Fighting the Smears

I am thrilled that the Obama campaign has done something that will help us all. There is now a new website, www.fightthesmears.com, which is a simple to follow and unfortunately necessary place where many of the urban myths, unfair accusations and internet lies and mischaracterizations are dealt with. The site simply lists many of the rumors, innuendoes and smears against Obama and tells whether it is a lie or not and allows the reader to read more about it if they choose. And like the myBO site, it is easily negotiable and is ready to be emailed.

This presidential campaign has degenerated to new low level and has made this website a mandatory tool for clarity and truth. I have noticed that news sources like Fox News consistently disseminate this type of misinformation on an hourly basis. I have seen emails that have not one shred of truth in them sent to people with an encouragement to send it to everyone they know. I have personally spoken to people who I thought should know better spout pure lies and absolute misinformation that they choose to believe, and this new website now at least gives us a place that we can utilize for people to reference and they can check it out to get their facts straight.

The main problem, however, is that many people that believe negative information about Barack actually want to believe these things. They deliberately don’t enlighten themselves with the correct information that is readily available on other networks or radio stations, and they most likely won’t avail themselves of a website that will set them straight. I would venture to say that if some people did look at it, they’d just choose to disbelieve it, anyway. Allowing oneself to be set straight by the new website would necessarily mean that the news that one listens to is lying to or distorting the news, and that may be a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people.

Nevertheless, I still feel that it’s time for a website like this. This is a fabulous tool that can be sent back to anyone who disseminates any kind of Obama attack piece or hit piece filled with lies or misrepresentations. This is the political environment that we now exist in, and it is imperative that any negative spin and deliberate misinformation be met head on with the truth. Allowing anyone to believe or accept anything about Obama that isn’t true is doing a disservice to the person believing it and to Barack himself.

There will be a block of people who will never be convinced that anything is true but what they believe, and once we try to enlighten them or politely point them in the direction of truth, should they continue to accept the lie or refuse to entertain any other way of thinking, then it’s time to move on. This is a person that will not be a vote for Barack, anyway, and our energy should be more focused on people who are just a little more receptive to getting educated or expanding their mind even a tad.