"I am not a prejudice person"

Awesome.  Along the same lines, I am not a pimp, even though I would love to repeatedly pimpslap any little old lady who has forwarded this to her friends.

The funny thing is that the smear artists may out do themselves. If they go too far (and this is clearly too far), they'll start to discredit earlier smears that were cleverly authored.

The other smears were always even-tempered (relatively) and they included the phrase, "I checked this on Snopes.com. It's all true!" or something like that.

BTW: this email is hilarious. I'm forwarding it around.

What's the best way for a campaign -- any campaign -- address this kind of subterranean negative rumor?  I'm a believer in the disinfecting powers of sunshine, so I'd love to see a series of ads or YouTube spots on the theme "You May Have Heard . . . " that takes these claims on directly in an eye-catching way, one by one.  The charges are ridiculous, so many of the rebttals could be funny and memorable, and it's always more effective to make your opponents look ridiculous.   But of course people are more likely to believe _anything_ they've heard frequently, even if they've heard it being contradicted.  So the question is, how do you know when scurrilous rumors are already being heard so often that the benefit of addressing them directly is worth the cost?  

Obama scares the writer why? Is the guy afraid Obama will make molesting small forest animals illegal? Isn't it already? OK OK except in Arkansas isn't it already illegal.

I love the  HE WAS SCHOOLED line as well, given all of the other grammatical errors in the email I can't believe the writer graduated from any school himself.

Before long, well before the fall campaign, he'll be inoculated. The crazy right made the same mistake with the Clintons. Outside of catching her in a hot tub with Osama, what else can they say about Hillary. It doesn't matter in her case, she has a genius for self-destruction, but he has shown no inclination to lie every time he opens his mouth.

I get a lot of these type emails from my great-aunt.  90 years old and loves email (God bless her).  Each one is like a little present of paranoia, mindless Republican propaganda, knee-jerk patriotism, and JESUS!JESUS!JESUS!, all wrapped up in a single email forward.  I enjoy each and every one of them.

akb1, the best way to counter this type of attack is to counter it head-on, but never, NEVER repeat the slander, not even in the form of "you may have heard ..." or "it's just not true that ..." Research has shown that any repetition, even negative repetition, reinforces perceptions of the truth of a falsehood. So when someone says to you, "You're a Muslim," you don't say, "No, I am not a Musim." You say, "I'm a devout Christian, a member of the United Church of Christ, and I believe that Jesus Christ is my lord and savior." You counter with new, contrary information, stated positively. You never, ever, repeat the charge.

Reminds me of that email about McCain: "The man who would be 'Commander in Chief' could not even command an aircraft, managing to lose it in a tropical paradise.  He spent five years as the guests of Communist in a luxury hotel, the Hanoi Hilton, and when offered a ticket home, he decided to stay and enjoy traditional Asian hospitality.  And then, he came back to America, only to get on the public trough." ...

This is one of those emails that personifies the inherent characteristics of the people who hold latent biases towards anyone that doesn't fit into their small world view of racial superiority, religiosity, cultural ignorance, lack of curiosity and education all qualified by the "I'm not prejudice but..." statement. I know people like this who really have no reason to think these things beyond long standing prejudices against the 'other'. These people also still harbor ill feelings about the Confederates losing the war.

Statements they don't make in public, but make in private or just simply let slip like "That black lady is a terrible drive" (even though they don't know if the person driving the vehicle ahead is black or a lady.

"Those lazy Mexicans make our public schools bad."

"Catholics want to take over America."

"Liberals hate God and America."

"Indians got what they deserved, besides they're just a bunch of drunks."

"Asians are dirty because they life 15 to  house and don't speak English."

"Jamaicans are why the crime rate is so high here in town."

I'm on a few e-mail distribution lists from old acquaintances back in Missouri.  I've seen countless e-mails just like this.  I'd criticize more broadly, but like the author of the e-mail, I am not a prejudice person.

Whatever cretin wrote that screed can't even spell correctly.  They could have used a bit of those high-priced schools.

Turn off the all-caps lock and that could be a post from some of the blog's more ardent HRC supporters.

Re: rebutting the charge without repeating the charge, and re: where's his whilte grandmorther (and the rest of his family, for that matter):

Obama has a new ad up in PA:

www.politico.com/.../Obama_Maya.html

Worth seeing.

See, I am a prejudice person.  I myself am not prejudiced (except against Azeris- I can't really explain it either), but I really admire prejudice.  

Ahh, crazy email forwards from distant relations and/or questionable friends.  They contain valuable information on Presidential candidates, companies that don't support the troops, and various alternate usages for common household goods.  As an added bonus, they often offer the opportunity for your computer to join the prestigious "Storm" or "Kraken" botnets.  Where would we be without them?

As usual, the Onion covered it first: www.theonion.com/.../e_mail_from_aunt_accidentally.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but, um...   ARKANSAS?!?

Rhubarbs, I like your best-of-both-worlds strategy.  One can rebut the charges point by point without giving them an extra hearing.  Clearly more ads along the lines of the one timteeter linked to will be needed; I only wish we could be beginning the national strategy now instead of having to wait until June.

It's not just in Arkansas. I'm a blue-state liberal Jew currently living in Cambridge, Mass, and I get emails like this from people I know every couple days.

Well, this may not be sufficiently refined for your taste.  But it goes to the "exotic" quotient in Obama's background that I have pointed out on these pages.

What this is really about is that, despite his two autobiographies, Obama is something of an unknown.  If Obama makes history by getting elected, the real new thing will not be that he is black, it will be that it is hitherto unheard of for a president to be elected whose family had not been on this continent for about three generations or more.

The little old ladies may have put it crudely, but people have a right to have a very firm idea of where their president is "coming from" both literally and figureatively.  

Americans have not historically wanted an "internationalist" president, they've wanted an American president.  And they want to know exactly what influences have been consequential in a president's upbringing.

If, for instance, Obama has been influenced by some early exposure to Muslim schools in Indonesia, that may or may not be something we should be sanguine about.

dang,

I was wondering what O'Channy has been doing with his spare time...

ChanRobt,

Um, the Muslim school thing in Indonesia was debunked many months ago.  You probably know that but just couldn't resist the chance at a baseless smear of Obama.

Channy has a point.

Americans vote comfort. Obama, an "exotic,' makes a lot of folks uncomfortable. That is perfectly natural, common, and traditional. The question is, why?

Think of the mind of the author of this email. It is like barren soil. Do you criticize the farm worker for pulling withered crops from barren soil? Instead, add some compost before you sew.

Elitism is the enemy of both liberalism and conservatism, yet in my lifetime I have seen both ideologies succumb to the same enemy. One would think that liberals would have paid attention when conservatives got suckered in, and vice versa. If you don't like someone's opinion, don't mock it or begrudge it; instead, educate them. Or do you believe that only you possess the soundness of judgment to glean enlightenment from such education?

Much of our political system is flawed, because much of us is flawed. Bigotry and ignorance are reprehensible. So is assuming that one is somehow above such weaknesses. So is being too lazy, insular, or just goddamn superior to do the dirty work of reaching out to those with whom we disagree and taking them on, point by point.

In the end, such holier than thou tripe is undemocratic. It presumes the superiority of one person's opinion over that of another, which is anathema to true democracy.

I disagree with the author of the anti-Obama tirade, but he or she has just as much right as I to express such an opinion, and the synergy between that opinion and mine is, by democracy's definition, superior to anything either of us could construe on our own, so I thank the unknown author for expressing it.

EricWitte, as I understand it, Obama did attend a Muslim school, but it was not a "Madrassa".  This may be the distinction between a public school in a Muslim country and a parochial school run by Muslims.  

Once again, my main point is, for an American president, Obama's background is exotic.  For an American president, he is new in the country in generational terms.  This is based on historic comparisons.

But, the even bigger point is, compared to presidential candidates of the past, Obama has more blanks.  Things about his background that are murky.  At least, comparatively.

We ask presidential candidates about everything else, right down practically to a urine sample.  It is not unusual in this era for people to want to know everything.

BillyYard, not merely because you supported something I said, but very nice post.

There really is an off-putting elitism in this and other articles of its ilk.  The old city-country thing.  The cosmopolitans vs the ordinary folks.  

People have different perspectives based on their personal experience.  Or, in my case maybe, despite my personal experience.

Not everybody agrees that what the sophisticates think is sophisticated necessarily is.

Sometimes it takes more brains and nuance to say that in certain instances there is black and white and not gray.  Or that gray is the way of people who don't have the zotz to make hard decisions.

And, it's interesting how often people who say it's wrong to "make value judgements" are perfectly happy to make value judgements against unprotected groups.  Like white rural people in the South.

oh my God channy, my son went to a chinese preschool for one year, does he need reverse brainwashing? um...Obama was 6 to 10. And it was at a Public school, Americans teach English at such schools, white, Christian Americans, look at Daves ESL and you can see how many there are.

I want to Parochial school for 14 years and all the wizardry of the nuns never turned me into a good boy. Or are Catholics still suspect as being papists?

white rural people in the South have been disenfranchised? news to me. Oh wait, people make jokes about them (including their making jokes about themselves like Jeff Foxworthy) and now we have to go out and protect them? Anyone can make any jokes about New Jersey they like, and they can make whatever value judgments they want about the state. Shithole that it is, at least most people in New Jersey know it as such and are willing to laugh about it.

And Channy, you are confusing not making value judgments with peoples personal behavior (you know, the whole throw the first stone Jeebus thingy) with making value judgments about public policy.

Blackie, 6 to 10 are some of the most impressionable years in your life.  Catholic priests used to be fond of saying, give me a kid for five years at those ages and we'll have a Catholic for life.  You resisted.  And, the axiom is that converts are more Catholic than the Catholics.

Your son could probably survive a Chinese pre-school without coming out a cadre leader.  

People have a right to ask every kind of damn question about someone who wants to be President of the United States.  He's not just trying to get a SVP job at Alcoa.  He's not just one vote in a Senate of 100.  He's not a cabinet member who can be fired.

The president is in for four years and is almost impossible to remove while alive and in control of his bladder.  Even if not in control of his bladder.

It is the most sensitive position on the planet with a potential to profoundly affect every last America, maybe every last denizen of the planet.

If people want to be damn sure that Obama's Indonesian stepfather didn't tell him all Americans are infidels or something during a large portion of his impressiionable years, then they have that right.

A president or candidate for that office doesn't have the same right to privacy that you or I have.  He is expected to show his goddamn tax returns.  Why is that our business.  If a president has a hemorrhoids removed, we all get to know.

I'm not sure I want to know, but we get to.  So, if young Obama had his brain messed with, or maybe had his brain messed with, or some guy in a turban fussed with him, we all get to know.

Nothing left to chance, if we can help it.  

blackie, don't be disingenuous.  If someone says that ignorant black people are ignorant, he's a racist.  If someone says illegal Mexican immigrants are illegal, he's a xenophobic nativist know-nothing.  If someone say's some white dude living in a trailer park is redneck white trash, he's got a sitcom.

Very interesting post!  I think a deconstruction of such e-mails (err, propaganda) would be interesting to see.  For instance are the grammar/spelling mistakes intentional?  Why all capital letters?  I find that alone makes this almost unbearable to read but does it strike an emotional chord with some?  I wonder if these different variables have been poll tested by someone like Frank Lutz.  Overall, I found this e-mail lacked visceral impact owing mostly to it trying to fit too many different themes into one incoherent whole.

How nice to have the e-mail posted here.  

Among my ancestors was someone who arrived in this country before it was this country (from Germany in 1748) and another who left Scotland in the 1830s.  Oddly enough, I do not consider that this makes me more qualified to be President than anyone else.  

On the other hand, I have spent a bit of time abroad, traveling, studying, teaching, and working for the US government (in the Soviet Union, no less).  As far as I'm concerned, I've got more relevant foreign experience than McCain, Clinton, or Obama, and I still don't think I'm more qualified to be President than any of them.

The problem with  your postings, Chan, is that you don't address the point of the viral e-mail, which doesn't (despite it's form) ask questions or engage in debate, but makes questionable assertions with an unnerving certainty.  "We ask presidential candidates about everything else, right down practically to a urine sample.  It is not unusual in this era for people to want to know everything."  Do you really think the author of this e-mail was merely requesting further background information or clarification from Obama?  This is viral hate mail, not a request for an interview.

In any case, I like exotic, both in my food and in my candidates. If other people are put off by that, well, too damn bad.  For them.

This email is just sad, but what would be sadder is someone else actually passing it along to someone else, either it's because they agree with it, or if they just think it's absurd.  In my book, passing it along is the worse offense.

Anyway, I have an interesting take on the Rev Wright "controversy".  I think that when people suggest that Rev Wright is an issue to white americans (and some black americans) that it primarily depends on geography.  Let me explain.

First of all, I was born and raised in the south (New Orleans prior to 2005, Dallas, Tx currently). My mother lives in Ohio, my father lived in Oklahoma.  I see all the outrage about Rev Wright as a basically a difference between Northern and Southern view of race relations.

Let's face it, many of the Civil Rights struggle and movement occurred in the South,  yes it occured in the North as well, but primarily in the South did it really bubble up from the surface.  Therefore there has been a long history of "mistrust", between White and Blacks (originally, but now this includes Latinos, but not as much in many Southern states except maybe Texas).  Unlike in the South where there was racism was on display for all to see,  in the North, is seemed to be more hidden, bubbling below the surface.  

It seems to me that because of this legacy of  "mistrust" and segregation (mistrust on both sides, segregation primarily from one side) many Southerners were not as shocked by what Rev Wright had to say as some might believe.  It just fed into what some Southerners (NOT ALL, but a good number) believe to be true about the Black church experience in the South.  So it did not "color" there ideas about Obama  It doesn't matter if they planned to vote for Obama before Rev Wright, but it just helped to re-enforce whatever stereotypes may have worked for them.

On the other hand, it seems that in the North, race and racism is spoken in hushed tones.  As I said, it's hidden beneath the surface, so many Northern whites (and others, NOT ALL)  were extremely outraged by what Rev Wright said.  "Oh my God, have you ever head such a thing?" "Do all Black churches do this".  "How can he sit and listen to this..."  They basically can't believe this is going on at all.  Let's face it, they can't even own up to using race as a strategy up north, they like to call it the "Southern Race strategy".  Northerners are just not used to it, unless it's in states or areas where there is more diversity amongst neighbors, and race relations come into play (such as in politics)

Anyway, that's my take.

DISCLAIMER: This take is based on the premise that people are outraged about the Wright issue, and therefore won't vote for Obama because of it.  Also, I'm not saying all Black pastors speak in such frank terms as Rev Wright did, but I can tell you as a person who went to Catholic school for years, but was raised Baptist/Spritual, that it doesn't happen every Sunday, but it does happen more often than some realize that preachers say things that may make certain sections of the population upset.

timteeter, I am not saying you have to have Mayflower ancestors on both sides to be eligible for the presidency.  

I'm not saying you couldn't have be birthed on Malibu beach by a woman who just swam off a tramp steamer from Shanghai and not be eligible.

I am saying that if you look at every president going back to G. Washington, they are the children of families that have been here awhile.

What I am saying is voters have traditionally cared about such thing, but probably not on a very conscious level.  I don't think there are many people sitting around looking at genealogies of presidential candidates.  Nor would that be a diligence to wish for.

But, I do think it is legitimate to not want a lot of mysteries in ones president and to have a clear sense of what that person's influences are an have been.

Frankly, there are a lot of people who would keep an eyebrow cocked at anyone who has hung around too long in the vicinity of the Harvard Liberal Arts faculty.  And Harvard has been around since the 17th Century.

The email that set off this article is not a very respectable looking document.  I don't know if is the work of a sophisticated agent provocateur or of some granny with a whiskey still in her back yard.

If a serious presidential candidate has immediate relatives (first cousins, grandparents) in a foreign country whether it's Kenya or Austria or Taiwan or North Korea, it's fair to want to know a bit about them.

I can guarantee you, if you or I were up for a serious security clearance and had immediate relatives in any of those places, the FBI would be checking it out pretty closely.  Ought we not be as interested in a "security clearance" for a president?

Liberals are always so worried that someone will think them a bigot that they have a horror of asking such questions, or even suggesting there might be some legitimacy for someone else to ask.

I am not worried about such stigmas.

"If a serious presidential candidate has immediate relatives (first cousins, grandparents) in a foreign country whether it's Kenya or Austria or Taiwan or North Korea, it's fair to want to know a bit about them.

I can guarantee you, if you or I were up for a serious security clearance and had immediate relatives in any of those places, the FBI would be checking it out pretty closely.  Ought we not be as interested in a "security clearance" for a president?"

And just what is it that we don't know?  That he was briefly schooled (at an impressionalbe age!  Oh my!) in Indonesia?  That he has family in Kenya?  That he has a half-sister whose father is Indonesian and lives in Hawaii?  All public knowledge, extensively explored in his own writings and on op-ed pages across the country.

Or is it his apparent lack of "pride" in his "white culture" (despite dropping his grandfather's fighting in Patton's army at every possible opportunity)?

I was actually questioned by the FBI for security purposes once.  Trust me, Obama has publicly passed any conceivable concern to any reasonable person.  They guy has published books on the subject, for God's sake.  Irrational fears based on his "exotic" nature are exactly that--irrational.  They should not be granted a patina of reasonableness.

timteeter, I'm glad you're satisfied.

For all you know, maybe I'm satisfied, too.  It doesn't matter.

There are, what, 100 million or more potential voters in this country?  They haven't all read Obama's autobio.  You're a little ahead of them, timeteer.  Now they need to be satisfied.

You may be happy with Obama's own account of his relatives, his time in Inonesia, etc, etc.

All those unwashed voters at whom you are looking down your nose, maybe they want a little report on that as well.  And maybe from a less interested third party.

Speaking for myself, I'm not the least bit ashamed to say I don't want much in the way of foreign influences in the White House.

You may be a cockeyed optimistic internationalist.  I'm a jingoistic, American chauvinist.  And maybe a nativistic ignoramus to boot.  

But, we morons have a vote, too.

Ain't democracy a bitch!