People will take obama’s word for it, count on it. We need a laugh at it and him campaign.
This myth originated with a letter written by a British general where he described visiting one of the tribes and (I'm paraphrasing because I don't have time to look up the exact quote) gave the Indians "gifts of provisions, medicine and blankets from the smallpox hospital. Hopefully this will have the desired effect." Of course, the quote was taken out of context and revised to mean that the "desired effect" was genocide by smallpox. If you read the entire letter in context, the meaning is clear that the "desired effect" was to befriend the tribe and enlist them to the British cause fighting the French. Then there's the "minor" fact that the entire concept of microbes or germs wasn't even understood for another 100 years after the letter was written. And even if they had understood such biological science, why would they risk losing an entire military troop handling the tainted blankets?
But I had been hearing that "truth" about the white man's genocide of the native tribes since I was in elementary school. And guess who was the worst propagator of this lie? "Professor" Ward Chuchill... Chief Sh!tting Bull himself.