June 30, 2008

And However The Hell Many Years After It Went On The Air, FoxNews Has Done It's Job

From a story in today's WaPo:

On the television in his living room, Peterman has watched enough news and campaign advertisements to hear the truth: Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service. But on the Internet, in his grocery store, at his neighbor's house, at his son's auto shop, Peterman has also absorbed another version of the Democratic candidate's background, one that is entirely false: Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Does he choose to trust a TV commercial in which Obama talks about his "love of country"? Or his neighbor of 40 years, Don LeMaster, a Navy veteran who heard from a friend in Toledo that Obama refuses to wear an American-flag pin?

Does he trust a local newspaper article that details Obama's Christian faith? Or his friend Leroy Pollard, a devoted family man so convinced Obama is a radical Muslim that he threatened to stop talking to his daughter when he heard she might vote for him?

"I'll admit that I probably don't follow all of the election news like maybe I should," Peterman said. "I haven't read his books or studied up more than a little bit. But it's hard to ignore what you hear when everybody you know is saying it. These are good people, smart people, so can they really all be wrong?"

Yes. Yes, they can be all wrong.

I don't think Barack Obama is the second coming of Christ (or JFK); neither, however, is he Satan (or Mohamed). However, the fact that 1 in 10 Americans think that Obama is a (practicing) Muslim is not only disturbing but downright frightening.

FoxNews (and the related mindset found in all right-wing media) has managed to drive a factual wedge through this country. I can live with the ideological wedge; but when people believe things that are just plain wrong, how do you convince them otherwise?

It's going to be a long, sad election.

Posted by baltar at June 30, 2008 10:33 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Crunchy Nutbars | Culture | Extremism | Media | Politics


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