Chris Hayes has a great piece on the bizarre world of right-wing chain emails, in which all manner of vicious slurs and lies circulate for months or even years without anyone in the MSM noticing. Sometimes they pop up on a sufficiently mainstream place -- Fox News, Rush -- for someone in the real press to bother running an item pointing out that the story in question is false, but then the meme just dives back underground again where it lives on.
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Chain Reaction
26 Oct 2007 10:10 am
Comments (17)
Thanks, Jeff -- but why did you forget to mention that Clinton got a blowjob?
Jeff, the difference is that Democrats publicly reject such smears (see the Big Dog doing so here just two days ago), while Republicans are quite happy to allow the general public to believe that Obama is a Muslim sleeper.
Troll.
Obama is a Muslim sleeper
B-b-but he went to a MADRASSA!!!11!!!1
(/chain e-mail)
Unlike left wing smears, like Bush knew about 9/11, or caused 9/11, or 9/11 was staged, that circulate among Democrats to this day...
more than 30% of self-described "conservatives" believe that, too.
sounds like a bi-partisan affliction, to me.
I bet this is connected to, and possibly originated in, the kind of religious rumor-passing that spreads urban legends like Proctor & Gamble being satanic.
Maybe we should write some 'smear' emails of our own. For all that they're hard to get to catch on, I bet we could get some to catch fire. Mitt Romney's various flip-flops would be a nice topic, Guiliani and the radios...really, there's an embarrassment of riches to work from, many of them true.
"without anyone in the MSM noticing"
remember, though, that it can be hard for the msm to notice without legitimating.
"email says hillary eats puppies: we report, you decide."
i mean, if we could count on the msm to call lies "lies", that would be one thing.
but we cannot.
so maybe no notice is the lesser evil?
dunno
Unlike left wing smears, like Bush knew about 9/11, or caused 9/11, or 9/11 was staged, that circulate among Democrats to this day...
Oh, yes, we certainly wouldn't want any inaccurate impressions of Bush's handling of 9/11 to stand.
Therefore, Jeff Nuding, I'm sure you won't have any trouble telling us what action Bush took in response to the August 6 PDB warning, among other things, of possible al Qaeda plots to hijack aircraft.
Apart from telling the briefer he'd covered his ass, of course.
i mean, if we could count on the msm to call lies "lies", that would be one thing.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth would like to once again thank the MSM for their support. We couldn't have done it without you guys!!!
There's always Snopes.com which has the Gold Star mothers story that was cited in the artilce:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/goldstar.asp
The question unanswered in the article is what effect these emails have. How many people's minds are changed? I wouldn't expect many, since by definition these emails spread by social networks of like-thinking individuals.
Oh this is too good - you don't have to read too carefully to see the name Anthony R. Martin-Trigona in the article. I was in East central Illinois back in the 70's in high school and his name is a blast from the past. He is a certified nutjob (by the Illinois Supreme Court, I do believe, and I use the term nutjob so as to not offend the paranoid schizophrenic folks that would have a right to be offended if I used that term in relation to him).
And to see he is somehow attached to the Obama rumor is just plain sad.
Jeff, the difference is that Democrats publicly reject such smears (see the Big Dog doing so here just two days ago), while Republicans are quite happy to allow the general public to believe that Obama is a Muslim sleeper.
Troll.
Posted by NCProsecutor | October 26, 2007 10:39 AM
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Some do, some don't, like the party chairman:
Dean: There is a report which the president is suppressing evidence for which is a thorough investigation of 9/11.
Diane Rehm, WAMU (public) radio: Why do you think he's suppressing that report?
Dean: I don't know. There are many theories about it. The most interesting theory that I've heard so far, which is nothing more than a theory, I can't—think it can't be proved, is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis.
He was warned ahead of time by the Saudis.
They told him the same thing the PDB said - Bin Laden will attack the US. The Saudis were tracking their own people and saw the same uptick in chatter that the CIA and NSA did. Bandar didn't tell him who, what, when, where but Saudi intelligence warned American intellgence.
White House, CIA Kept Key Portions of Report Classified By Dana Priest
Washington Post Friday 25 July 2003
"President Bush was warned in a more specific way than previously known about intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda terrorists were seeking to attack the United States, a report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks indicated yesterday. Separately, the report cited one CIA memo that concluded there was "incontrovertible evidence" that Saudi individuals provided financial assistance to al Qaeda operatives in the United States."
"On the issue of Saudi Arabia, the report cited a CIA memorandum that said connections between some hijackers and some Saudis living in the United States amounted to "incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists" from Saudi officials."
I got a "scary" Blue Mountain card forward this am from a buddy of mine in FL who I'd turn to for homeowners insurance advice but not politics. He likes sending me these things because he knows he's jerking my chain.
The BM "card" was a cartoon video of a bat with it's back to you hanging from a tree flashing a young woman, an old couple and a woman exiting a bus "horrifying" them. The surprise joke at the end is the bat turns around and it's holding a Hillary for president poster.
Seeing as there was the usual chain of addresses in the email I laboriously excerpted the above Nation article for the attention span challenged and plugged in all the addys to the reply except my friend's.
I fight fire with water when I can.
He was warned ahead of time by the Saudis.
They told him the same thing the PDB said - Bin Laden will attack the US. The Saudis were tracking their own people and saw the same uptick in chatter that the CIA and NSA did. Bandar didn't tell him who, what, when, where but Saudi intelligence warned American intellgence.
=================================================
Like all those other warnings they were so general as to be of little use
Comments closed November 09, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Unlike left wing smears, like Bush knew about 9/11, or caused 9/11, or 9/11 was staged, that circulate among Democrats to this day...
Is that the Left Wing Smear Machine?
Just asking.
Posted by Jeff Nuding | October 26, 2007 10:33 AM