"Leading With The Truth To Debunk The Smear"
So what's the best way to debunk the false Obama smears?
Lots of folks are weighing in today on the union mailer we posted on below that knocks down the more scurrilous rumors making the rounds about Barack Obama. A good take comes by way of the Jed Report, who says that this is the best anti-smear effort he's seen yet:
In late June, Professor Sam Wang, a neuroscientist at Princeton (mindgeek at Daily Kos), penned a New York Times op-ed describing how debunking falsehoods by repeating the falsehoods can in fact strengthen the original falsehood. Consequently, the best way to spread the truth is by leading with the truth to debunk the smear. For example, emphasize that "Barack Obama IS a Christian" instead of saying what he is not...As you can see, instead of answering each smear in the negative, the mailer instead poses questions that can be answered positively. In this fashion, the flier is reinforcing who Barack Obama actually is instead of who Barack Obama is not.
By contrast, the Obama campaign's official anti-smear Web site leads with the smears, stating them as assertions, rather than as questions, the way the mailer does.
One related side-note: The word "Muslim" appears nowhere on the mailer, even though it directly takes on that particular falsehood. That seems very effective.
Late Update: A savvy political operative just got in touch to suggest that there is a reason to explicitly include the word "Muslim": It means that if you Google "Obama" and "Muslim," the anti-smear effort will also pop up. Which is to say, inquiring minds who are not yet informed on Obama's heritage could be more likely to learn the truth.
Thanks Greg, really interesting analysis.
http://strategy08.wordpress.com
July 29, 2008 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
yeah, Jed was interesting on this...just added update fyi
July 29, 2008 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
2 points on the update:
1. You can't google a mailer.
2. The antismear site can put "muslim" in the meta information to try to generate google hits without actually including the word in the text.
July 29, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
the Google point is relevant re Obama's fight the smears web site
July 29, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ditto. Interesting analysis, Greg. Thanks for writing this up.
July 29, 2008 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want to see more analysis...i believe there is more to come.
July 29, 2008 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
i still think its incredibly offensive that they even have to issue a mailer sayign that, "barack obama does, indeed, put his hand over his heart."
because, you know...if you're running for president you're not at all likely to love your country...
July 29, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
[smile]
I agree. But you know, if you're a Secret Muslim Black Power Christian Marxist Terrorist, you have to go that extra mile to prove it.
July 29, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
who's petless, as well, and knows all the Muslim secret handshakes, to boot.
July 29, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Somebody needs to get that family a kitten, stat - that petless thing could sink him.
;)
July 29, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting.
I agree that it's more useful to affirm the positive than to deny the negative. It is a clearer message.
July 29, 2008 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nothing beats the truth.
...but you can't be sure of that with republicans.
Once again, well done AFL-CIO.
July 29, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why support a candidate that so little is known about, and one that has such questionable associations, (Rezco, Rev Wright, William Ayers), as your nominee in the first place. Hopefully Superdelagates will change their mind at the convention and dump this arrogant twinky in favor of Hillary.
July 29, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!
Thanks for the giant laugh.
July 29, 2008 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent, smart, poignant, thoughtful, researched and intelligent points. You're smart and brilliant and more importantly you're a realist.
Active Grandmas take notice.
July 29, 2008 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes who is this masked man that gets wall-to-wall coverage of everything from riding bikes with his daughters to every major speech he's given since July 2004? It is incredibly difficult to discern where he stands from all of his statements, policy positions and papers and countless interviews. How is anyone expected to know anything about him under the circumstances?
July 29, 2008 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd go so far as to say Barack has engaged in a conspiracy to conceal his policy positions from people who make no effort whatsoever to learn them.
July 29, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Truth is better than falsehood, cuz it's truer" - Pogo
July 29, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
First rule of unintended consequences : The message is exactly whatever you say it is not about.
The net of this mailer: religion, religion, religion, Obama is about....religion.
Backfire.
July 29, 2008 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Again. Brilliant. I'm sure you're paid for how you think. Good one.
July 29, 2008 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I'm paid for being correct. And a land office business it is right now.
July 29, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
"First rule of unintended consequences : The message is exactly whatever you say it is not about."
This post is not about what an ass you are. Really.
July 29, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a reminder, if you are so inclined, please donate to the Obama campaign and/or the Democratic National Committee. They need our help if we are going to pull this off in November.
July 29, 2008 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hopefully the Fight The Smears folks are paying attention, because unfortunately it seems to be one of the poorer run areas of an otherwise solid campaign. I think the Fight the Smears effort should be more of an area of focus for the campain as, at least where I live in TN, the viral e-mails seem to be everywhere and I frequently hear the misinformation come up in discussions. Instead the web site seems pretty light-weight and clunky with poor seachability. Snopes seems to do a much better job refuting this stuff that Obama's own campaign. And on two occassions I have submitted e-mails I have received that where not being refuted elsewhere yet, and got no response at all (not even a "thanks for the submission we'll take a look" auto-response). Just seems like an area that could be greatly improved.
July 29, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is a smear to inquire about Obama's muslim background.
Is it a smear to inquire what religon Obama practiced before Rev Wright saved him 'in the name of Jesus Christ'?
Was he an atheist like his mother? Was his father a muslim? If so, by definition, he was born a muslim no 'baptism' needed.
The parsing of words and semantic gymnastics would make Slick Willie proud..
July 29, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
No - here's the important question:
why the fuck do you care?
July 29, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why dont you care?
July 29, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's just innocent curiosity, right? Obama wasn't simply asked, "Hey, are you a Muslim? No? Okay." He's been the subject of numerous e-mails alleging he's some sort of secret Muslim trying to overthrow the USA from the inside by becoming President. That's the fucking smear, you idiot.
July 29, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
On Sunday @ the Unity conference he was pretty much asked directly whether he was a muslim. He gave the same positive spin, semantic gymnastics the professor was referring to. It comes across as a dodge to me, but anyway.
Larry Johnson? What's Grandmama gotta to with anything. I thought he retired from the Knicks a long time ago.
July 29, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because - a candidate's religion does not mean one fucking thing to me.
I don't care.
July 29, 2008 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a nasty little bitch.
July 29, 2008 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tell me again about David Patterson and his history of never holding an elected office, would you?
Or, better, you could discuss the knots that you had to twist yourself into to argue that Obama had lost ground in North Carolina....
I'm all ears.
July 29, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
What religion where you before you sold your soul?
July 29, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's like a good google bomb. That's really using the old intertubes, that is.
July 29, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
You morons can't even follow the advice of the professor above. Respond to smear with a Truth or positive. Not this drivel.
July 29, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shorter BKinDaHouse: I can't think of a thing to say.
July 29, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, the richness. The irony.
Made my day. Thank you.
July 29, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a thing of beauty - one laugh riot after another.
July 29, 2008 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
This from the guy who just logs onto TPM to dutifully retype whatever inane thoughts fell out of Larry Johnson's ass.
July 29, 2008 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Respond to smear with a Truth or positive.
That advice was not meant for everyone. Few fuckheads do know the truth, but just like to live and let live in falsehoods.
July 29, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you can teach the stupid and ignorant, but you cannot teach the willfully stupid and purposefully ignorant.
July 29, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
"debunking falsehoods by repeating the falsehoods can in fact strengthen the original falsehood."
I think that was one of the arguments made against the New Yorker cover.
July 29, 2008 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
You could accomplish the search engine optimization with a "google bomb", ie. get lots of people to link to the phrase "Obama is not a muslim" with the link pointing to the anti-smear website. Then any search with the words Obama and Muslim would point ot the page.
This was famously accomplished in the 2004 campaign with the words "miserable failure" pointing to GWB's biography. Nowhere in that page did those appear.
July 29, 2008 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not sure if it will still work. Google reportedly changed some aspects of their search software to mitigate the "threat" of googlebombs.
See, e.g.,
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/google.asp
From Google:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/01/quick-word-about-googlebombs.html
More from the NYT.
Too bad. Maybe there's still a way to make a Googlebomb work, cause this one would be worthwhile.
July 30, 2008 2:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Based on the known facts and Barack's own memoirs, prior to being baptized at Trinity (when he became a Christian for the very first time according to his own statements), Barack was either a Muslim (like his father Barack Sr. and stepfather Lolo Soetoro) or an atheist (like his anthropologist mom) -- or possibly an atheist in some time periods and a Muslim in others.
There are no other options.
July 29, 2008 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
So... which one would be worse?
/snark
July 30, 2008 2:57 AM | Reply | Permalink