Today's Obama Smear Attempt

Here's one of the ways the right's smear machine works. Far-right blogs post something. Then a site higher up their food chain picks it up, like NewsMax, CNSNews, WorldNetDaily or Politico. Then the Drudge Report or Moon's Washington Times gets it from there and spreads the story further. Somewhere in there Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity talks about it on the air. Finally the corporate media picks it up and uses the excuse that "the story is circulating."

Here's an example today. "Someone" posted an anti-semitic comment at the Obama blog. (See if you can guess who posted a comment that a right-wing blog knew about a few minutes later.) A few minutes later the hate site Little Green Footballs wrote a post saying that the Obama blog says so-and-so. (If you don't know about this site, spend a few minutes there and you'll get the picture. No, it is not a parody of right-wing nuttiness.) Then dozens of far-right-wing sites quickly echoed the "story." It rapidly turns into a great big right-wing hissy fit.

Soon the right's Politico has picked it up. (Which shows they're spending time reading hate sites.) And then Rush Limbaugh talked about it on his show.

You see, someone (guess who) leaving a comment at the Obama site proves that Obama is anti-semitic. You'll be hearing about it from every direction very soon.

Here is what Politico wrote:

Little Green Footballs finds some eyebrow-raisin stuff on Obama's site with the search term "Jewish Lobby." Of course, it's not fair to hold Obama responsible for the occasional crazy post. But it seems reasonable to try to characterize the community, something I haven't seen done, and it's interesting to see what gets taken down and what doesn't -- inevitably a community and moderator choice.

So bloggers - watch out. Right-wingers are posting vile comments at blogs, and then claiming that blog's readers are saying vile things.

Follow Dave Johnson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/dcjohnson

Comments

[Underthematrix]

Fearmongers and racebaiters thrive in an environment of ignorance. Educate yourself. Obama did the right thing. He put together an Internet smear team to combat the problem. Just be careful what you forward. Instead of forwarding their fearmongering stories. Look up the person who posted the slime and forward their information instead. In the email SUBJECT LINE put "WARNING - LIST OF RACEBAITER­S/FEARMONG­ERERS TO AVOID"

[repearwo]

PS People in the US need to learn propaganda techniques. Guilt by association is one of the major technique. There are a number of sites that list all og the techniques on the internet. Just google Propaganda.

A free people must be an informed people.

[repearwo]

This is one way that the right wing uses to put out trash in the media, but a more insideous one is the email. There was an email not too long ago about Obama's patriotism, and it had a quote from him, gfalse of course, and one form a ficticious General. There emails are sent all over the country and go unrefuted. Well I do.

I suspect that is how a lot of myths just surface and no one really knows how it happened. I get them all the time because a lot of people do not realize I am a flaming liberal.

[mh01]

Whole lot of speculation in this article, very little substatiation for his accusations.....

[sherbug]

Why is it OK to be anti-gay, anti-black, anti-immigrant, anti-abort­ion,anti-w­ar and not OK to be anti-semetic?

Anybody that says a harsh word about Jews is banished from society. I don't get it.

[ObserverinVancouver]

Hmmm. So does this mean you would like to be anti-Semitic but for the fear of social opprobrium?

[ProFromOre]

I would disagree that 'anti-black' is 'OK' - that's racism and even the Failure Party publicly denounces racism. The other is 'anti-gay', that's consider a hate crime now, so the anti-gay rhetoric is usually framed as choice. The other three are about personal choice, hence being pro- or anti- is OK.

The reason people react harshly to "anti-semetic" (sic), is based in the history of abuse the Jewish peoples have endured and, to a certain extent, civilizations have allowed. The other is it is religious bigotry, plain and simple, even the term, semitic, was originally intended to be a racial slur. Now it's been co-opted as a 'smoother' term than Jew-hatrid, which is what it is.

Religious hatred and bias are fundamentally against the principles of this country, but looking at this year's Presidential race, you'd have a hard time believing that concept - look how many people are hating on Sen Obama because they THINK he's a Muslim.

Naomi Klein put it in perspective best, (paraphrasing), "...people are frantically pushing the idea and claiming Sen Obama is a Muslim, so what's wrong with him being a Muslim?"

[Leota2]

You are, of course, joking?!
It is never okay to be anti anything having to do with race, culture, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
That would make you a bigot. . . .

[Jose11435]

So what are you saying exactly, that it should be ok to be anti-semetic? This sounds like a complaint from an anti-semetics.

[Pippen]

Love it, good piece !! We need a national public website administered by NPR journalists that REPORT on media failures then broadcast on television networks and cable. This *&^%$ would be reduced. Take back our "news" organizations.

[HotheadPaisen]

This is a very accurate piece. This morning, somehow- I'm not sure how, but I hope I never do it again, I ended up at Michell Milkens site, and the 'Obama antisemitism" was ALL OVER IT.
What total POS these people are!

[Economike]

I'm not sure the American public is responding as well to smear campaigns as they use to. Everybody's got smear fatigue.

[urweatherman]

Yeah the dems have exhausted this tactic.......for years!

[CaptainObvious]

Yeah - how dare they report on things like illegal warrantless wiretapping of US citizens, chinese water torture, propaganda efforts by the pentagon and the busheviks used to sell the American people a war for oil, voter disenfranchisement and stolen elections, or other unflattering pieces about our Great Republican Heroes? Where is the justice in this country? Why isn't Rush Limbaugh on every television network countering these smears? I mean, why all this fuss over the bush presidency? Why don't they talk clinton's affair every time they mention something negative about bush?

I'll tell you why - it's the traitorous socialists in this country who control all the money, media, and political power!

[Forsetti]

This is why Moyers' comments about people like O'Reilly not being reporters but pugilists is so meaningful. Running with a "story" without doing any research to back up its validity is not reporting it is mindless parroting. These pugilists rely on the listening audience to take their comments at face value and sadly too many people do.

[Gumby123]

I think there's guilty parties on both sides. Pretty much everyone is throwing stones from glass houses.

[Eoin45]

I don't agree at all. The right has raised this type of smearing to a black art over the last 30 years. Democrats simply are not as morally bankrupt as the Limbaugh right and are a whole lot less inclined to engage in this sort of "ends justifiies the means" kind of tactic.

[Gumby123]

Myopic statements like these make my point. Thanks!

[Durango]

Yeah, right.

What world have you been living in the past dozen years or so?

[lennix]

this way i like this site becuase it sees though the bs thanks dave johnson it will catch up with them and they wounder way the world laugh at us

[booksnmore4you]

I've been trying to make these same points about the supposed movement among Hill supporters who plan to vote for McC.

If any the authentic number is minuscule. Counting the Repug troublemakers posing AS Hill supporters on the Internet, the number is enough to make CNN. They've been talking about it all evening.

[HopeGirl]

That is a myth, a MSM created myth to gin up some fake controversy for the convention, for ratings...there is no way the people that voted for her will vote for McPuppet. People say nutty things in the course of a campaign. Then cooler heads prevail.

Don't buy into the MSM gin machine.

Now how Hill will vote...thats another story, but there is no accounting for her delusional behavior.

[bmora]

"That is a myth, a MSM created myth to gin up some fake controversy for the convention, for ratings...there is no way the people that voted for her will vote for McPuppet."

Sorry, HopeGirl. You are flat out wrong. I have close friends that intend to do exactly what you said will not happen. Now, that is not to say that this is a serious problem.

[rasil]

Thanks. I totally agree. It is all a strategy perpetrated by both Hillary and The Carl Rove Machine. The Repubs are scared to death right now because they have not galvanized behind McCain and Obama is picking up steam. Their strategy is smear and attack...dirty pool. I am very confident that Obama will beat McCain by a landslide. He is just not appealing nor dowe as Americans want the same old dried-up business as usual. For all the smear tactics they will wage, the Dems are right on it and ready.

[Lolly]

Well, I'm NOT one of the former Hillary supporters who will vote for McCain, but doesn't it occur to any of you that calling Senator Clinton "delusional" and assuming that she will try to hurt Obama just MAY be one of the factors behind the disillusionment her former supporters feel about Obama and the Democratic party in general?

And as long as we're on the topic of smears, you are apparently oblivious to your own uncritical acceptance of every RW smear that the Republicans invented against Hillary. You have no right to criticize the nitwits who believe all the "Obama is a Muslim" crap when you're swallowing all the Hillary ad hominem (feminam?) crap hook, line, and sinker.

[sf94127]

Anytime there is criticism of Obama its "The Karl Rove machine is behind".

Obama has all of the major cable channels behind him w exception of FOX. They hounded Hillary to the point where they were changing the primary process.

We have this illusion of democracy in this country; the media selects our masters.

[egal]

Hillary had the avid support of every station--even Gingrich was driving voters to her.

Unless you think that the news was backing Obama when it ran 24-7 coverage of former Revereand Wright's comments but ignored far worse coming from McCain and Clinton's surrogates and religious supporter.

And of course, when it kept asking him about his connections with some guy who served on neighborhood council with him but ignored Hillary's close friendship with similar unrepentant terorists.

Or maybe when it hounded him for pointing out that some people who have lost all chance at making a livelihood let bitterness drive them to hold issues of religion and weapons unhealthflly tightly, but let Hillary's surrogate say Obama only got where he was because of his race, her husband discount him as some fringe element getting the black vote just because of skin color, and Hillary point out that the hard-working Americans--WHITE Americans, of course--would only vote for her.

You obviously have never seen the news until the past few weeks. Or else, like everybody else saying such things, you just buy the blatantly false spin or like sowing discord. There's no support for your stated point of view nor ever has been--it is clearly false.

[tschlak]

Uh... yeah. Your mushy brain may be so malleable that the media can transform you into a zombie to do its bidding and take away your free will (or is that Hillary who did that to you?) but most people who don't watch Fux News are capable of critical thinking and forming their own opinions.

(Incidentally, most people thought CNN was in the tank for Hillary, hence the label Clinton News Network.)

I didn't need a pundit to tell me (for example) that Bubba's SC comments were race-baiting. I could plainly comprehend that for myself.

If anything's the media's "fault" it's that they're now always there to capture every little thing and can almost instantly verify or refute it (like Bosnian sniper fire).

Sucks, don't it.

[urweatherman]

I would dispute your comment about critical thinking and forming own opinions. Fox is the ONLY network that provides both sides consistently and lets YOU Decide!

[Lolly]

The "Clinton News Network" crap was started during Bill Clinton's presidency. It was part of the "Liberal Media" myth that the right wingers have been pushing for decades.

Just one more example of Democrats picking up and running with the right wing smears of Hillary.

[ProfessorDuh]

"Obama has all of the major cable channels behind him w exception of FOX." Yeah, that's why all the cable news channels spent six solid weeks trashing him for the remarks of someone else.

[Gma11]

There's a problem with your logic. He is the candidate that has been vociferously opposed to media consolidation.

[bonnieschultz]

Two more words: Roger Stone

[laylahb]

Two words. Karl Rove.