The Half-truth, the Untruth and Consequences

“I would never vote for Barack Obama. Never. He’s a Muslim!” He won’t put his hand over his heart for the National Anthem. He won’t wear a flag pin, either.
Yeah ... and according to another deliberate smear campaign, one waged by the Bush camp in 2000, John McCain had “fathered an illegitimate black child...” Who’d vote for a guy with the morals of an alley cat?
The “whisper campaign”, the rumor mill, cranking out lies or distortions based on “partial truth” sure gets the job done. After beating Dubya soundly in the 2000 New Hampshire primary, John McCain lost, big time, in South Carolina when the Bush campaign turned dirty and deceptive. John and Cindy McCain had adopted a little girl from Bangladesh. She was black. Since she was orphaned, she might have been illegitimate. So, if your aim was to ruin the guy, you could twist the truth, say he’d fathered an illegitimate black child and tell yourself it really wasn’t exactly a lie. It’s politics, after all. The public, while swearing we’re sick of dirty campaign tactics, swallows the filth and forgets it.
The 2008 version of the “black bastard” story is “Obama the terrorist.” He must be one. His name is strange, he’s not white, he went to elementary school in Indonesia for a few years. And his daddy was Muslim. Really.
The truth, for what it’s worth (and that’s not much during campaign season) is this: Senator Obama’s father was born and raised in Kenya--where most everyone is Muslim. Sort of like most everyone here is Baptist. He was not a faithful, practicing Muslim, nor was he a significant figure in Obama’s life. Like too many red, white and blue American dads, he walked out on his wife and child.
Barack Obama is an active, practicing Christian. He’s been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for about 20 years.
Does he wear a flag pin? No. He stopped wearing one when it became clear that Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, took great care to sport their patriotism in miniature while lying to the public about the war in Iraq, refusing to pursue a new course to end the war while more and more American troops were maimed and killed. Obama made a statement: Lapel pins are a poor measure of either love of country or support for our troops.
Yeah, there’s a photo of Senator Obama, standing erect for the anthem, with his hands at his side. There are dozens of others in which his right hand is placed squarely over his heart. I’ve seen one of George W. Bush with his right hand on his belly during the anthem. Disrespect? Indigestion? Lousy aim? Does it matter?
One last thing. About John McCain, who suffered a devastating smear campaign right here in South Carolina: Dubya, Rove and Reed fingered the wrong perp for fathering an illegitimate black child. It wasn’t McCain. It was Strom Thurmond, who fathered a child with his family’s black maid in 1925. Given the oppression of African Americans back then, I doubt she had much choice in the matter. Thurmond never acknowledged Essie Mae Washington-Williams, although he did secretly contribute to her support while she was growing up--that would have been about the time he was running for president. As a segregationist.

By Linda Hansen, columnist