The Swiftboating Begins - The Right Smears Obama

[brettdale]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-russell/the-swiftboating-begins-_b_39196.html



The minute Senator Barack Obama had traction, the right starting emphasizing his middle name. "Barack Hussein Obama", they sneered. They never talked about him without saying all three names as if the fact his parents gave him the middle name "Hussein" automatically disqualified him to run for President. The smear was both so dumb and transparent, it was laughable.

Then other right-wing bigots like Debbie Schlussel took the attack even further:

hile Obama may not identify as a Muslim, that's not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it. In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he's a Christian, but they do not.

So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?

[Kerrytravelers]

1. Oh, wait. I forgot to put on my surprised face.

:wow:

[blm]

2. I hope Democrats step up TOGETHER as a party and knock this crap down.

Bush never had to fight one battle for himself - the entire GOP and RNC and their RW media machine did it all for him.

Where is our machine? Where are the Dem lawmakers who will step up and declare as a PARTY they will not keep letting this happen?

GOPs will stand behind a lie for their guys with more enthusiasm than Dems will stand behind the TRUTH about their lawmakers.

Come on Dems - form a machine.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

4. Wow blm, ...what a truthful post

...I can't wait for a change.

"GOPs will stand behind a lie for their guys with more enthusiasm than Dems will stand behind the TRUTH about their lawmakers"....you should make that your signature.

:(

[blm]

6. Look what happened to Gore, Kerry, Murtha.

Heck, Dean had other Dems making up lies about him and his performance as chair just to get rid of him. But we all got so sick of the game that we fought the lie back together.

That is how it needs to be.

I am not an Obama fan, he wasn't very stand up himself when needed, but I'll be damned if I am going to let lies against him stand. I'd prefer he and every Dem answer for REAL issues, not RW concoctions.

[Gman]

3. The problem for the GOP

is America doesn't care what Obama's middle name is. It might have used to have worked. Maybe after 9/11. Now, people don't want to hear Obama's middle name pronounced with a sneer. This GOP problem presents a new, even bigger problem. The GOP has to come up with some other way to smear rather than imply someone is Islamic. This is complicated by the fact that the only way to effectively smear someone is using fear and people do not fear people who are Islamic just because they are Islamic. As we move further in time away from 9/11, this is a growing problem for the GOP.

I said during the Clinton years that the RW was completely lost and without someone to fear. The Iron Curtain had come down and the threat of Communism was no more. They tried to spark fear by crying that Gen. Maximilian Rodrigues de Santos was mounting a new invasion of Texas. No one was scared. Then 9/11 happened and the RW was happy because they had someone to hate and fear again.

[blm]

7. They have also come to realize that the GOP smear playbook is getting worn out

and useless.

I guess it will all depend on how the corpmedia treats these attacks. Before they gave every storyline from Rove a top headline and pressed it for him. Maybe this Libby trial will do more to turn off the public.

[AValdoux]

5. My soap opera board discussed this

I was amazed. It was like a game of "Gossip", where you whisper something to the person next to you then in the end see how mixed up it got.

They were talking about his secret conversion at the "Wahabi Muslim Madrassa" like he was some kind of covert plant, nurtured over decades. Out of over two hundred replies only a handful referenced the CNN report that debunked the original Inside Edition report. Some snapped back, "Well, Fox News said it so there has to be something to it." It also got racially divided with posters defending against the obviously negative racial bias because Obama is black also. Even though Democrats are ahead in the polls this country is still crazy as batshit.


AValdoux