He won’t swear on the Bible, he’s going to ban Christian prayer, and he’s just not a good man. According to my wife’s parents anyway, who just harassed her because she’s going to caucus for him later this morning.
How do people get taken in by rumors like this? Yesterday I had a dream where I knocked my wife’s father down and beat him senseless, and I felt really bad about doing it. I don’t want to hurt him, but I’d sure like to grab him by the shoulders and shake the shit out of him, and ask him what the fuck he’s thinking.
They get taken in because they are already inclined to believe them. Perhaps they have another, unspoken objection to Mr. Obama, maybe they have an objection to his complexion. By the way, did you know that Hillary Clinton was the Political Commissar for the Wellesley Lesbian Maoist Collective?
They get taken in because those rumors circulate on the internet, and among mouth-breathing conservative fundamentalists. More importantly—and even more pathetically—those rumors are also given credence and impetus by mainstream media commentators, one of whom actually asked Obama during a recent Democratic debate whether or not they were true. The idea that responsible journalism consists of dignifying this sort of smear tactic is crazy, but that’s what passes for good reporting in the republic, i’m afraid.
Next time, show up with a copy of the 2005 January White House press reports, which you accidentally kept in your handbag (or masculine equivalent).
You know, the ones which explicitly states that Dick Cheney, acting as the President of the Senate, himself confirmed that Obama was swearing on his own, personal copy of the Bible.
Even well-meaning people get taken in by them. Recently, a Doper posted the “Obama is a Muslim” myth. Another Doper corrected him, saying that the guy’s not a Muslim any more. It took an additional poster to completely clear up the misconception. Obama is not and has never been a Muslim.
But the fact that people are using this as a slur (and reacting to it as such) really goes to show how enlightened Americans are.
Those falsehoods are in wide circulation where I work, too. I try to combat the more egregious ones (he’s a muslim, and he swore his oath of office on the Koran) but frankly against such entrenched and willful ignorance, Cecil himself contends in vain.
No, he’s his son. The rumor about McCain having an illegitimate black son was an error - it’s actually Cheney. There was a mixup because all bald white guys look alike.
Child porn? You kidding? You can’t* get * children to watch porn! At my local Big Bird Secular Humanist Day Care, they have an hour of porn a day on the Celebrate Perversity agenda, and the little buggers keep trying to change the channel! Why, I remember…(just a second…what?..WHAT?..are you *shitting * me?!..nobody, but nobody is sick enough to…oh, really…well…never mind.)
The easy thing in the world is to convince people of something they want to believe. It’s hardly just a conservative flaw, although they have it in abundance. I’m sure if I started a rumor that Dick Cheney had sold nuclear weapon secrets to North Korea, there’d be plenty of people who’d take my word for it.
Back when I was married, I was talking to one of the ladies at my wife’s church about cars. She piped up with, “I have a red vulva!” I’m almost 100% certain she meant Volvo. But I just had to say, “How many miles on it?”
