Accordingto this Time article, "Can Obama Shred the Rumors," the Obama campaign has set up a new website, fightthesmears.com, to respond to and set straight the unending, unfounded internet rumors denying or disparaging his personal and family history, his mixed racial background, his faith, his personal and professional accomplishments, his wife's views, and his patriotism. It has all gotten too personal and too far out of hand (and it has often succeeded in avoiding discussion of real policy issues). And, according to the "Shred the Rumors" article, Obama will also enlist his millions of internet warriors to help track down the sources of the rumors and make them public, too. Perhaps there will result some deterrence in this aggressive appoach--for the candidates, if not the sources.
The sources are most often anonymous political operatives--the dark forces operatives, I call them--who work out of the dark, unaccountable corners of the internet. It is not always clear to what extent they are formally commissioned by candidates or campaigns, or to what extent it is the work of freelancing political zealots. But political insiders suggest that the candidates or campaigns often approve these attacks, if they do not actually initiate them, and they could always stop them if they really wanted to.
It has been reported that many of these fabrications and distortions about Obama have come out of sources related to or supporting the Hillary Clinton primary campaign. But both Republican and racist interests are suspected, as well. And their efforts will likely continue. But John McCain has always been an honorable, straight-up man, as has Barack Obama. And they have apparently agreed not to employ or approve these dark tactics. Lets hope that's true. But for many, it is hard to resist when so much is at stake--and besides, who knows if you can trust your opponents integrity or word, right? Another Time article, "To Swift-Boat or Not," explores these questions and the attractions, successes and dangers of these various tactics or "swift-boating"--and the question of whether McCain and Obama are, or can be, above it all.
I guess it had to come to this. And I'm pleased that it did. It's time for accountability. While smear tactics have always been part of hard-ball politics, I guess, the boldness of the lies, misrepresentations and propaganda have ratcheted up noticeably from the time of Richard Nixon's Dirty Tricks cadre to Bush/Rove's agents in the despicable "swift-boating" of the military service of John Kerry. And in between, Bill and Hillary Clinton & Company set some new all-time lows of their own. But with Obama, it's all been more ugly, and more purposefully distracting from the real issues of the campaign. It probably has something to do with the fact that he is the first Black-American, multiracial presidential candidate in American history. Maybe? And that he is an extraordinarily accomplished candidate who has a very good chance of winning.
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