February 2007

The Problem

ArchPundit February 7, 2007 31 Comments

Since the beginning of January I’ve been following the different attacks on Obama. They have something in common in that they start as rumors on the great internets. I’m the last person to say the internet isn’t useful for information, but the problem is that the stories start and then migrate.

Eric Zorn at one point said something to the effect that it isn’t 1997–but in 1997 this had already been occurring for several years, just with different technology and it was a bit slower. The Elder Bush having an affair. Clinton doing just about everything and anything.

Already this crap started to infiltrate the regular news media. Now, it happens really fast–take the Obama’s church advocates black supremacy. I found it in late December and posted it on January 2nd pointing out how incredibly dumb the story was, but that it would be the next story after the madrassa lies.

Some of it is simply decentralized crap–I take my Jerry Weller story as that and still feel like a huge dumbass for it. But I apologized, corrected it and bring it up to point out I don’t expect people to be perfect, but the serial lying that is going on isn’t just a bunch of isolated mistakes, but a clear and coherent strategy to attack politicians and get the press to put the allegations into print even if as denials.

Look at Tom Roeser and Illinois Review as great examples. Only yesterday, Illinois Review had John Ruskin claiming that Obama never fully explained his attendance at a madrassa. Of course, Obama attended a public school referred to as a sekhola and there couldn’t have been any Wahhabist funding as Ruskin claimed because that didn’t start happening in foreign schools (and the school in question is public anyway) until years later. Roeser is still blaming Obama for not being forthright even though Obama had written about the school in his books and only some crackpots raised any concern about it.

Look at the claims that Obama attends a black supremacist church. It was started by Fran Eaton at the Illinois Review and it made it into a Trib article with people warning that Obama had to fully explain the beliefs–even though I found an explanation on the Church’s web site.

Look at the smear yesterday on Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson from the same site.

There’s a theme here and it’s replayed over and over again in different settings. There is an infrastructure that gets right wing memes covered and the press covers it. As I’ve said, the Weller thing happened the other way and I was largely at fault for that, but there’s a key difference in that I issue corrections and apologize and don’t keep the lies alive. How many more times during this campaign are we going to be hearing about Obama having some tie to Islamist elements? Or that he attends a far left church? Or that the Democrats had some guy who stood with Paul Wolfowitz say a prayer and so clearly the Democrats are crazy?

UPDATE: And let’s not forget the post comparing Obama to Barbaro on Illinois Review just as they were putting Barbaro down/Update

Part of this is Democrats’ fault for not fighting back consistently, but part of it is a realization of what the game is on the right wing now. We had the attacks on Kerry with Malkin claiming Kerry got his purple heart by shooting himself. Chris Mathews called her on it, but she still shows up on my teevee. Why?

We have CNN covering a lie about Nancy Pelosi and ‘her’ requests for a bigger jet even though non-partisan House staff already pointed out the story is false.

Why is this crap being allowed to make the news? It’s not that some innocent mistakes are made, it’s that even when shown wrong, the stories continue along without ever being corrected and make it into the news over and over again.

The Tribune did a long rebuttal to the Swift Boating of Kerry. It was authoritative. How many of these sites still tell that story is true?

Don’t Back Down

ArchPundit February 7, 2007 1 Comment

While the blogs are a flutter with whether another Amanda Marcotte is being fired by the Edwards campaign, let’s point out what’s going on.

The effort to get Edwards to fire Marcotte is from one of the biggest idiots on the planet, William Donahue of the Catholic League. If you criticize Bill, you are anti-Catholic. And lot’s more like:

* “Name for me a book publishing company in this country, particularly in New York, which would allow you to publish a book which would tell the truth about the gay death style.” [MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, 2/27/04]

* “The gay community has yet to apologize to straight people for all the damage that they have done.” [MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, 4/11/05]

* Addressing former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) in a press release, Donohue said: “[W]hy didn’t you just smack the clergyman in the face? After all, most 15-year-old teenage boys wouldn’t allow themselves to be molested. So why did you?” [10/4/06]

* “I’m saying if a Catholic votes for Kerry because they support him on abortion rights, that is to cooperate in evil.” [MSNBC’s Hardball, 10/21/04]

* “We’ve already won. Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It’s not a secret, OK? And I’m not afraid to say it. … Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost.” [MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, 12/8/04]

* “Well, look, there are people in Hollywood, not all of them, but there are some people who are nothing more than harlots. They will do anything for the buck. They wouldn’t care. If you asked them to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face.” [MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, 2/9/06]

It’s kind of like one person embodying all of Illinois Review, and apparently the Edwards campaign might just do what he wants. The other person primarily pushing it is Michelle Malkin. She publishes on V-Dare amongst other sites. It also publishes Jared Taylor of the American Renaissance and celebrates Sam Francis. V-Dare is at the very center of modern white supremacy and the movement supporting it.

If you can’t stand up to those two, who can the campaign stand up to?

And to the media? Why are Donahue and Malkin given any credibility? Why don’t you start putting Indymedia columnists on the news to balance them out? Because that’s only a start to how far left you’d have to go to find a similar voice.

Secret Plans

ArchPundit February 6, 2007 1 Comment

Why Henry Kissinger is allowed out to scare small children is beyond me, but the Secret Plan discussion with Obama is just hysterical:

“I am convinced, but I cannot base it on any necessary evidence right now,” Kissinger told the senators, “that the president will want to move toward a bipartisan consensus” to stabilize Iraq through diplomacy.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was suspicious of such assurances. “Is there any place that you’re familiar with where the administration has articulated this strategy?” he asked.

“I don’t know any place where the administration has articulated this particular strategy,” the octogenarian diplomat admitted. But he added: “From my acquaintances with some of the people, I think it is possible that they will come to this strategy.”

Obama asked Kissinger if “you are suggesting that they have some secret strategy that we have not been made privy to.”

“I would be disappointed and surprised,” he reiterated, “if they did not accept some of the elements of what has been discussed here.”

The world goes beyond parody.

Today’s Tosser

ArchPundit February 6, 2007 1 Comment

John Ruskin at the Illinois Review:

But the fact is, words are cheap. And Obama’s words don’t comport with his actions. He’s failed to condemn the hateful words of Al-Husainy. He’s failed to condemn the hateful words of his “spiritual adviser” (Obama’s words) Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Instead, calling him [Wright] “moderate” and “tolerant” within the context of the African-American experience. And Sun Times Kool-Aid drinkers aside, he’s failed to fully explain how his boyhood madrassa – run by Wahhabists – was “moderate” or “tolerant” as defined by average Americans.

Lying sack of crap.

Let’s start this again. The Saudi expansion of Wahhabist madrassas occurred starting in the 1970s when Obama would have been in Hawaii. This is a simple fact that historical literacy would make obvious.

Second, it wasn’t a madrassa. It was a sekhola–and a public school at that.

Third, radical Islam didn’t have any serious presence in Indonesia.

Fourth, we have yet to identify any hateful words uttered by Jeremiah Wright unless by hateful one means doesn’t like Dear Leader.

Fifth, to the Chicago press. This is where the anti-Obama stories are starting before they make it into your news stories. Do you see the problem?

Of course, Husham al-Husainy’s background is a bit more complex than Debbie Schlussel or Ruskin would have you believe. Like in pushing Iraqis to make a civic pilgrimmage to vote in the Iraqi elections and appeared at a rally supporting the war with Paul Wolfowitz.

That’s some bad judgment all right.