Sleazeshow: World Travels and Obama Rumors

As a public service we are asking our OffTheBus readers to send along the sleazy and dirty political material they're receiving this election season. We at OffTheBus are not promoting or endorsing any of this material. But it exists, and we think you have a right to see what others are seeing. You can use the comment section below to fact-check this piece and others. Below is a list of organizations and websites that debunk material like this.

(Screenshot of email)

Return to our Sleazeshow: Politics and Dirty Tricks 2008 and see more of what's being passed around.

There are a number of websites dedicated to determining if what politicians, candidates and others say is true or not. If you hear shady information and want to check out if it's true, try searching one of these sites: the Annenberg Political Fact Check, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania; the Washington Post's The Fact Checker; PolitiFact From St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly; and Snopes.com investigates urban legends. Factcheck.barackobama.com is the Obama campaign's official website devoted to debunking malicious rumors about the Senator. JohnMcCain.com lists McCain's official positions.

Comments

[Ken Allen - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree with platinum1's comments. Repeating unsubstantiated rumors without refuting them only serves to confirm them in the minds of many people.

[platinum1]

I appreciate what you're trying to do by posting these, but unless you take the time to refute these sleazy rumors within the content of the post, I think your plan is going to backfire. Since I read HuffPo via my RSS reader, I and many others will only see these nasty rumors and not any of the debunking that you are hoping will be provided in the comment section. Where's the benefit in that? It's just as bad as if I had received them in my inbox by some well-meaning but misguided friend or relation. I appreciate the links at the end to do our own research, but how many of us will truly do that kind of research?

What I would love to see in these posts instead is a point by point summary of the lies and misperceptions contained in each these emails that we can use to fight back against the smears. Now *that* would be a useful way to get out the truth!