Indiana want to hear."
>
>Then there's Sherry Richey, also from Kokomo: "He wouldn't put his hand
on
>the Bible; he wanted the Quran. He won't put his hand over his heart
during
>the anthem or say the Pledge of Allegiance. He's too un-American."
>
>All of these slurs on Obama are categorically untrue.
>
>Obama, the front-running Democratic presidential candidate, is a
>Christian, has never been a Muslim, swore his Senate oath on the
>Bible, says the pledge and generally puts his hand over his heart when he
>sings the national anthem.
>
>So why were people aware enough of current events to attend political
>rallies in the days leading up to the Indiana primary saying such things?
>
>They'd been misled by the Internet.
>
>In the ugly new world of online political rumor-mongering, aggressive
>Googling and e-mailing allow anyone to join the cacophonous
misinformation
>campaign against a politician ? in this case, Obama.
>
>Dirty tricks have been a part of politics for as long as there's been
>politics. But the Internet has taken "the old-fa****oned slanderous
>whispering campaign to a completely new level," said Brooks Jackson, the
>director of the Annenberg Political Fact Check, a nonpartisan
organization
>that monitors the truthfulness of political discussion. "They are more
>dangerous and more insidious."
>
>E-mails falsely claiming that Obama is a Muslim, that he took the oath of
>office on a Quran and that he refuses to take the Pledge of Allegiance
have
>stormed inboxes. A newer e-mail has a picture,
>allegedly of Obama posing with his African family, with the title "Say Hi
to
>the next potential first family."
>
>In addition, virulently racist e-mails are making the rounds, too.
>
>"These things have a heft to them that gives them a seeming
>credibility that a verbal rumor wouldn't have," Jackson said. "You can
>replicate them infinitely. We've all got crazy relatives or friends that
are
>sure they're right and the world's wrong. They just blast
>them out."
>
>The anonymous nature of the Internet also makes the origins of the
>allegations impossible to trace, Jackson said.
>
>Although virtually every allegation about Obama's religion and
>patriotism has been debunked, the lies remain in the political
>bloodstream, a virus that Obama and his sup****ters can't kill.
>
>Experts say they stay alive because they reinforce stereotypes and some
>voters' assumptions. That Obama doesn't wear a flag pin, for instance,
helps
>feed some voters' darker suspicions. There's a real video that shows him
>singing the national anthem without his hand over his heart. His name,
>Barack Hussein Obama, gives some foundation - if a false one - to the
Muslim
>fears.
>
>Still, it hasn't hurt too much: Obama is almost certainly the
>Democratic presidential nominee. "He's proven to be pretty resilient,"
said
>Burdett Loomis, a political scientist at the University of Kansas.
>
>Addressing the Internet rumors at a January debate, Obama said:
>"Fortunately, the American people are, I think, smarter than folks
>give them credit for."
>
>Obama isn't the only victim. Last week, in a dirty trick that couldn't
have
>occurred in the pre-YouTube age, a video ricocheted through cyberspace
that
>appeared to show Clinton adviser Mickey Kantor using slurs and
obscenities
>to describe Indiana people in a documentary about the 1992 election -
>potential political dynamite in a tightly contested election.
>
>A link to the video arrived in a re****ter's e-mail inbox, along with
>the admonition "You must re****t this. It will change the election."
>Within an hour, the Clinton campaign issued a statement from the
>filmmaker saying it was bogus: The video had been doctored, by attack
>artists unknown.
>
>Such efforts quietly infect the body politic via a virtual personal
>touch.
>
>"People believe things they hear from a trusted source," said Julie
>Germany, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the
>Internet at George Wa****ngton University. "If you get an e-mail from a
close
>friend or a work colleague or your parents, you're more likely to believe
>it. That's how word-of-mouth marketing works."
>
>Those in or near the political or journalistic mainstream who traffic in
the
>scum can get tainted. Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton adviser, was
criticized
>after the liberal Huffington Post blog revealed that he was circulating
>anti-Obama screeds, though there was no claim that he wrote them.
>
>The Blumenthal example shows why it's unlikely that any campaign or
>political professional is associated with creating the sordid stuff - the
>fallout would be a political nightmare, Germany said.
>
>In fact, they tend to be the work of committed political amateurs.
>
>One practitioner in Virginia, who hates Obama like a dog hates cats, led
a
>re****ter through his efforts. Because the man is a retired clandestine
CIA
>officer, identifying him could endanger officers or operations that
remain
>classified, so McClatchy will not reveal his name.
>
>In late 2006, convinced that an Obama presidency would be disastrous for
>America, he decided to start an anti-Obama operation. He combed the
public
>record on Obama. He used a couple of allies and informants -
half-jokingly
>dubbing his group "The Crusaders" - to learn about Obama's background,
>especially his Africa connection and how he came to be the editor of the
>Harvard Law Review.
>
>He assembled a dossier on Obama, including allegations that Obama
attended a
>madrassa, or Islamic religious school, in his youth in Indonesia.
>
>Then the retired spook tried to get Israeli intelligence officials
>interested in his Obama dossier. They weren't, to his chagrin. He also
>shopped it to some foreign re****ters. Again, no luck.
>
>He wound up posting some of it on a blog ? and where it went from there
in
>the vast world of cyberspace is anybody's guess.
>
>But a few months after the man began his work, the allegation that
>Obama was educated in a madrassa appeared in an anonymous article in
Insight
>Magazine, an online publication of the Unification Church, in January
2007.
>It also claimed that Clinton operatives had dug up the information. The
>article was cited by several conservative commentators, including on Fox
>News, before it was debunked.
>
>The piece had the markings of what's called a "false-flag" operation:
Make a
>covert operation appear to be the work of another party. And, like many
>misinformation campaigns, it "takes what you might believe without any
>factual basis and seen circulating around ...a lot of speculation spun
into
>a story," said Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA official.
>
>The retired CIA officer, who said that he and his fellow Crusaders
>have abandoned their effort, said he wasn't the source of the Insight
story.
>
>"I might have been a secondhand, or third-hand, or fourth-hand
>source," he added. "But I don't think so."
>
>In the world of Internet rumors, however, you never really know.
>
>
>--
>Pucker your lips for the Apocalypse!
>
>Johnny Asia, Guitarist from the Future
>http://music.download.com/johnnyasia
>
>
|
