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With a flurry of internet rumors abounding and some misrepresentations by the press, the Obama campaign today launched a website dedicated to putting out the truth, as the Obama camp sees it, concerning some of these rumors and claims.
Story from Yahoo News:
WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign said Thursday that Michelle Obama never used the word “whitey” in a speech from the church pulpit as he launched a Web site to debunk rumors about himself and his wife.
The rumor that Michelle Obama railed against “whitey” in a diatribe at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ has circulated on conservative Republican blogs for weeks and was repeated by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The rumor included claims of a videotape of the speech that would be used to bring down Obama’s candidacy this fall.
“No such tape exists,” the campaign responds on the site, http://www.fightthesmears.com. “Michelle Obama has not spoken from the pulpit at Trinity and has not used that word.”
The site is a response to the realities of a brave new world, where information travels 24 hours a day on blogs and voters are increasingly turning to the Internet for information. It’s a particular problem for Obama, a relative newcomer to national politics who is still unknown to many voters and has been the target of persistent misinformation campaigns online.
In another sign of the campaign moving into the general election race, the Democratic National Committee’s spokeswoman said Thursday its political and field operations are relocating to Chicago, where Obama’s campaign is based. While other departments will remain in Washington, it’s an effort to streamline the campaign and party efforts in one strategy instead of the overlapping efforts of past presidential elections.
E-mails about Obama rank No. 2 on the list of “Hottest Urban Legends” on snopes.com, an Internet rumor-debunking site, behind e-mail greeting cards that could expose computers to viruses.
You can check the site out at FightTheSmears.com.
A sample from the site:
Well, technically Obama was born to a Muslim father which, by Muslim tradition, automatically makes him a Muslim. He wasn’t raised Muslim and he didn’t attend a madrassa, but he was technically “born” a Muslim.
The Obama campaign must have determined that these rumors would have legs considering the Rev. Wright controversy and other nefarious characters surrounding his campaign. They are taking the offense on these issues which I think they absolutely have to do if they want to shut them down by November.
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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Thanks for addressing the rumors about Michelle Obama. The very idea that she would deliver such an address to a crowd at her church is absurd. But I can see that, considering Trinity’s host of controversial speakers, where someone might get the juice to start such a rumor.
By the way, Nate, are you planning on covering this recent New York Times article? Here’s a link and an excerpt from the article:
The issue of foreign lobbying has flared up in the current presidential campaign because of past dealings abroad by several former lobbyists working for Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.
For instance, a lobbying firm owned by Rick Davis, the McCain campaign manager, has worked in recent years for a Ukraine politician, Viktor Yanukovich. Both Mr. McCain and the Bush administration supported the opponent of Mr. Yanukovich, who had close ties to Vladimir V. Putin, then the president of Russia and now prime minister.
During this time, however, Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis Manafort, never registered as a lobbyist for Mr. Yanukovich even though Paul Manafort, Mr. Davis’s business partner, had met with the United States ambassador in Kiev on Mr. Yanukovich’s behalf.
In a related development, Mr. McCain may have first become aware of Davis Manafort’s activities in Ukraine as far back as 2005. At that time, a staff member at the National Security Council called Mr. McCain’s Senate office to complain that Mr. Davis’s lobbying firm was undercutting American foreign policy in Ukraine, said a person with direct knowledge of the phone call who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A campaign spokesman, when asked whether such a call had occurred, referred a reporter to Mr. McCain’s office. The spokesman there, Robert Fischer, did not respond to repeated inquiries.
Such a call might mean that Mr. McCain has been long aware of Mr. Davis’s foreign clients. Mr. Davis took a leave from his firm at the end of 2006.
http://www.nytimes.com/20.....agent.html
Not to be stirring the pot here, but the rumors I’ve read about the Obama “whitey” tape didn’t say she was in the pulpit at the church. I won’t say what I read because that WOULD be stirring the pot.
Good article Nate, except that I don’t see this as Obama going on the offense, but rather the defense.
Good move though, but I think it may serve to just bring the old rumors back to light again for many who have put them to rest.
I dont want to see a NY times article on this website, it is one of the most biased newspapers out there and now many will say it is liberal propoganda.
For the LIE about him being raised a muslim, how come in his own book he says he was raised for his younger life by his muslim dad, as a muslim. That does not make sense.
I just thought it was an interesting article that could bode trouble for the McCain camp if true.
I read Obama’s book, and Obama’s father left his mother when he was two. So Obama was raised as a Christian by his mother and his grandparents.
Oh thanks Michelle, maybe some of my conservative friends have been telling me wrong info. Thanks for letting me know this so I dont look like an idiot some where else. :). About the NY TIMEs i just have problems with them, I will always read a John McCain article, but just how the times presents them and the evidence they use to back them up is usually hearsay, and I dont like that about them.
I’ll admit that I am pretty open to “liberal media” (I’ve been known to read The Nation), but I will always look for facts as well. Even the article I mentioned speculates about McCain’s connection, it doesn’t offer solid proof that he knew about this well before it came out.
What a weird day, everyone’s getting along!
Michelle, since you’re the only person I know on site that owns Obama’s book, could you do me a favor and put this audio clip from “Audacity of Hope” into context for me? It’s on one of the clinton/mccain websites, and was used to show Obama quoting Rev. Wright about “white folks greed runs a world in need” from one of his sermons, but then it cuts off, leaving me to wonder the context. I doubt it is as it sounds, but I’d like to hear the “rest of the story”. Can you help?
http://www.clintons4mccai.....Obama1.MP3
Michelle,
Obama was not raised Christian. His mother was non-religeous and step-father was atheist. He did not find Jesus until he joined Rev. Wrights church.
Stalin,
You are correct, although I was pretty sure his grandparents were religious and had a hand in his upbringing.
Babs,
I listened to the quote, and my eyebrows indeed furrowed when I heard Obama quote back Reverend Wright. Although cosidering Wright’s past, it’s not all too surprising that he would say that.
I have either never read this before or do not remember it, so are you sure it was the Audacity of Hope or was it Dreams of My Father? I’ve read the former, but am busting it back out to see if I missed anything.
Comment on Michelle’s comment concerning:
“…considering Trinity’s host of controversial speakers…”
This is an interesting observation and you “almost” have a point. As a former member of Trinity, I can tell you that not all of our speakers were controversial. There were some excellent preachers coming through Trinity. In fact, I have a theory based on one of our speakers style, Rudy McKissick, that Michelle or someone at Trinity could have started talking in his style and to the untrained ear sounded like they were saying “Whitey, Whitey, Whitey”. I blogged about it in a piece called “Whitey and the Almighty”.
So, if there is a tape, i’ll bet you it is some one using McKissick’s style of preaching and the opposition playing up this ‘mis-hearing” up as a racial slur.