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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
How do we fight these rumors? I am glad to see at the very least Obama is taking some action. I doubt very highly he will be invited to speak before any Republican gatherings. And I also doubt Limbaugh or Hannity or Malkin will allow any truth telling to occur on their programs or sites.
We need to have something to show the disbelievers and perhaps the format may need tweaking, but we need a site to send people so these ugly rumors can be rebutted.
Sharing your email password: That's just crazy!
I would say that anyone who believes Sen. Obama is a Muslim actually hasn't actually looked it up. So it's not a matter of dismissing good Google information, it's a matter of going directly to sites that support your point of view and either hearing wrong information or not hearing information that contradicts the perception.
This article on Keith Ellison, the first Muslim congressman, illustrates the point: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,233983,00.html
didn't work so well for the Kerry campaign.
Amspeck: Right, that's what I said -- "more likely, because they trust what they've heard through e-mail and have never bothered to do a Web search."
@Leslie: Yup, that's why the Obama camp is right to fight it.
Re: "the lies seem possessed of uncanny sticking power. "
There is nothing "uncanny" about it. We all know what is happening. A string of White House bloggers, most likely on the government payroll, are blasting out streams of e-mail, repeating this rumour to every e-mail address on their lists. That is what is happening.
As to the conventional wisdom of "Ignoring" the rumours, that is what John Kerry did with theSwiftboat ads and we saw where that got him.
The fact is that the Republican smear machine is as well oiled as it was in the days of lee Atwater: Just updated for the internet and cable TV.
The fact also is that our Mainstream media will do absolutely nothing to counter these smears as they are too "objective" todo anything other than just repeat the smear, then allow two political operatives (Right and Left, or just Right if it's FoxNews) to yell back and "let the viewer decide"). Of course the possibility of actually checking facts is out of the question: That might require actual research and WORK.
So Barak Obama's only option is to counter the mudslinging, hard and often. Otherwise we can expect to see headlines in November reading, "Democratic Muslim Candidate for President loses in a landslide!"
I don't think creating spam is a good way to fight anything.
Worse, this could get a person ostracized by her friends. I know that anyone who sends me email like this will be blocked. It doesn't matter which candidate it refers to.
I agree with you to some extent that there is a small but real possibility of some backfiring. Honestly, I believe that he is making the right choice here in demonstrating that he can effectively counter a high-profile misinformation attack. It shows good leadership skills in that he will not just be bowled over by fictional rumors.
Furthermore, I appreciate the avenue that the Obama camp has taken in addressing rumors head-on. The typical DNC method of 'ignore-it-and-hope-it-goes-away' strategy almost always fails. I think that a multi-pronged approach would serve Mr. Obama the best...
a) the website is a great idea for those who are searching for the truth and are content with a general refuting statement from the candidate
b)for the independents or skeptics, I would suggest (on the Obama website) that they simply provide a big old link to the debunking website in order to give them a straight path to follow to read truth and cut thru speculation.
c)the toughest demographic to reach, for Obama, will be the underinformed voters. Typically, these are people living in economically depressed areas where national news is akin to science fiction - it doesn't speak to them. The things that matter, for the most part, are local and deal with the very real hardships they are facing. They don't have either the time or the luxury to go searching for information...they worry about paying the electric bill, buying groceries, and budgeting for gas. They don't care what Leonardo is driving or who Paris is dating...
To silence the rumors in these areas, all they have to do is go there and speak the truth. If he makes a few strategic trips to these areas and denounces all this crap face-to-face, the people will believe him.
I hope you've passed these on to the Obama campaign.
It was CNN -- a mainstream media outlet if ever there was one -- that went out and researched and debunked the Obama muslim school story. The campaign's new site links to that video.
The success of both the smears and Obama's refutations lie in repetition. By way of example: Bush convinced Americans that Iraq was involved in 9-11 through sophisticated media strategies, but what it boiled down to was repetition. If you repeat the lie often enough people will believe.
Certainly Obama's only method of information control should not rest in these websites alone. But anything that allows for repetition of information is probably good for him.
But, yeah, I agree that it is not a good idea to ask readers to give the Obama campaign their passwords. That's weird, and anybody with any understanding of internet safety would agree.
The reason that the Obama is/was a Muslim email has any legs is that the responses to it are really to the earliest versions -- the over-the-top "radical Muslim madrassa" version -- rather than the more subtle versions that Obama received two hours per week of instruction in Islam while attending the "public" school in Indonesia while living with his Muslim stepfather.
This issue is one that Obama made worse for himself by making absolute denials that later required slight modification and in turn give his opponents the tiny bit of traction they needed to build their attack. He often tried to describe his connections to Islam as being limited to just his "atheist" father having been raised Muslim, rather than it being slightly more nuanced than that.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
