Maureen Dowd Becomes Fictional Actor In Obama Smear

A comically absurd Barack Obama smear email is making the rounds right now involving a fabricated column by famed New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. The email, presented as a June 29 op-ed (replete with The Times' font, layout, and Dowd byline) presents the "shocking" revelation that Obama's prodigious Internet fundraising apparatus is really driven by wealthy financiers from -- you guessed it -- "Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries."

Taking her cues from anonymous Obama campaign "Internet geeks," the fictional Dowd column reads:

"What I learned from this insider was shocking but I guess we shouldn't be surprised that when it comes to fund raising there simply are no rules that can't be broken and no ethics that prevail. [...]

"I guess we should have been somewhat suspicious when the numbers started to come out. We were told (no proof offered) that the Obama internet contributions were from $10.00 to $25.00 or so.

"If the $200,000,000 is right, and the average contribution was $15.00, that would mean over 13 million individuals made contributions? That would also be 13 million contributions would need to be processed. How did all that happen?"

Where to begin? For starters, the average Obama contribution has been around $100, not $15. The campaign, by law, must disclose all donors who have given over $200. And, most obviously, a review of the paper of record shows that Dowd's column on June 29 was not on Obama fundraising but rather Hillary Clinton supporters.

Dowd herself found the email an exercise in absurdity, not to mention -- quite possibly -- the first time she's been indirectly involved in a smear campaign.

"The line about it being the 'most shocking revelation,' I don't think I've ever said those words, except in a satire. Also, it is about money, which I never write about," she told the Huffington Post. "Sometime you try and protest things you hear about, but sometimes it's just not worth it... It is hard to track down and control these things, and anyone who reads my column knows that this wasn't me. I got to the second line and I knew it wasn't me."

The Obama campaign, as is now its practice, addressed the fake Dowd column in a post today on its website, Fight the Smears. But sometimes it's worth noting just how outrageous and offensive -- both to Obama and the public's intelligence -- these attacks can be.

Comments

[Dannydel]

03:30 PM on 07/10/2008

If, as is constantly reported by the MSM, 7-10% of voters STILL believe Obama is a Muslim, I'd say that
the public doesn't really have that much intelligence to be insulted in the first place. If it's not on 'The View', 'Ellen', 'Oprah', or a cage match with two musclebound knuckleheads trying to kill each other, 'The Public' doesn't seem interested in it.

[naluca]

01:31 PM on 07/10/2008

The line between real and fictional with respect to the selling of Barack Obama to the public is highly illusory. Seldom is the consumer so unaware of what it is they have purchased.

[DesertLight]

11:10 AM on 07/10/2008

I don't get the betrayal to Mo D0wd here. She practically single handedly dismantled Clint0n during the primaries. So, vilify her now?

[redstatebluedude]

10:39 AM on 07/10/2008

Yes it is "outrageous and offensive -- both to Obama and the public's intelligence." The problem is that is also works. I've already had two people breathlessly ask me if I've heard where O is getting his money, and at least a dozen over the past months have wanted to know if he really is a Muslim who won't recite the pledge. Of course, I live in Utah so the level of 'public intelligence' is probably lower than most other places.

[hilts]

10:32 AM on 07/10/2008

Maureen Dowd is a major league hottie

[bobbuck]

02:59 AM on 07/10/2008

Maureen Dowd says and I quote,

"I got to the second line and I knew it wasn't me."

Well thank goodness that second line was where it was otherwise it could have taken her a whole lot longer to realise it wasn't her...lol

[PumaAnn]

10:58 AM on 07/10/2008

I thought that was hilarious and telling. Maureen is a bit batty, obviously.

[goodog]

10:09 PM on 07/09/2008

"Dowd herself found the email an exercise in absurdity, not to mention -- quite possibly -- the first time she's been indirectly involved in a smear campaign."

Yes, she's used to being a lot more direct with her low blows.

[DuckofDeath]

09:32 PM on 07/09/2008

The tail hook caught the last cable, jerking the fighter jet from 150 m.p.h. to zero in two seconds. Out bounded the cocky, rule-breaking, daredevil flyboy, a man navigating the Highway to the Danger Zone, out along the edges where he was born to be, the further on the edge, the hotter the intensity.

He flashed that famous all-American grin as he swaggered around the deck of the aircraft carrier in his olive flight suit, ejection harness between his legs, helmet tucked under his arm, awestruck crew crowding around. Maverick was back, cooler and hotter than ever, throttling to the max with joystick politics. Compared to Karl Rove's ''revvin' up your engine'' myth-making cinematic style, Jerry Bruckheimer's movies look like Lizzie McGuire.
This time Maverick didn't just nail a few bogeys and do a 4G inverted dive with a MiG-28 at a range of two meters. This time the Top Gun wasted a couple of nasty regimes, and promised this was just the beginning.'

Brilliant isn't she?

[DavidElton]

04:35 PM on 07/09/2008

Although I often disagree with Maureen Dowd, she is an excellent writer. That is something no objective person can deny. Personally, I loved the fact that she upset the apple cart while exposing Hillary, but that is likely due to my healthy disdain for the "Nutcracker-in-chief". Does that make me a male chauvenist pig ? If it does, so be it. I would be in very good company. I think many women were so invested in a female president, they put aside the fact that Hillary is possibly the most caustic and unlikable woman ever to enter politics. Seriously, very few people (being honest) would ever want to hang out with someone so in love with power and ambition.

That's my opinion. Skewer me if you must (-:

PS.....(by the way, Hillary fans=Rosie O'Donnell fans....hehehe)

[rich3324]

03:55 PM on 07/09/2008

I heard he fathered not one, but two black children.

[SharonB]

06:51 PM on 07/09/2008

Yes, and he lives with THREE black females.

[rich3324]

07:24 PM on 07/09/2008

Let'snot forget, he's a Muslim, who was sworn in on the Koran, and if he wins all American will be issued prayer rugs. He's also an elitist who went to Harvard, paid for by his super rich Saudi family. He met a 60's radical in the 90's, so he must have been involved with this person's actions back then. Since he would have been 7 years old, which also makes him a juvenile delinquent.

[roooth]

03:47 PM on 07/09/2008

Send this pre-emptively to all the right-wing-nut-jobs who would be sending you the fake one in the next few days and tell them not to bother

[SharonB]

06:55 PM on 07/09/2008

If you found the proof written in blood and signed by their own mothers, they still would not beleive that it is not true.

I have a close relative wh gets very angry when I tell him he is wrong about Mr. Obama being a muslim.

I give up on trying to convince idiots that they are believing stupid lies. They prefer lies, unfortunately.

[metalpipe]

09:59 PM on 07/09/2008

Yeah, I've posted on that type of person. I met this 'nice' woman in the park, and it turns out she was so pent up with hate for and fear of Muslims, that she was immediately swept up in the whole 'Obama is a Muslim' thing. She was convinced it was probably true, and flat out refused to do any research on the matter. She saw it on the news, so it must be true.

We are such lonely and decrepid creatures.

[Zhonni]

03:41 PM on 07/09/2008

We need to stay vigilant people and we need to call these things out once they rear their ugly heads.

[BatedBreath]

02:22 PM on 07/09/2008

This is off topic, but seems as good a place as any to ask. There was in the last year or two a tv commerdial for A1 steak sauce...a man leaves a table in a restaurant to take a call or a call of nature, I forget, and a stranger sits down and starts eating the man's order (with A1 sauce of course). There's a woman who sits at this table taking in all of the strange events...that woman looked just like Maureen Dowd. Did anyone else see the commercial and wonder?

[SharonB]

06:55 PM on 07/09/2008

You are right. That is off topic.

[HmblDog]

08:15 AM on 07/10/2008

The whole topic is off topic.

[katmeyster]

01:56 PM on 07/09/2008

I miss Molly Ivins -- can you imagine this happening to her?

[zann]

07:17 PM on 07/09/2008

I miss her too.

[krocklin]

01:37 PM on 07/09/2008

Sane people have no idea the depths to which the Rightwing will stoop in their war against Obama.
They hate him more than the Clintons.
They are really threatened and they aren't having the same success getting the complicite media to back them up this time around like they did in the '90s.
In the 90s they just piled on and the careers of O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity were made.
Now the more they do this they are being gradually exposed, seen to be lacking in credibility and marginalized.
Although not nearly enough yet. With media consolidation and no Fairness Doctrine, they still have a lot of ability to create static, distraction and misdirection.
No administration has deserved disgrace more than this one, and until that becomes total in the World Court or in Congress, we will have to endure these "assaults on reason", including many more hoaxes and slanders.