Hi, Kos community. Generally speaking there's enough content on here, that's sufficiently interesting, humorous and/or frightening enough to keep me from ever wanting to post a diary of my own. But here's the story -- a relative of mine, a hard-working, decent, patriotic, honorable, dedicated husband and father, also happens to be (much to my dismay) on the extreme end of the extreme end of the right wing. It's for all his virtues that I can't dismiss him as an ignorant crank which is what I usually tend to do.
Anyway, he mass-emailed me a FAKE column by Maureen Dowd that kind of got to me. It illustrated to me just how nasty this election year is going to get. As if it isn't bad enough already.
The guy who sent this to me has been diseminating right-wing ideology for some time now...emailing columns by Cal Thomas and Ann Coulter en masse. And now he's a dutiful online anti-Obama soldier and so I get these emails every other day or so, sometimes multiple times a day, as part of a broader, concerted effort to discredit our presumptive Democratic nominee. I suspect this will get worse the closer the election gets, but I feel like I'm better informed having this window into the right-wing's black heart. Hence the title of this diary.
I knew it was a fake at once, because if the REAL Maureen Dowd of the New York Times had written a column like this I would have heard about it...ON HERE, loud and critical! This fake column goes on about the sinister Muslim terrorists who've been secretly financing Obama's campaign all this time (shock! horror!).
Rather than post the whole thing, I added links to the FAKE column and the real one that appeared on June 29, 2008.
Two seconds of searching the Internets was enough to get at the truth, but of course no one inclined to believe this story is going to do that. I consider this a glimpse of what we're in store for this election season. McCain can't beat Obama on issues or on character, so obviously that leaves the scare tactics. However absurb they might seem to you or me, there's definitely an audience out there willing to believe and willing to try and get others to believe too.
Here is the real column, just for reference.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Here is the fake, like the one I got except for all the personal testimonials that say it's true and express surprise that a 'liberal' NYT columnist would write it. Again, this is the FAKE:
http://www.snopes.com/...
Here's a 'sniglet' from the email:
As most of you know, Maureen Dowd of The New York Times is one of the most liberal writers in our country. If she is concerned about the source of Obama's fund raising, it is very alarming. Ask yourself why so much of his money is coming from Middle Eastern countries? Remember, he learned his politics in Chicago, one of the most corrupt political towns in this country. His "change" may be different than his rhetoric.
And from the fake column, which I have condensed down. Again, this is FAKE, FAKE, FAKE:
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: June 29, 2008
OBAMA'S TROUBLING INTERNET FUND RAISING
...What I learned from this insider was shocking but I guess we shouldn't be surprised that when it comes to fund raising there simply are no rules that can't be broken and no ethics that prevail.
Obama's internet campaign started out innocently enough...
...Then, about two months into the campaign the daily contribution intake multiplied. Where was it coming from? One of the web site security monitors began to notice the bulk of the contributions were clearly coming in from overseas internet service providers and at the rate and frequency of transmission it was clear these donations were "programmed" by a very sophisticated user.
...The internet service providers (ISP) they were able to trace were from Saudi Arabia , Iran , and other Middle Eastern countries. One of the banks used for fund transfers was also located in Saudi Arabia .
Another concentrated group of donations was traced to a Chinese ISP with a similar pattern of limited credit card charges.
It became clear that these donations were very likely coming from sources other than American voters. This was discussed at length within the campaign and the decision was made that none of these donations violated campaign financing laws.
I believe the Obama campaign's internet fund raising needs a serious, in depth investigation and audit. It also appears the whole question of internet fund raising needs investigation by the legislature and perhaps new laws to insure it complies not only with the letter of these laws but the spirit as well.