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Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 2943
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2008 - 12:23 pm: | 
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http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/ |
Yvettep
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 2944
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2008 - 12:27 pm: |
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"Obama's Anti-Rumor Plan"
As long as there have been rumors in politics, there has been one widely accepted way for a candidate to deal with them. Basically, it's not to. Otherwise, according to prevailing wisdom, all a candidate achieves is to elevate the rumors to a legitimate story for the media to feast on. That don't-go-there approach was Barack Obama's plan for months until, on the candidate's first full day of campaigning as his party's presumed presidential nominee, a reporter from McClatchy Newspapers who was traveling aboard his plane asked him about a particularly toxic bit of hearsay that was zooming around the Internet about his wife Michelle. Obama lost his cool. "We have seen this before. There is dirt and lies that are circulated in e-mails, and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it," Obama said, bristling. "That gives legs to the story. If somebody has evidence that myself or Michelle or anybody has said something inappropriate, let them do it."
That night, in a conference call, Obama told his top aides it was time for a more aggressive solution to the rumors that have been popping up on the Internet about him and his family for months. And so the Obama campaign has built what might best be described as a Web-based rumor clearinghouse, located at fightthesmears.com, in which it hopes all the shady stories about Obama's faith, his family and his rumored connections with controversial figures can go to die.
Obama is enlisting his millions of supporters to help him hunt down and quash these stories, just as those supporters helped him turn his insurgent campaign into a history-making juggernaut. Says Obama adviser Anita Dunn: "We will not allow Michelle — or, for that matter, Barack—to be defined by rumors."
...The rest of fightthesmears.com is designed to be a guided tour of other sensational rumors circulating on the Web about Obama and his family. Click on the claim that Obama attended a "radical madrasah," for instance, and it takes you to a CNN feature on the very ordinary-looking elementary school he actually went to as a child in Indonesia. The rumor that Obama was sworn in to the U.S. Senate with the Koran yields a photo of him with his hand on a family Bible. Also featured are videos of Obama saying the Pledge of Allegiance, to combat claims that he refuses to. And, yes, the campaign plans to post a .pdf of Obama's birth certificate. Near each rumor will be a fight-back button, offering suggestions as to where and how Obama supporters can call or e-mail to counter the rumors. The site will also have a spot where Obama supporters can alert the campaign to any new rumors they may be seeing on the Web or in their mailboxes or hearing on the telephone.
Though the latest and most poisonous rumors about Michelle were ginned up by a pro-Clinton website, Obama knows that—notwithstanding John McCain's pledge that his own campaign will not engage in smears—more rumors can be expected in a general-election campaign. Trying to kill them with oxygen and openness is a risky approach. But Obama is attempting to find the humor—and the votes—by taking the rumors head-on. Speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last week, Obama greeted his largely Jewish audience, which has had doubts about his support for Israel, some fed by anonymous e-mail, by acknowledging, "Before I begin, I want to say that I know some provocative e-mails have been circulating throughout Jewish communities across the country. A few of you may have gotten them. They're filled with tall tales and dire warnings about a certain candidate for President. And all I want to say is, Let me know if you see this guy named Barack Obama, because he sounds pretty frightening."
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1813663,00.html?cnn=yes |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 7323
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2008 - 01:17 pm: |
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Fight the power--that's what's up! He make me wanna listen to some Chuck D. |
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