The Obama Smear Campaign

Yes, I’m staying mostly away from political chatter; I live in a red state, and while I’m not exactly liberal I’m not exactly all the way over to the right, either. I disagree to some degree with both sides, and often agree with both sides, too. I took this neat little quiz at mydebates.org, which is actually a MySpace page, and found that I agree with Obama on 8 key issues, McCain on 2, and I think they’re both wrong on two others. So it looks like, at least according to what he says, I’m leaning Obama, as hard as that may be for some of my friends and family to hear. Of course, it’ll be great to see either of them actually follow through with their campaign promises, but you know how that goes. I guess it just boils down to me hoping I’m not voting for the next Hoover, the economy being the way it is.

But what’s really giving me a lot of consternation right now is the smear campaign the conservatives are throwing at Obama. It’s a grass roots movement of people who’ll vote Republican even if Satan was running on their ticket, who are slandering Obama really quite mercilessly. And they’re not just saying that he’s wrong for the job (which he might be), that he lacks experience (which he does) or that his plans won’t work (they may well not); no, they’re saying that he’s in cahoots with terrorists and that this nation’s conservative Christian majority will quickly be overrun by Islam if he’s voted into office. I’ve even read one account where they’re actually accusing him of murdering naturally-birthed babies.

Smear campaigns like that tend to have the opposite effect on me than intended. My suspicion is that for people who’re on the fence, like me, who don’t vote like sheep because a candidate wears a certain lapel pin animal, smear campaigns like this tend to drive them away from the people doing the smearing. By accusing Obama of such ridiculous, fantastic conspiracies, all they really do is make me seek out the truth. And the truth, more times than not, is there, if you look hard enough.

I don’t claim to know Obama, the way he thinks, what he believes or anything else. But I don’t believe conservative Christians do, either, so to make outlandish accusations and attacks on his character is just too hard for me to believe. Evidently, I am in the minority on this, though. Because I know a good many of my fellow Alabamians, as well as people from all across the nation, who are reading these grossly exaggerated claims and impossible scenarios and are believing them at gospel. Take this email, for instance, which I’ve gotten at least half a dozen times:

From Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.”

From Dreams of My Father: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother?s race.”

From Dreams of My Father: “There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”

From Dreams of My Father: “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.”

From Dreams of My Father:  “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, Dubois and Mandela.”

From Audacity of Hope: ‘I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.’

From Dreams of My Father: ‘I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.’

The first time I got that email, I shrugged, figuring it to be fictional. I haven’t read either of his books, so I couldn’t say for sure, but it just looked like something somebody made up. But then I got the email again, and again, and the people sending it to me were friends and acquaintances who have evidently bought this garbage hook, line and sinker. And I call it garbage because that’s what it is. Snopes.com investigated it and found it to be either completely fictionalized, quoted from a source other than Obama, or presented out of context.

Maybe it’s just that they want McCain to win so badly that they’re willing to believe anything at all about Obama, that they’re willing to spread slander as much as they can in hopes that other sheep will believe it too. Well, sorry, folks, but I’m voting based on the issues at hand, in my hopes that the candidate will actually follow through with some of them. I don’t believe that the President of the USA can single handedly bring about the downfall of the nation; there are too many stopgaps in place even if he tried. I don’t believe he wants too, any way. And for all of you who say that this country was founded on Christianity and conservative values, you’re wrong again. This country was founded on the belief of freedom of religion. Besides, I don’t even know–nor care–what the man’s religious beliefs are. And I don’t care to hear anyone else who obviously don’t know speculate about it.

It’s all moot anyway. McCain gave his big push, brought in the hotty from Alaska and made his best stand, but he won’t win. So solly, Chollie, but democracy is about to win out.

Not that I would mind McCain winning, mind you. I don’t think either one of these men represent any great evil, despite what both sides would have me believe.