Well, he's also black, so it must be some kind of hate crime too!
Posted on 05/22/2008 3:38:56 AM PDT by markomalley
The main obstacle standing between Barack Obama and the White House was distilled into five words by a local television correspondent in South Charleston, W.Va., earlier this month.
Prefacing a question about the challenges of winning over white, blue-collar voters, the reporter offered this observation: “They think you are un-American,” he said.
Such questions, asked by reporters and plainly on the minds of voters in Appalachia and elsewhere, are the fruits of an unprecedented, subterranean e-mail campaign.
What began as a demonstrably false attempt to cast Obama as a Muslim has now metastasized into something far more threatening to the likely Democratic nominee. The spurious claims about his faith have spiraled into a broader assault that questions his patriotism and citizenship and generally portrays him as a threat to mainstream, white America.
The spread of these e-mails has forced Obama to embark on a campaign to Americanize his image and his biography. Pivoting away from his pitch to a primary election audience uninterested in flag-waving and nationalism, he’s returning to the message that first brought him to the national spotlight in 2004: the idea that his is the quintessential American story.
He’s also drawing the campaign into partisan combat, blaming Republicans for the smears even though they have not been traced back to GOP sources. “The Republicans, they’re trying to make [it] ‘this is not about you; it’s about me.’ They’re trying to say, ‘Well, Obama, we don’t know him that well, he hasn’t been around that long, he’s got a funny name; maybe he’s a Muslim,’” Obama said Monday in Montana. “They want to make people worry about me.”
Ironically, the smear campaign represents the dark side of the Internet’s emerging dominance in American politics — a phenomenon that has driven Obama’s unparalleled grass-roots and financial campaigns. After harnessing the Web to great advantage, Obama is now struggling to beat back the viral threat from the same uncontrollable medium.
“In the old days, communication was more centralized,” notes veteran GOP ad man Alex Castellanos, the father of Jesse Helms’ famous affirmative action ad. “If you were attacked in one venue, you dealt with it there. A TV problem was dealt with on TV, a radio problem on radio. It was top-down and it was manageable.”
The anti-Obama e-mails now bouncing around the Internet have multiplied and are difficult to track, though the website Snopes.com has catalogued and debunked many of them. But the themes are similar: Elements of his biography make him too exotic, or unknown, to be president.
One features a made-up quote in which Obama “explains” why he purportedly doesn’t place his hand over his heart during the national anthem.
“There are a lot of people in the world to whom the American flag is a symbol of oppression,” the e-mail quotes Obama as saying. “And the anthem itself conveys a war-like message.”
Obama has never said such a thing.
Another makes the false claim that Obama was sworn into the Senate on the Quran.
He took the oath on the Bible.
Then there is perhaps the least subtle e-mail, “The Genealogy of Barack Hussein Obama in Pictures,” which includes numerous pictures of the candidate’s dark-complexioned relatives on his father’s side in native African garb.
The e-mailers aren’t troubled by the dissonance between two lines of attack — the assertion that he’s a Muslim and the claim that he belongs to a radical black Christian church — though one goes as far as to try to reconcile the apparent conflict by arguing that Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ is covertly Muslim, something that would come as a surprise to its parishioners.
Smear campaigns have a rich history in politics. Many Americans believe that President Bill Clinton had an aide murdered or that President Bush had prior knowledge of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Twin Towers.
And this one would be a shameful but largely irrelevant mark on this historic election but for one thing: Voters widely and repeatedly cite information that has been gleaned directly or indirectly from the e-mails to explain why they won’t support Obama.
A Pew survey found that one in 10 Americans think Obama is Muslim, a misperception that crosses party lines.
A focus group conducted with 12 independent voters for NBC and The Wall Street Journal earlier this month in Charlottesville, Va., found that fully half said “no” when asked point-blank if they thought of Obama as an American. Two believed he is a Muslim and another mentioned the Quran fabrication.
“They have no sense of his roots,” explained Peter Hart, the Democratic pollster who conducted the survey. “They just are confused, uninitiated and uncertain about who he is and what his background is.”
An eye-opening video shot by the online Real News Network earlier this month in West Virginia drove that point home.
One voter concludes that, “The United States of America should be run by somebody from the United States of America.” When reminded by the reporter capturing the footage that Obama is, in fact, American, the voter responded: “He’s Muslim.”
Nearly every day of the primary, newspaper stories in places from the Pacific Northwest to Pennsylvania have been filled with similar anecdotes.
So, as he pivots from wooing left-of-center primary voters to winning over the broader American electorate, chief among Obama’s priorities will be dispelling the notion that he is somehow not fully American.
Obama’s campaign has built a pioneering Web-based apparatus to debunk the myths, but the candidate himself has also begun to fight back against the smear in symbolic and substantive ways, following the same model used on the original Muslim claims.
When confronted with the Muslim e-mails, Obama last year began talking more openly about his Christianity and using most campaign Sundays to attend church services. His campaign reinforced the point with a less-than-subtle mail piece showing the candidate in a pulpit, a gold cross shimmering in the background. It was mailed out in South Carolina and was revived for the Kentucky primary.
Now Obama is taking steps to incorporate a patriotism rebuttal to go with his faith pushback.
After scoffing last year at the need to wear a flag pin on his lapel — grounds for one of the e-mail attacks — Obama has begun to affix the stars and stripes to his suit coat.
And he’s begun to talk about the side of his family that more Americans can relate to.
In the Democratic primary, his unique and unlikely life story was part of what many cosmopolitan voters found compelling about him.
“Here’s a guy who could get us right with the world again” is how Al Cross, a veteran political reporter and the head of the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, characterized the perception among some Democrats. “His entire persona is globalized, and his name lends credibility with people who we need credibility with. What better change agent could there be?”
And in the early going, Obama embraced that distinctiveness.
Targeting Hispanic voters in Nevada, he even stressed the foreign element of his story, with a narrator of his radio advertisement describing him as “the son of a foreign father who came to this country in search of a better life.”
But while his first book was called “Dreams From My Father,” it’s his late mother and her white family who have come to take center stage as Obama confronts not just challenges among blue-collar voters but also fundamental questions about who he is.
He’s made pilgrimages to middle America — to his mother’s hometown in Kansas and to an ancestral property on his maternal side in Indiana — and featured images of both his mother and her parents in TV ads.
And he’s increasingly laced his stump speech with references to his grandfather’s World War II service, noting recently that Stanley Dunham was buried with an American flag around his casket.
Later this year, he’ll go to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, where Dunham is buried, and pay homage.
He’s also hoping that allies — elected officials and labor unions — can tell his story to people who trust them.
Chuck Rocha, the political director of the United Steelworkers union, said that Obama’s Horatio Alger tale would make him an easier sell with white union members.
“Our members couldn’t relate with John Kerry because of his background, where he came from,” Rocha said. “Barack Obama comes from a lot of the same pasts that a lot of our members do — just growing up a regular kid.”
Rocha, whose union endorsed Obama, said union members will “trust us more than some thing they read on the Internet or some other trumped-up lies.”
“It’s going to be an education process,” said Mike Caputo, a United Mine Workers of America official in West Virginia, whose union endorsed Obama on Wednesday.
Obama’s challenge this summer will be to use his unprecedented political celebrity to get his story out.
“Most people don’t know much about Obama’s personal life,” said Vanderbilt University professor John G. Geer, explaining why some voters are susceptible to falsehoods. “He needs to talk about his values. Right now, people are filling in the narrative because he hasn’t filled it.”
And Geer had a candid assessment of why people are accepting falsehoods as truths.
“It’s easier to believe because his name is Barack Obama,” he said.
I saw the DU funnies comments over the large crowd Obama had in Oregon. One person gasped "This isn't an election, it's a movement!"
A movement of what? What does he stand for? These idiots don't know, their caught up in the emotion of it all. When McCain wins Pennsylvania early on election night all these breathless college kids will be so disheartened they wont even vote.
Shouldn't it be said of people like this guy that, “They just are confused, uninitiated and uncertain about who he is and what his background is.”
Instead of making it seem as if every person that doesn't trust Obama is ignorant , foolish, and uneducated.
I know. He also said he’s afraid of black people.
And they are correct. B. Hussein Obama (May peace be upon him) IS un-American.
Ah, what's the difference between Rev Wright and Minister Farrakhan? Not much, indeed Wright notoriously honored Farrakhan. They see the similarity, it's wrong for the rest of us to see the similarity?
Obama was a Muslim under Sharia Muslim law until he was 26. With his conversion, Obama's become an apostate and has committed the worst crime a Muslim can commit. Any Muslim can murder Obama and be celebrated for murdering an apostate. How is this not far from saying Obama is a Muslim?
McCain is not going to be subordinate to the U.N. when it comes to our military. Barry and Hillary would. That’s my vote right there.
VOTE U.S. MILITARY 2008!
though one goes as far as to try to reconcile the apparent conflict by arguing that Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ is covertly Muslim, something that would come as a surprise to its parishioners.The Nation of Islam provided body guards for Jeremiah "GD America!" Wright.
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
April 25, 2008 Stump Speech in Fort Wayne, IN - Michelle Obama:
“We've lost sight of the fact that we are one another's brothers' and sisters' keepers in this nation. We have to prepare to sacrifice something big for the greater good. In order to do that, you have to feel some faith and trust and inspiration in our leadership. I don't think there's anyone else in this race who's going to be able to unify this country, who's going to be able to change the way politics is done, who's going to bring people together who never thought they had anything common before and who's going to do it in a way that's decent and honest. That man is my husband, Barack Obama.”
Well, he's also black, so it must be some kind of hate crime too!
“A movement of what?”
I vote for bowel movement.
Hoss
That’s what my brother said. LOL
If McCain submits to the UN IPCC, what’s the difference?
I doubt that. All elections in Oregon are by mail in ballots. The envelope enclosing the ballots just have to be postmarked by poll closing time on election day. This will insulate Oregon turnout from being depressed by early east coast election returns.
I’ll tell you this. I know a number of middle aged women who are DIE-HARD Dems who won’t vote for Obama. For the most part, it’s because they believe him to be a racist and on some other levels that he’ll sell us out to our enemies.
They’re only “smears” if they aren’t true.
The more people “get to know” him, the less they’ll think of him. The son of radicals!
BO’s the darling of anti-Americans, both within this country, and outside of it. Wonder why this could be?
McCain would be better on defense (I think). His comments about shutting down Gitmo concern me.
I look at...
Opposition to the Bush tax cuts
McCain Lieberman
McCain Kennedy
McCain Feingold
The gang of 14
His record is left of center. He’s better on Islamofascism than Obama, but that’s an obvious threat. He’s no different on enviromarxism and that’s the more dangerous threat because it’s unopposed.
The GOP would rally in opposition to the hare-brained polcies of a President Obama. Only principled conservatives would oppose the hare-brained policies of a President McCain. A President McCain would be marginally better on terrorism (I think), but would fracture the GOP and take our country on a long left U-turn. He scares me more than Obama.
I was raised in a liberal. democrat household and strongly supported Carter in 1976. At the time, I remember thinking that the Democrats owned the Senate, House, and Oval Office. There are no excuses.
I may have been young, but I saw the error of my ways. I joyously voted for Reagan in 1980 and 84. I volunteered and campaigned for an incompetent Beau Boulter (against Lloyd Bentsen) in 88 because of GHW Bush’s voodoo economics rhetoric, which made me justifiably doubtful about GHW Bush. I voted for GHW Bush only because I couldn’t stand Dukakis. Four years later I voted for him only because I couldn’t stand Clinton. Four years later I voted for (duh) Dole only because I couldn’t stand Clinton. Four years later I voted for GW Bush only because I couldn’t stand Gore. Four years later I voted for GW Bush only because I couldn’t stand Kerry.
Today, I can’t stand McCain or Obama or Hillary. I’m tired of voting against people. I’m tired of RINOs. I’m tired of Republicans who are little more than Democrats at a 10% discount.
I can’t support McCain because he’s less despicable than Obama. I’ll vote because the down ballot elections matter, but I don’t know if I can vote at the top of the ballot. If I do, it will be for Bob Barr or a write-in. McCain, Obama, and Hillary are not very different to me and none will get my vote.
I’d almost talked myself into voting for McCain until his Oregon Gorebasm speech. I won’t support a green enviromarxist any more than an out-and-out red marxist. I suspect my views are similar to many conservatives. If McCain wins, it will not be with our support, it will be because he staked out a position left of center, while running against a radical left of left candidate.
McCain will govern to the left and take away any chance for the GOP to rally in opposition to leftist jurist appointments (i.e., more David Souters), tax hikes, Gaia worship, and command and control enviromarxism.
If McCain loses, we’re in for a very bad four years. If he wins, we may be in for a bad quarter century.
I can’t support Obama. I won’t support McCain
/rant
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.