SC's The Greenville News endorses Barack Obama

http://news.greenvilleonline.com/blogs/padgett/

for those who would listen!

as for the others, well.....How can they hear anything?

Obama strikes back at the ugly rumor mill
Sen. Barack Obama is the subject of a vicious smear campaign lurking around the Internet. Under the cover of anonymity, e-mails show up alleging that he is Muslim, that he will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance, that he is part of a secret campaign to destroy America from the inside out.

I began getting calls from people I know about two weeks ago wanting to know if any of it was true. After all, the e-mail purportedly linked to snopes.com so the recipient could confirm this sneak attack.

I quickly found out the snopes.com link didn’t work, and that on this site where I often go to verify or dismiss rumors, the ugly rumors about Obama were dismissed as lies. So I moved on. Apparently the Illinois senator did, too, until his campaign moved South and he realized damage was being done.

So when Sen. Obama was in this morning for his editorial board session with our newspaper, I asked him about the stealth campaign. I framed the question around what I call the “Obama is a Christian” flyers that began circulating, particularly in African-American churches, over the weekend in South Carolina.

“There’s no doubt it’s had some impact,” he said of what he called a “scurrilous e-mail” that has been going on since the beginning of the campaign.

“It’s clearly systematic — not just a one-time viral e-mail,” he added. “People are pumping it out, but we don’t know the source of it.”

And he had this to say about the allegations: “All of it is untrue.”

He continued, “I’ve never been a Muslim, never been a practicing Muslim. I am a committed Christian, a member of the same church for almost 20 years.” The church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago (www.tucc.org), is the place where Obama was married and his daughters were dedicated, he told us this morning.

“I have been saying the Pledge of Allegiance I guess since preschool and lead the Pledge of Allegiance in the Senate when I’m presiding,” he added.

About the rumors, he said, “This is new technology but old tactics. We saw the same thing back with John McCain in 2000 — what he had to go through.”

It’s clear Obama is taking the old tactics spread through new technology seriously. That’s doubly so in this state where, as I framed it, many of his most passionate supporters are also people of deep faith.

One piece that I have has Obama praying. In bold, all-capital letters it says he is a “COMMITTED CHRISTIAN.” The flyer also talks about the senator being “called to Christ.” The second piece, as described by the Associated Press, talks about how as a young man Obama “felt a beckoning of the spirit and accepted Jesus Christ into his life.”

So Obama is on the offense, aggressively trying to confront rumors slithering around the Internet. “What we’re trying to do is actually lift up the issue now as opposed to ignore it so we’re able to dispel these rumors in the mainstream press as much as possible.”

That’s what he did with us this morning, and that is what his campaign is doggedly fighting this week in South Carolina.

Posted by Beth Padgett at 03:18 PM |
Permalink | Click for Comments (0)