The Osterley Times: Fighting Smears

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Fighting Smears

One of the ways in which the Obama campaign differs so much from the Kerry campaign has been the swift way which his campaign has fought the smears which inevitably come from the Republican opposition, even going as far as having a web page on his site dedicated to that purpose.

Today his campaign take on Jerome Corsi's book (PDF) Obama Nation which they describe as the work of a "bigoted fringe author" who is "spinning garbage as journalism and relying on the right-wing echo chamber to pump up sales."

And, as well as defending himself, Obama points out that Corsi has a long list of bizarre accusations that he has levelled at others over the years.

He believes that President Bush is trying to merge the United states with Mexico and Canada. He believes that there is a literally unending supply of oil beneath the ground. This is a man who smears the Catholic Church, calls the Pope “senile,” and regularly demeans public servants in vile sexual and racial terms.

Obama starts his report on Corsi's book by listing the reaction of other publications to this piece of garbage:

New York Times: Several Corsi Accusations Are “Unsubstantiated, Misleading Or Inaccurate.” The New York Times reported, “Several of the book’s accusations, in fact, are unsubstantiated, misleading or inaccurate.” [New York Times, 8/13/08]

Los Angeles Times: “Being No. 1 Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Being Accurate.” The Los Angeles Times reported, “The book lashes out at Barack Obama and alleges, among other things, that the politician has a secret radical Islamic agenda. But being No. 1 doesn’t necessarily mean being accurate. Obama is a Christian.” [Los Angeles Times, 8/12/08]

Politico: “Outrageous Assertions and Fringe Theories…Have Hurt His Credibility on the Right as Well.” “[H]is outrageous assertions and fringe theories — which include allegations that President Bush worked to eliminate the borders with Mexico and Canada and the assertion that Kerry is a Communist — have hurt his credibility on the right, as well. … On the blog FreeRepublic.com, Corsi wrote that pedophilia ‘is OK with the Pope as long as it isn’t reported by the liberal press,’ that ‘RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters.’” [Politico, 8/13/08]

The Obama camp then methodically go through the lies in the book one by one:

LIE: “Nowhere in the autobiography does Obama disclose that his wife-to-be accompanied him to Africa on the 1992 trip.” [p 25]

REALITY: OBAMA WROTE ABOUT TAKING MICHELLE TO KENYA Obama: “After Our Engagement, I Took Michelle To Kenya…” Obama wrote in Dreams, “After our engagement, I took Michelle to Kenya to meet the other half of my family. She was an immediate success there as well, in part because the number of Luo words in her vocabulary very soon surpassed mine. We had a fine time in Alego, helping Auma on a film project of hers, listening to more of Granny’s stories, meeting relatives I’d missed the first time around.” [Dreams, p 439]

LIE: “Still, Obama has yet to answer questions whether he ever dealt drugs, or if he stopped using marijuana and cocaine completely in college, or where his drug usage extended into his law school days or beyond. Did Obama ever use drugs in his days as a community organizer in Chicago, or when he was a state senator from Illinois? How about in the US Senate?” [p 77]

REALITY: OBAMA HAS MADE CLEAR REPEATEDLY THAT HE STOPPED USING MARIJUANA IN COLLEGE, WHICH PEERS HAVE AFFIRMED Obama Said He Inhaled Pot, But Said He Hadn’t Done “Anything” Since He Was 20. “When I was in high school, I tried pot,” said Obama. “And I won’t say that I didn’t inhale. I did inhale.” He said some of the behavior extended to college. “By the time I was 20, I don’t think I indulged again,” he said. The graduate of Harvard Law School also admits there was a time “I drank six-packs of beer in a single night.” Any other illegal drugs? “I haven’t done anything since I was 20 years old,” he said. “That’ll suffice.” [State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL), 11/9/03]

I'll only list those two examples for reason of space alone but you can read the whole thing by clicking on the title.

It is impressive that the Obama campaign are fighting back as forcefully as they are against the myriad of lies and smears which the right wing are amassing against him.

The danger, and this is why the right wing smear campaigns work in the way that they do, is that most people don't have room in their lives to dig past the headlines and find out that a lot of this stuff is simply garbage. That's why Rove and others were able to trash John Kerry's war hero status and make Bush, a possible deserter, appear as having the better military record.

They are, predictably, going to try the same crap with Obama. But the good thing is that, this time, Obama is going to fight back quickly and show this to be the nonsense that it is.

And Jerome Corsi has gone so far that there are many on the right who think he is starting to hurt the Republican cause.

You can't stop stupid people believing stupid things, but you can fight such obvious garbage to the point where stupid people can only believe in this crap because they want to.