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.

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Comments

[Underthematrix]

01:27 PM on 06/11/2008

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]

09:34 PM on 06/10/2008

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]

09:32 PM on 06/10/2008

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]

04:13 PM on 06/10/2008

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

[sherbug]

02:36 PM on 06/10/2008

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]

04:04 PM on 06/10/2008

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

[ProFromOre]

04:47 PM on 06/10/2008

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?"

[Pippen]

01:36 PM on 06/10/2008

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]

11:43 AM on 06/10/2008

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]

11:23 AM on 06/10/2008

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

[urweatherman]

12:55 PM on 06/10/2008

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

[CaptainObvious]

02:27 PM on 06/10/2008

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]

10:27 AM on 06/10/2008

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]

09:33 AM on 06/10/2008

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

[Eoin45]

12:43 PM on 06/10/2008

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]

02:37 PM on 06/10/2008

Myopic statements like these make my point. Thanks!

[Durango]

12:55 PM on 06/10/2008

Yeah, right.

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

[lennix]

12:35 AM on 06/10/2008

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]

12:10 AM on 06/10/2008

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]

09:34 AM on 06/10/2008

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]

11:02 AM on 06/10/2008

"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]

11:47 AM on 06/10/2008

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.

[sf94127]

11:32 PM on 06/09/2008

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]

04:52 AM on 06/10/2008

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]

08:35 AM on 06/10/2008

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]

12:58 PM on 06/10/2008

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]

09:27 PM on 06/10/2008

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.

[bonnieschultz]

11:13 PM on 06/09/2008

Two more words: Roger Stone

[laylahb]

10:06 PM on 06/09/2008

Two words. Karl Rove.