En weer gaat het er als zoete koek in. Wanneer leert de mens nu eens?On Monday, Senator Barack Obama discussed American history, his own patriotism, and the need for service and sacrifice.(Photo: AP)
At the beginning of the week, a friend sent me a scurrilous, anonymous e-mail attacking Barack Obama that has been circulating around her elderly cousin's senior living community in New Jersey. Headlined "Something to Think About," it lists 13 acts of assassination, kidnapping, war and terrorism, all of which, it notes, were committed "by Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40." After several other claims, including a bogus citation from the Book of Revelation, the e-mail concludes, semi-literately, "For the award winning Act of Stupidity Now ... the People of America want to elect, to the most Powerful position on the face of the Planet - The Presidency of the United States of America to A Muslim Male Between the ages of 17 and 40? Have the American People completely lost their Minds, or just their power of reason? I'm sorry but I refuse to take a chance on the 'unknown' candidate Obama."
To point out the obvious errors, that Barack Obama's a Christian, not Muslim, and that he's 46, not "between the ages of 17 and 40," feels a bit lame, like damning with faint fact-checking. Let's call this appalling missive what it is - bigoted, hysterical and more than a little nuts. Unless, of course, it comes from the hands not of a mere delusional crank, but one of those beneath-the-radar smear forces that we all know are out there, ratcheting into higher and higher gear as November gets closer.
E-mails such as the one my friend passed along are insidious, appealing to our deepest fears and prejudices. A front-page story in Monday's Washington Post profiled retired worker Jim Peterman of Findlay, Ohio. He's a decent guy who "believes a smart vote is an American's greatest responsibility," the Post's Eli Salsow wrote. "Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama continues to eat at him ...
"Does he trust a local newspaper article that details Obama's Christian faith? Or his friend Leroy Pollard, a devoted family man so convinced Obama is a radical Muslim that he threatened to stop talking to his daughter when he heard she might vote for him?
"'I'll admit that I probably don't follow all of the election news like maybe I should,' Peterman said. 'I haven't read his books or studied up more than a little bit. But it's hard to ignore what you hear when everybody you know is saying it. These are good people, smart people, so can they really all be wrong?'"
So it goes across the nation. Chances are, many of the perpetrators of this nonsense think they're being patriots, saving us from Obama and ourselves. And goodness knows, there's a long history of this kind of guttersnipery in American politics. As Obama pointed out in his Monday speech on the nature of patriotism, "Thomas Jefferson was accused by the Federalists of selling out to the French. The anti-Federalists were just as convinced that John Adams was in cahoots with the British and intent on restoring monarchal rule ... the use of patriotism as a political sword or a political shield is as old as the Republic."
At the beginning of the week, a friend sent me a scurrilous, anonymous e-mail attacking Barack Obama that has been circulating around her elderly cousin's senior living community in New Jersey. Headlined "Something to Think About," it lists 13 acts of assassination, kidnapping, war and terrorism, all of which, it notes, were committed "by Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40." After several other claims, including a bogus citation from the Book of Revelation, the e-mail concludes, semi-literately, "For the award winning Act of Stupidity Now ... the People of America want to elect, to the most Powerful position on the face of the Planet - The Presidency of the United States of America to A Muslim Male Between the ages of 17 and 40? Have the American People completely lost their Minds, or just their power of reason? I'm sorry but I refuse to take a chance on the 'unknown' candidate Obama."
To point out the obvious errors, that Barack Obama's a Christian, not Muslim, and that he's 46, not "between the ages of 17 and 40," feels a bit lame, like damning with faint fact-checking. Let's call this appalling missive what it is - bigoted, hysterical and more than a little nuts. Unless, of course, it comes from the hands not of a mere delusional crank, but one of those beneath-the-radar smear forces that we all know are out there, ratcheting into higher and higher gear as November gets closer.
E-mails such as the one my friend passed along are insidious, appealing to our deepest fears and prejudices. A front-page story in Monday's Washington Post profiled retired worker Jim Peterman of Findlay, Ohio. He's a decent guy who "believes a smart vote is an American's greatest responsibility," the Post's Eli Salsow wrote. "Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama continues to eat at him ...
"Does he trust a local newspaper article that details Obama's Christian faith? Or his friend Leroy Pollard, a devoted family man so convinced Obama is a radical Muslim that he threatened to stop talking to his daughter when he heard she might vote for him?
"'I'll admit that I probably don't follow all of the election news like maybe I should,' Peterman said. 'I haven't read his books or studied up more than a little bit. But it's hard to ignore what you hear when everybody you know is saying it. These are good people, smart people, so can they really all be wrong?'"
So it goes across the nation. Chances are, many of the perpetrators of this nonsense think they're being patriots, saving us from Obama and ourselves. And goodness knows, there's a long history of this kind of guttersnipery in American politics. As Obama pointed out in his Monday speech on the nature of patriotism, "Thomas Jefferson was accused by the Federalists of selling out to the French. The anti-Federalists were just as convinced that John Adams was in cahoots with the British and intent on restoring monarchal rule ... the use of patriotism as a political sword or a political shield is as old as the Republic."
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