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• Wednesday, August 20, 2008 02:10 AM

  Idiot Roundup part 2 -- by Xrandadu Hutman

  wright5579: "Not so much debunking as explaining away. I finished the first email, matching quotes to her thesis found on Politico, and I have to say, Mr. Madden, I'm very underwhelmed by your "debunking.""

  Just a quite glance at your other Salon editors proves that you are pre-disposed to dismiss anything that isn't anti-Obama. Other readers are invited to peruse wright's previous messages to see what a half-hearted dillweed he/she is. Or you can just read on...

  wright5579: "Mr. Madden, I'm very underwhelmed by your "debunking." I don't recall a single factually inaccurate statement in the entire email, aside from the mystery fellow black classmate."

  Then you have a short memory, wright. The email is full of factually inaccurate statements, which Madden pointed out over and over. Are you daft? Obtuse? Brain-dead? Or just willfully ill-spirited? The article outlines one misrepresentation or falsification after another, including such whoppers as, "Not only does she see separate black and white societies in America, but she elevates black over white in her world," which is a complete misreading of the text.

  wright: "You merely argue that things are taken out of context, etc, when, frankly, they don't appear to be."

  The article repeatedly shows exactly where and how Obama's statements are taken out of context. Frankly, you don't appear to be able to read, wright. Madden made it quite clear how the context was omitted in this passage:

  (Madden:) The line the e-mail quotes actually begins, "Earlier in my college career," and segues into a section where Obama acknowledges that her time at Princeton had given her the same kind of bourgeois values as her classmates of any race -- she was mostly concerned with getting a prestigious job or going to another elite school for a graduate degree.

  I am thinking wright skimmed the article, or was predisposed to find fault with it, instead of actually comprehending and thinking about the points Madden made.

  Grow. A. Heart.

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  Patrick Vashon: "The question still remains unanswered, why did he sit in that Temple of Hate for 20 years?"

  This is an "Are you still beating your wife?" style question. Your premise is wrong -- the idea of the church as a "temple of hate." All evidence shows otherwise, and if you have any honesty in your body, you'll grant that there was much more to the church than Wright's sermons, and that the substance of Wright's sermons is not fairly summarized by the cherry-picked "god damn America" stuff that got replayed last spring.

  Patrick Vashon: "Do Reverend Wright and Father Pfleger say out loud what is in Barack's heart."

  Does anybody really speak for anybody else's heart? (And -- do you have one?)

  Patrick Vashon: "Michelle was there more regularly than Barack and she exposed their children to that poison."

  This statement shows what an idiot you are, since at the time the Obamas were regularly attending the church, they didn't have children or the children were too young to have been much influenced or understand anyway.

  This is lame. First people ignore the point of the article to rehash the Hillary Clinton crap, then people ignore the point of the article to rehash the Rev. Wright crap. You're all missing the point: What is your view of the actual forwarded emails, including the Muslim-smearing one? Got any opinion of the actual subject of the article, or is this all just an excuse for you to stroke yourselves?

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  MCE007: "To call into question the premise of Michelle's thesis, which still stands, no matter what Madden or Snopes says, is perfectly legitimate..."

  I love that -- "it still stands, no matter what Madden or Snopes says." So basically if you want to believe it, you're going to believe it, evidence and reason be damned. So that's how your mind works. Beautiful.

  MCE007: "...the fact of the matter is her premise, followed by her attending a church whose ideas very much jibe with the ideas espoused in that thesis, belie any denials on her part that she doesn't believe in a separationist viewpoint of the races."

  No, the fact of the matter is that you don't get to decide what other people think simply by virtue of what you want to believe that they think.

  MCE007: "Her behavior at Princeton, well documented by numerous corrobative evidence among interviews with dozens of former classmates..."

  Evidence? If it's so very well documented, it shouldn't be too hard for you to come up with...

  MCE007: "...indicates that Ms. Obama tended not to intermingle with white fellow students, certainly something many black students on our nation's campuses do not do..."

  Oh my god! She didn't party down with the Tri-Delts! That must make her dangerous!

  MCE007: "...and which certainly was not my experience with African American students on my college's campus, who interacted and engaged with white students and vice versa easily."

  Ha ha, as if you're some expert on the rules of appropriate African-American social behavior. Get a clue, and get a heart.

  MCE007: "As is always the case, Obama's fans toss out the charge of racism when faced with real and firm evidence of problematic behavior on his or Michelle's part."

  What's the problematic behavior? Michelle Obama not having enough white pals in college? Or Obama being the target of spurious emails? You're so lame.

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  In conclusion, who are these people? Can people really be this dumb? Or are they paid to write this crap?

  —Xrandadu Hutman Read Xrandadu Hutman's other letters
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