Thursday, June 19, 2008

The Truth About Barack Obama

Christopher Beam at Slate suggests an alternative to the Fight The Smears strategy.
Rather than restate untruths about Obama, the campaign would do better to start some rumors of its own. Here's a template e-mail the Obama campaign might consider disseminating.

For example
Barack Obama is a PATRIOTIC AMERICAN. He has one HAND over his HEART at all times. He occasionally switches when one arm gets tired, which is almost never because he is STRONG.

and
Barack Obama goes to church every morning. He goes to church every afternoon. He goes to church every evening. He is IN CHURCH RIGHT NOW.

(via KausFiles)


Update: at Peter Feld, Everything I needed to know, I learned from reading Jonathan Alter,
I guess we have reached the point where the possibility of someone being Muslim needs a Seinfeld disclaimer: “… not that there’s anything wrong with it.” [Ross] Perot didn’t hate Obama, he just thought he was a Muslim.

(via comment from TS to this later post)

17 comments:

  1. Didn't Senator Biden cover "dirty"?

    That aside, how about "SMEAR: Barack Obama is a Muslim; not that there's anything wrong with that."

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  2. Anonymous10:36 AM

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  3. Your suggested analogy appears susceptible to being understood as disrespectful to Muslims.

    Isn't "Smear" an accusation about motives of some people making the assertion, while "False" would still leave the impression to which you object?

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  4. Anonymous3:52 PM

    Are you really that dumb or just pretending to be?

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  5. Anonymous4:58 PM

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  6. "let us explain. You do not accuse someone of being something unless that something is bad."

    On the contrary, in the case of a "smear", it would be because you believe others will regard it as bad.

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  7. Anonymous12:39 PM

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  8. What I said was in response to your assertion that "You do not accuse someone of being something unless that something is bad."

    Are you now conceding that this is not necessarily the case in this context?

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  9. Anonymous10:20 PM

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  10. Suppose Senator McCain's website said "SMEAR: John McCain is not a natural born citizen of the United States."

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  11. Anonymous12:49 PM

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  12. The distinctions you now make are irrelevant to your former blanket assertion that "You do not accuse someone of being something unless that something is bad." In the the case I cited that something is to be "not a natural born citizen of the United States".

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  13. Anonymous1:19 PM

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  14. So you agree that to make an accusation that someone is "not a natural born citizen of the United States" does not necessarily imply that to be "not a natural born citizen of the United States" is, in itself, bad.

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  15. Anonymous3:49 PM

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  16. "If you accuse someone on not being a US citizen, it implies that US citizens are better than everybody else, which denigrates everybody else."

    If the accuser knows the accusation to be false, it could be called a smear.

    "However, the 'non-US citizen' group is to large and diverse to be stereotyped."

    So, for example, a word like "unAmerican" could not be used to stereotype?

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