Last night I wasn’t beating anyone. Last night I was in jail.
Whoops!
I agree with this. When I go to Fight the Smears, the first thing I see is
in big letters. If I didn’t know about the accusation (which is conceivable), then the idea would be forcibly pushed into my head. Now I might wonder if indeed Michelle Obama were a racist, and to find out I could do a google search – find some conservative websites – assume I’m not too savvy; my friends have already wondered aloud whether Obama could be a Muslim – and it’s not too long before I’ve convinced myself that the Obamas really do hate white people.
Well, for one thing, their website reported his website. It’s the third article down, this morning, and may drop lower. It includes a denial of the ‘whitey’ story with appropriate head-shaking over internet rumors.
I don’t watch Fox News on TV, so I don’t know how they covered the story.
I like the idea on first glance, but it does worry me. Someone dumb enough to believe “Obama gives terrorist fist jabs to his wife” probably isn’t going to find their way to Obama’s site (if they can even use a computer). And even if they did, they’d just assume that Obama’s tubes are just part of the plot.
Obviously, there are shades of gray in there, but I think FTS will get more hits from SDMBers looking for cites than people whose minds will actually be changed.
It’s not really aimed at those who would believe anything bad about Obama: it’s aimed at his supporters, and at those in the middle, who can be persuaded either way.
They aren’t expected to “find” the site. It’s primarily there for supporters to send people to when they learn that someone believes one of the smears that we all know are going around.
And you might be surprised by how many otherwise-intelligent people will believe something they’ve heard, just because someone they trust told them, and they can’t find anything to dispute it. I had a huge argument with my step-mother, a college educated (masters degree), world-traveled woman, who bought into the smears about Obama’s supposed “associations” with anti-Semites based on an article she’d be sent by someone she trusted.
However, she didn’t just believe it without “confirmation”, she actually contacted a close friend who apparently “researched” this information by contacting someone they knew at AIPAC, who, when they declined to comment, decided that there must be truth in it. And once it was secured in her mind that she’d done the due diligence necessary and couldn’t find any refutations (obviously not being savvy enough to “google” things on her own), and it came from someone she trusted implicitly, it must all be true.
It prompted me to write a blog post of my own, dispelling all of the nonsense she’d bought into. I think having a Barack Obama Snopes page is a brilliant idea, not only because it’s (sadly) needed, but because most people wouldn’t take the kind of time and effort to do the independent research I did to debunk the lies themselves, but would love to be able to quickly and easily access a place where all that work has already been done, to which they could point people.
The smears or the anti-smears?
The smears are firmly aimed at the knee-jerk reactionary-types who wouldn’t have voted for Obama in a million years anyways. They’re a way of shoring up the base, and if they can get spread by word-of-mouth as well as through viral emails, so much the better. It’s not like McCain is going to be saying them in his stump speech. You’re not looking for people who use logic to consider things; you’re looking to keep people whispering, and it’s damn effective because it’s damn tough to fight.
Emotional voters don’t care about logic; they usually have just 1 mainline issue or at most two, and the rest is just what they feel. These are the ones who voted for Bush because he seemed like a good man, who voted for Nader because he seemed so earnest, who voted for Clinton because he was handsome and dynamic compared to Bush I. They don’t know, and care less, about policy or anything else, and those voters are effectively swayed by rumor and innuendo.
As for the anti-smears, I think it’s basically an amateur mistake. Putting the smears on yet another site gives them far too much credence, and I think it’s an error to even justify these baseless rumors with a response. I think Obama’s worried about his wife getting dragged into a prize fight, and she’s a lot less of a politician than he is - I reckon he’s worried that she’s gonna loose her cool and do some damage herself which will be far harder to ignore, more than that the rumors would gain any traction with anyone likely to vote for him in the first place.
That is NOT the way presidential politics works. Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign would respond to any and every negative story in a heartbeat. He won the election. Michael Dukakis and John Kerry did not respond to negative stories in a timely or effective manner, and they LOST.
I see it as the political equivalent of talkorigins.org You’ll never put a stop to the idiocy, but it is a simple to use and reliable single source of facts refuting the rumors. I also think that when all the rumors are listed in one place they seem far fewer than when they are floating around.
I do wish, though, that they weren’t using words like “sleazemeister”.
-FrL-
One thing, at least the site is set up better than Snopes.
There is a lot of great information on Snopes, but the pop ups and boxes opening in multiple windows drives me crazy.
I realize that’s the idea; I’m just more pessimistic than to as to the types that’d need the links in the first place.
This supports both sides pretty equally, depending on whether you believe your racist uncle Jimbo who still thinks the Messicans will destroy society, or your gay uncle who teaches at Cal.
Did it work?
Of course, I suppose it can’t do any real bad, and if it gets even a handful of votes it’d be worth it. Not like Obama’s campaign is hurting for man-hours.
Well, it certainly “works” in strengthening my favorable impression of Obama, as a stand-up guy who isn’t going to stoop to negative campaigning, but isn’t going to just suck it up while people spread lies and unfounded innuendo about him either.
The more I see, the more I like.
I don’t get into this aspect of politics much, but could folk direct me to “smears” of this type aimed at McCain? If they don’t exist (as I suspect), why might that be?
I cannot find many but I found this one which is sleazy.
Of course I have seen nothing that has gotten traction or the press coverage that the smears Obama has had to deal with. Any explanation I can come up with here feels like tin foil hattery so I’ll leave it be but it is not as if there is no grist for the smear mill versus McCain to be had.
Your huge and capital letters, they have convinced me. I stand in awe.
Clinton won for more reasons than just that he responded to every negative rumor, and Kerry and Dukakis lost for more reasons than they didn’t respond.
Because Karl Rove likes McCain?
But surely smearing has been SOP for both sides? There’s the Bush / stupid smear, for instance; he’s not - his academic record was better than Kerry’s. Then there’s the Dan Rather memo about his National Guard service.
Now, that’s not to say smearing is good - far from it - but how a candidate deals with smears is very telling. And Obama is IMO doing the right thing by getting on top of the problem right away.
But before he “liked” McCain, Rove smeared McCain in 2000 with rumors of an illegitimate black child.
Makes a good smear if you’re a heartland ‘values’ Republican, I guess.
Some of them make me kind of sad. I know Obama’s not a Muslim, but who cares if he is? Should it matter that he’s a committed Christian? I mean, obviously, some people do care, but it is a bit depressing to read.
No. It’s an occasional opportunistic thing for Dems but has evolved into SOP for Pubs. More of Rove’s legacy. It’s even developed into a cottage industry, as described in the Nation article linked in the OP.
Nevertheless, he is stupid, as you know. A bit smarter than the average American, perhaps, FWIW – at least, few have MBA’s – but waaaaaay dumber than the average president, and way dumber than Kerry. Academic performance is not always a reliable indicator. I’m now convinced W is even dumber than Reagan.