Truth To Power

America is at that awkward stage: It’s too late to work within the system, but too soon to shoot the bastards: Claire Wolfe

Tracing the Freerepublic smear on Obama

An Attack That Came Out of the Ether
Scholar Looks for First Link in E-Mail Chain About Obama

The e-mail landed in Danielle Allen’s queue one winter morning as she was studying in her office at the Institute for Advanced Study, the renowned haven for some of the nation’s most brilliant minds. The missive began: “THIS DEFINITELY WARRANTS LOOKING INTO.”

Laid out before Allen, a razor-sharp, 36-year-old political theorist, was what purported to be a biographical sketch of Barack Obama that has become one of the most effective — and baseless — Internet attacks of the 2008 presidential season. The anonymous chain e-mail makes the false claim that Obama is concealing a radical Islamic background. By the time it reached Allen on Jan. 11, 2008, it had spread with viral efficiency for more than a year.

Tracking down the cretins.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 5:53 am and is filed under Outrages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Previously: ‘The ‘W.’ Stands for ‘War Criminal’
Next: Hersh on Iran: The game is on

One Response to “Tracing the Freerepublic smear on Obama”

  1. E. Chavez Bush, Esq. Says:
    June 30th, 2008 at 6:48 am

    Dear Sirs,

    “The anonymous chain e-mail makes the false claim that Obama is concealing a radical Islamic background. ”

    Well, *I* never received such e-mail and my spam filters do seem to be less than effective.

    Thank you for your time and assistance.

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