The Obama Campaign: Fighting Smears And Truth

Barack Obama’s campaign has opened an internet site called Fight The Smears.  The purpose of the site is to attack rumors about Obama and his wife that are being spread through the internet.  Some of the email information being sent out about the Obamas is blatantly incorrect.  On the other hand, the Fight The Smears site can also be misleading in trying to lump all criticisms into the “smear” category.

The following information, however, has been verified as accurate by reliable sources.  Check it out for yourself.

Here is what Barack Obama really wrote in “Dreams From My Father.” The indicated page numbers are for the paperback edition, ISBN 978-1-4000-8277-3

I would occasionally pick up the paper [Louis Farrakhan's "The Final Call"] from these unfailingly polite men, in part out of sympathy to their heavy suits in the summer, their thin coats in winter; or sometimes because my attention was caught by the sensational, tabloid-style headlines (CAUCASIAN WOMAN ADMITS: WHITES ARE THE DEVIL). Inside the front cover, one found reprints of the minister’s [Farrakhan's] speeches, as well as stories that could have been picked straight off the AP news wire were it not for certain editorial embellishments (“Jewish Senator Metzenbaum announced today…”).

Barack Obama, “Dreams From My Father,” p. 201 [Obama does not praise The Final Call's hate speech but he does not condemn it either.]

It contradicted the morality my mother had taught me, a morality of subtle distinctions-between individuals of goodwill and those who wished me ill, between active malice and ignorance or indifference. I had a personal stake in that moral framework; I’d discovered that I couldn’t escape it if I tried. And yet perhaps it was a framework that blacks in this country could no longer afford; perhaps it weakened black resolve, encouraged confusion within the ranks. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.

If nationalism could deliver. As it turned out, questions of effectiveness, and not sentiment, caused most of my quarrels with Rafiq. [Rafiq al-Shabazz, a "self-professed [Black] nationalist” (page 198)

Dreams From My Father, pp. 199-200

That was the problem with people like Joyce [a college classmate of Italian, African-American, Native American, and French ethnicity]. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounded real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. …The truth was that I understood [Joyce], her and all the other black kids who felt the way she did. In their mannerisms, their speech, their mixed-up hearts, I kept confusion made me question my own racial credentials all over again. …To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

Dreams From My Father, pages 99-100

The Truth:

1.      Barack and Michelle Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ about twenty years ago. This was after its pastor, Jeremiah Wright, had accompanied Louis Farrakhan to Libya to meet with Moammar Khadafy.

2.      The Obamas remained in the Trinity United Church of Christ when:

• Its official bulletin accused Israel of developing an “ethnic bomb” to kill Negroes and Arabs.
• Its pastor libeled the United States by accusing it of developing the AIDS virus
• Its official bulletin published a guest opinion piece from a Hamas terrorist named Marzook.
• Its pastor published a “War in Iraq IQ Test” that equated the United States to Iraq under Saddam Hussein
• Its pastor wrote “state” of Israel in the church’s official bulletin, as in “so-called state of Israel.”
• Its pastor said that the United States got a wake up call after 9/11, with the context suggesting that the United States deserved 9/11
• It gave a Trumpet Award to Louis Farrakhan
• The church invited Father Michael Pfleger to give a guest speech in which he openly praised and defended Louis Farrakhan

3.     The Obamas belonged to a congregation that cheered, with some giving a standing ovation, to Michael Pfleger’s “There were a whole lot of white people crying.”

The Truth:

Obama stood with his hands folded for the National Anthem, while all around him (Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson were in the picture) had their hands over their hearts. You can verify this by searching YouTube (or Google Videos) for “Obama” and “National Anthem.”

This is what Michelle Obama is actually on record as writing.

Earlier in my college career, there was no doubt in my mind that as a member of the Black community I was somehow obligated to this community and would use all of my present and future resources to benefit this community first and foremost. My experiences at Princeton have made me more aware of my “Blackness” than ever before. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson [Obama], “Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” page 2

These experiences have made it apparent to me that the path I have chosen to follow by attending Princeton will likely lead to my further integration and/or assimilation into a White cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson [Obama], “Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” page 2

Elements of Black culture which make it unique from White culture such as its music, its language, the struggles and a “consciousness” shared by its people may be attributed to the injustices and oppression suffered by this race of people which are not comparable to the experiences of any other race of people through this country’s history. However, with the increasing integration of Blacks into the mainstream society, many “integrated Blacks” have lost touch with the Black culture in their attempts to become adjusted and comfortable in their new culture-the White culture. Some of these Blacks are no longer able to enjoy the qualities which make Black culture so unique or are unable to share their culture openly with other Blacks because they have become so far removed from these experiences and, in some instances, ashamed of them because of their integration. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson [Obama], “Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” page 54

Some unfounded and easily disprovable smears make Obama’s internet opponents look bad. The statements above are proven and on-record facts.  This is the type of information you may want to email your friends.