Subscribe‘Scholar’ Stalks Folks Who Question Obama
From those champions of free speech and inquiry at the Washington Post:
An Attack That Came Out of the Ether
Scholar Looks for First Link in E-Mail Chain About Obama
By Matthew Mosk
Saturday, June 28, 2008; C01PRINCETON, N.J. - The e-mail landed in Danielle Allen’s queue one winter morning as she was studying in her office at the Institute for Advanced Study, the renowned haven for some of the nation’s most brilliant minds. The missive began: "THIS DEFINITELY WARRANTS LOOKING INTO."
Laid out before Allen, a razor-sharp, 36-year-old political theorist, was what purported to be a biographical sketch of Barack Obama that has become one of the most effective — and baseless — Internet attacks of the 2008 presidential season. The anonymous chain e-mail makes the false claim that Obama is concealing a radical Islamic background. By the time it reached Allen on Jan. 11, 2008, it had spread with viral efficiency for more than a year.
During that time, polls show the number of voters who mistakenly believe Obama is a Muslim rose — from 8 percent to 13 percent between November 2007 and March 2008. And some cited this religious mis-affiliation when explaining their primary votes against him.
As the general-election campaign against Sen. John McCain has gotten underway, Obama’s aides have made the smears a top target. They recently launched FightTheSmears.com to "aggressively push back with the truth," said Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor, and go viral with it. The Web site urges supporters to upload their address books and send e-mails to all of their friends. "
But long before this, Allen had been obsessing about the origins of her e-mail at the institute, which is most famous for having been the research home of Albert Einstein. Allen studies the way voters in a democracy gather their information and act on what they learn. She was familiar, of course, with the false rumors of a secret love child that helped sink McCain’s White House bid in 2000, and the Swift boat attacks that did the same to Democrat John Kerry in 2004. But the Obama e-mail was on another plane: The use of the Internet made it possible to launch anonymous attacks that could reach millions of voters in weeks or even days.
As an Obama supporter — she had met the senator while she worked as a dean at the University of Chicago — it made her angry. And curious.
"I started thinking, ‘How does one stop it?’ "
Allen set her sights on dissecting the modern version of a whisper campaign, even though experts told her it would be impossible to trace the chain e-mail to its origin. Along the way, even as her hunt grew cold, she gained valuable insight into the way political information circulates, mutates and sometimes devastates in the digital age.
How Rumors Are Born
Allen was ideally suited to embark on such a difficult hunt. She boasts two doctorates, one in classics from Cambridge University and the other in government from Harvard University, and won a $500,000 MacArthur "genius" award at the age of 29. Last year she joined the faculty of the institute, the only African American and one of a handful of women at the elite research center, where she works alongside groundbreaking physicists, mathematicians and social scientists. They don’t have to teach, and they face no quotas on what they publish. Their only mandate is to work in the tradition of Einstein, wrestling with the most vexing problems in the universe.
While Allen was already an expert on the mechanics of politics, she fast began to learn the mechanics of the Internet. She discovered, for instance, that the recipe for launching a chain e-mail attack is not as simple as typing it up and hitting the send button to a long list of recipients. It takes effort to seed a chain mail that spreads as widely as the Obama missive, explained Jeff Bedser, president of the Internet Crimes Group, a company that helps corporations battle such broadsides. "Lighting that fire, getting something to have momentum, takes work," he said.
For this kind of chain-mail message to gain traction, it must be plausible, and it has to resonate, said Eric Dezenhall, a public relations specialist who once worked in the Reagan White House. Obama was vulnerable, Dezenhall said, because of his unusual name, his childhood in Indonesia, a foreign-born father, and his sudden arrival on the national stage without a fully fleshed-out biography. "All of these things gave it merchandising legs," Dezenhall said.
As Allen scrolled through the e-mail about Obama, she saw that the list of people who had received the missive consumed several full screens. Her first thought was to try to learn about the people behind the addresses. She traced a number to North Carolina Web sites about golf, but quickly hit a dead end. Then she had another thought: What if she took some of the unusual phrases from the text of the e-mail and Googled them?
Her eyes fell on this untrue sentence: "ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Kuran (Their equivalency to our Bible, but very different beliefs)."
The use of "their equivalency" and the spelling of "Kuran" instead of "Koran" made the sentence her point of departure.
That search showed that the first mention of the e-mail on the Internet had come more than a year earlier. A participant on the conservative Web site FreeRepublic.com posted a copy of the e-mail on Jan. 8, 2007, and added this line at the end: "Don’t know who the original author is, but this email should be sent out to family and friends."
Allen discovered that theories about Obama’s religious background had circulated for many years on the Internet. And that the man who takes credit for posting the first article to assert that the Illinois senator was a Muslim is Andy Martin.
Martin, a former political opponent of Obama’s, is the publisher of an Internet newspaper who sends e-mails to his mailing list almost daily. He said in an interview that he first began questioning Obama’s religious background after hearing his famous keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. In an Aug. 10, 2004, article, which he posted on Web sites and e-mailed to bloggers, he said that Obama had concealed his Muslim heritage. "I feel sad having to expose Barack Obama," Martin wrote in an accompanying press release, "but the man is a complete fraud. The truth is going to surprise, and disappoint, and outrage many people who were drawn to him. He has lied to the American people, and he has sought to misrepresent his own heritage." Martin’s article did not suggest an association between Obama and radical Islam.
Martin was trying to launch a Senate bid against Obama when he says he first ran the Democrat’s name by a contact in London. "They said he must be a Muslim. That was interesting to me because it was an angle that nobody had covered. We started looking. As a candidate you learn how to harness the Internet. You end up really learning how to work the street. I sort of picked this story up as a sideline." Martin said the primary basis for his belief was simple — Obama’s father was a Muslim. In a defamation lawsuit he filed against the New York Times and others several months ago, Martin says that Obama "eventually became a Christian" but that "as a matter of Islamic law began life as a Muslim" due to his father’s religion.
The belief that Obama unavoidably inherited his religion was not uniquely Martin’s — as recently as May, it was proffered by Edward N. Luttwak, a fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, in a New York Times op-ed piece.
(After the Times was deluged with complaints, the paper’s public editor, or ombudsman, later wrote that he had interviewed five Islamic scholars, at five American universities, recommended by a variety of sources as experts in the field. All of them disagreed with Luttwak’s interpretation of Islamic law.)
Martin said he posted his 2004 article on Web sites, and distributed it by e-mail to authors of other popular blogs. But he said he had nothing to do with the chain e-mail that got Allen’s attention. "I’m not trying to smear anybody," Martin said. "I just felt that was an underreported story."
But Martin said he understands how his initial article has taken on a life of its own. "There’s nothing sinister here. I was thinking of running for Senate and was looking for a story to put some sizzle on the plate."
Other articles followed Martin’s. Andrew Walden, the founder of an alternative Hawaiian newspaper with the motto "The untold story, the unspoken opinion, the other side," published an article with many of the same false biographical details from the e-mail in the weeks before Obama announced for president — that he was "Raised in Muslim lands and educated in Muslim schools." He said in an interview that Obama’s "alliance with Islam" was "all over the Internet," a source he often considers more trustworthy than the mainstream media.
Around the same time Ted Sampley, a North Carolina man who runs his own Web site, published a similar piece. In an interview, he denied authorship of the e-mail, but said he did not doubt that his article had provided source material. "That’s the miracle of it," Sampley said. "Once it takes off, and people start posting it on Web sites, you really have no idea how far it goes or who reads it. You get a ripple effect. It’s like a little pebble and then it gets bigger and bigger."
Poring over these early articles on the topic, Allen noticed what she thought was an important pattern. In each instance, someone had posted the articles on the Free Republic Web site, prompting a discussion involving the same handful of people, with several expressing a desire to spread the word about Obama’s supposed faith.
Keeper of the Obama File
Of the file folders that are spread in neat rows across Allen’s desk, only one is bulging. It holds printouts of the reams of conversations about Obama’s religion appearing on Free Republic. Since its start in 1996 by Jim Robinson of Fresno, Calif., the site has grown into a home for discussion of all types — though it is particularly noted for spirited political discussions dominated by conservatives and libertarians. Freepers, as they’re called, converse with a varying degree of transparency. Most remain anonymous.
Allen counted 23 freepers among those engaging in regular discussions about Obama’s religion, and isolated a handful whom she began to suspect as having a role in the e-mail. Sifting through hundreds of postings, she began to piece together their identities. There was "Beckwith," whom she pegged as a veteran from Boston, old enough to vote for John F. Kennedy, in uniform by 1964, and host of a Web site that devotes considerable space to an "Obama file" that says the senator is "by birth, blood and training, a Muslim."
Allen found Beckwith discussing the matter in a Jan. 13 clip from a Web-based conservative radio show based in San Diego. In his thick Boston brogue, Beckwith told hosts Jeff Lynch and Mike Howard that Obama’s "relationship to Islam is the big question. When one investigates the background of Obama’s conversion, I can find no record of his baptism."
"Wow! Interesting!" Lynch gasped.
"This guy could easily be the Muslim Manchurian candidate," Howard said.
As Allen scanned his postings on Free Republic, she noticed that Beckwith repeated several phrases that also surface in the e-mail. Beckwith called Obama "an apostate Muslim, educated in madrassas." And when Beckwith later repudiated the "madrassa" claim — after it was debunked by the mainstream media — the term disappeared from subsequent versions of the chain e-mail. The Post located Beckwith in a Boston suburb, and he agreed to be interviewed under the condition that he not be identified because "I get a lot of really nutty stuff and some of it’s threatening." The 69-year-old said he is retired as a software engineer and lives alone, but for brief stints babysitting for his grandchildren. He said he started a Web site in 2005 "because I don’t play golf." His initial goal was to take swats at the liberal left. "Then this new guy comes along called Obama," he said.
Beckwith said he built a Web site that features hundreds of pages of material intended to undermine Obama. "If 20 percent of what’s on my Web site is true, this guy is a clear and present danger," Beckwith said. (He later added, "I try very hard to be accurate.") But while Beckwith speaks with pride about his research — much of which he credits to an unnamed "colleague" in Europe — and to his extensive Obama files, he rejects outright the suggestion that he authored the chain e-mail. "I’ve never been involved with any e-mailings. Period," he said.
Another Free Republic participant who attracted Allen’s interest went by the handle "Eva." She was one of the first to write on the site about Obama’s religion — in November 2006 she began repeating the phrase "Once a Muslim, always a Muslim," when discussing Obama.
With the help of Allen’s biographical sketch, The Post located Eva in rural Washington state. She is Donna Shaw, 60, a teacher who said Obama’s ability to captivate audiences made her deeply uneasy because his "tone and cadence" reminded her of the child revivalist con-man preacher Marjoe Gortner.
Shaw says she has done extensive online research about Obama but believes many of the initial sites that provided "proof" of his Muslim background have been removed from the Internet: "Everything about his Muslim background was readily available on the Web in 2004. But they were all cleared from the Internet before he ran for Senate." Shaw says she’s always had a hankering for politics. Probably, she muses, that’s because her father served for a spell as a New Jersey state assemblyman. He was driven out, she notes without a hint of irony, when he became the victim of a 1950s smear campaign that wrongly accused him of being a communist.
When asked about the Obama e-mail, she says evenly: "I’ve never seen the e-mail. I don’t get any political e-mails. I have a good filter on that."
Old Tactic, New TwistThe idea of unsubstantiated charges whispered through gossip trails has been a tried-and-true political technique since well before Machiavelli’s time, Allen said. Traditionally, the best approach to combating them has been to "flush the charges out into the open."
That was easier when the rumors flew off a printing press, or when they appeared — as with Swift boat attacks against Kerry — in television ads paid for by a well-funded group of partisans. The attacks on Obama are different, Allen says. The level of anonymity, the technical efficiency, and above all the electoral impact of Internet-based smears all represent a new challenge.
"What I’ve come to realize is, the labor of generating an e-mail smear is divided and distributed amongst parties whose identities are secret even to each other," she says. A first group of people published articles that created the basis for the attack. A second group recirculated the claims from those articles without ever having been asked to do so. "No one coordinates the roles," Allen said. Instead the participants swim toward their goal like a school of fish — moving on their own, but also in unison.
Obama’s campaign, for better or worse, is writing the manual on combating this new asymmetrical guerrilla warfare. Obama has not shied away from the rumors — he mentions them frequently. "Before I begin," he told a pro-Israel group this month, "I want to say that I know some provocative e-mails have been circulating throughout Jewish communities across the country. . . . They’re filled with tall tales and dire warnings about a certain candidate for president. And all I want to say is — let me know if you see this guy named Barack Obama, because he sounds pretty frightening."
Allen says the casual pushback and aggressive response plan could provide the model politicians will follow in the future. But she remains uncertain it will work.
"Citizens and political scientists must face the fact that the Internet has enabled a new form of political organization that is just as influential on local and national elections as unions and political action committees," she says. "This kind of misinformation campaign short-circuits judgment. It also aggressively disregards the fundamental principle of free societies that one be able to debate one’s accusers."
For proof of this, Allen says, she need look no further than her e-mail inbox. After months of research, a new chain-mail smear against Obama arrived with an innocuous subject line: "Food for thought."
We posted this article in its entirety because it is one of the most egregious attacks on free speech in our memory.
No one I know has ever gotten this now notorious and supposedly ubiquitous email. In fact, we have never received any such informational emails about Mr. Obama. And I get literally dozens of emails a day.
By comparison, I and many others I know have been deluged with information about Mr. Bush, especially around the time of the previous two Presidential elections. Mr. Bush’s National Guard record, being just one of the several favorite topics of disinformation.
But this ‘genius,’ Ms. Allen, does not deign to present any proof of the alleged heavy promulgation of this email. Nor does she get to the source or sources of the email, despite the implicit claims in the article.
Instead, the full extent of her brilliant ‘research’ seems to be that she attained a copy of the email with a list of other recipients.
(Which, one would think, would logically mitigate against them having been the originators of said email. But the razor Ms. Allen is sharp like is not Occam’s.)
Ms. Allen then courageously searched this list of email addresses and found that some of them belonged to people who also posted on the Free Republic website. Imagine.
This scholar then proceeded to expose two of these miscreants, even though both of them flatly denied having anything to do with the emails.
And, lest we forget, finding the source of these emails was the purported purpose of Ms. Allen’s heroic investigation.
Though it now appears the real purpose of Ms. Allen’s and Washington Post’s detective work is to stifle any questioning of Mr. Obama. In any case, it will have the same ‘chilling effect,’ whether that was their intention or not.
Are Ms. Allen and the Washington Post proud of themselves?
Why don’t they ask themselves why there are such questions out there in the ether in the first place? Could it be because we know next to nothing about Mr. Obama, his background, his private — or for that matter — his public life?
To cite just one example that is close to our hearts, S&L was the first to call attention to Mr. Wright’s racism and his hatred of America. It took the mainstream media more than a year to finally ‘uncover’ that fact — which was hiding in plain sight.
Where was the Washington Post? Where was Ms. Allen? Did they not want to know the truth about Mr. Obama’s ’spiritual mentor’?
"What I’ve come to realize is, the labor of generating an e-mail smear is divided and distributed amongst parties whose identities are secret even to each other," she says. A first group of people published articles that created the basis for the attack. A second group recirculated the claims from those articles without ever having been asked to do so. "No one coordinates the roles," Allen said. Instead the participants swim toward their goal like a school of fish — moving on their own, but also in unison.
This is almost word for word how Mrs. Clinton described the "echo chamber" of the "Vast Rightwing Conspiracy" when "they" were lying about her husband having an affair with Ms. Lewinsky.
Which should not be too surprising, since Mrs. Clinton is also a genius like Ms. Allen, being long since acknowledged as "the smartest woman in the world."
But as for the actual questions raised in these alleged ‘viral’ emails, why does Mr. Obama not address them point by point? Would that not be the best and most efficient way to put all of this to rest?
Why not have the candidate sit down with one or several members of the press and have him tell us about his background, his religious beliefs, and the other issues that have been raised and but never answered?
That is the way "smears" are fought. Not by starting web sites that resort to lies and misinformation.
And not by stalking and exposing people who dare to ask questions on an internet forum.
Related Articles:
- NYT: Obama Smears Circulated By The Right
- About That 'Obama Grew Up Muslim' Story
- Obama Website Fights 'Smears' With A Lie
- Why Does Anyone Believe Larry C. Johnson?
- Obama's (Non) Granny Decries (Non) Tricks
- RNC Makes TN GOP Pull 'Muslim Garb' Photo
- Another Photo Of Obama In 'Muslim Garb'?
- NYP: Obama's Muslim Garb Photo A Mystery
- Obama In Muslim Garb Is An AP Photograph
- Obama Camp Furious At Muslim Garb Photo
- Obama Wore Muslim Garb On Kenya Trip
- Obama Pastor: 9/11 Wake Up Call For Whites
- Hear Obama's Pastor And "Spiritual Mentor"
- Obama's Afrocentric, America-Hating Church
- Did Barack Obama Ever Attend A Madrassa?
31 Responses to “‘Scholar’ Stalks Folks Who Question Obama”
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June 28th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Ms. Allen’s got a TON of explaining to do.
June 28th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Another over educated idiot for Obama.
June 28th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
The only email I got was about John McCain that ended with this:
-’This is for all you Barack voters.
> From Barack’s book, Audacity of Hope:
“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly
direction.”
HE DID NOT SAY STAND WITH AMERICANS!!!!!’-
I went to Snopes (hey Ms Allen, try that once) - and the McCain story was true but edited at the end and the Obama part was put in.
So that goes to wonder - where is this horrible Obama biography email - as SG pointed out - no one has seen it or been sent it - and secondly, the person who wrote the original McCain email probably did not even know someone along the line edited it and added the Obama lines (which are a misquote from his book). So they can’t be guilty if someone edited their original email. . .
These types of emails do not do the Right any good - but drivel stories like this - which should hurt the Left doesn’t. So much for impartiality and unbiased msm - and during an election no less.
And how come Free Republic and Swift Boaters are automatically evil (or crazy) and lying about what they are stating - when the Moveon.org ‘Alex ad’ is a lie, distorted what McCain said and is helping Obamanation - isn’t accused by the same standards?
Hypocisy thy name is Liberal, Progressive, Democrat, Left, moonbat, - well you get the idea.
June 28th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
“What if she took some of the unusual phrases from the text of the e-mail and Googled them?”
It took a “genius” to figure that out?
‘Their only mandate is to work in the tradition of Einstein, wrestling with the most vexing problems in the universe. ‘
Obama chain emails is now a vexing problem of the universe??? Good grief!
June 28th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I was wondering, what if George Bush tried to track back on some of the chain e-mails about him? Oh yeah, the libs would be screaming about warrants and there would be hearings.
What happened to my party? I need an Obama sized bus to toss them under I think.
June 28th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
It’s also funny how this article and Ms. Allen neglect to mention that this alleged email was forwarded by at least one Hillary Clinton staffer:
Which fits the pattern we have seen previously.
June 28th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
If this “research” is an example of the work of “some of the nation’s most brilliant minds,” we are in deep trouble, since it doesn’t amount to anything more than could be accomplished by anyone with basic Google skills and some time on their hands.
Instead of all the innuendo and vaguely threatening references to “false claims,” I would challenge Danielle Allen to refute the work of Middle Eastern scholar Daniel Pipes on the subect of “Barack Obama’s Muslim Childhood.” As Pipes concludes:
You can Google it, Ms. Allen.
June 28th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Another claim I am skeptical about is:
Why did not the Washington Post provide a link to this article?
Lest we forget, Mr. Obama did not even announce his bid for the Presidency until February 10, 2007:
So who, if anybody, would have had the knives out more than a month before?
June 28th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
“How Rumors Are Born”
It takes a PhDx2 to answer the question?
I worked in an office where the zeroth rule of the day was: “If you don’t hear a rumor by 9 AM it is your duty to start one.”
Simple as that.
June 28th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Just what, or who may be more appropriate, are “political theorists”? GM’s inquiring mind wants to know.
Lets Google it.
http://tinyurl.com/559b6o
OK, it looks like Wiki has a listing of “political theorists”, (redirect to political philosophers). That should clear things up.
http://tinyurl.com/5ay5mh
Here’s another site listing “political theorists”.
http://tinyurl.com/5ksv8x
Hmmm? Zizek, Balibar, Jameson, Rawls, Arendt, Gramsci, Mussolini, Guevera, Trotsky, Lenin, Marx, Engels, Stalin, Zedong,,,,,,, Hey!! What in the sam h*ll!! Most of those people are communists, socialists, libtards or some mixture thereof.
Next time someone quotes a “political theorist”, bear in mind the espouser is probably a commie pinko libtard.
I dare say, most of you were already of that little gem of knowledge.
IMHO, Ms. Allen is simply a waste of oxygen, another in a long line of poli-sci majors living off the teat of the taxpayers.
June 28th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
“What if she took some of the unusual phrases from the text of the e-mail and Googled them?”
I took that suggestion, googled “lying douchebag” and Ms allen’s picture appeared with a recipe for “cream of paid propagandist soup”. Yeah, now I get it!
June 28th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Little tidbit the WaPo left out - Allen has donated $2350 to Obama for President campaign and $400 to his Senate Campaign. Straight off NewsMeat without any googling required. Yeah - she’s not a bit partisan - spit…spit…spit…
June 28th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
It takes a PhDx2 to answer the question?
LOL! Internet + email = worldwide intertube water cooler.
But that’s not really what the article’s about: it’s to get readers to focus on the errors, not the substance. Notice the line quoted from this nefarious email: “ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Kuran (Their equivalency to our Bible, but very different beliefs).”
Of course this is an error, since it was Minnesota Dem Rep Keith Elllsion (an Obama supporter, of course) who was sworn in on the Koran — not Obama.
But, as Steve suggests, “why does Mr. Obama not address them (the alleged ‘viral emails’) point by point? Would that not be the best and most efficient way to put all of this to rest?”
I’d suggest there’s more than one reason for not handling these supposed “smears” directly: (a) there’s sympathy to be gained by painting the minority candidate as “oppressed” by purported “lies” and (b) to address the candidate’s “Muslim childhood” factually and honestly would risk alienating the Muslim vote.
June 28th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I’m not sure whether she is the girl in the “I’ve Got A Crush On Obama” video. But she is awful close:
It really is to laugh.
June 28th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
“[Obama] has offered a penetrating diagnosis of a very important central crisis in American political life. Ordinary citizens have grown less and less willing to assume what belongs to them: responsibility for their lives, and for their political futures. The workings of politics have been muddied by PACS, lobbyists, political dynasties, and wrangles over grievance and victimhood. Notions of political responsibility (i.e., that citizens are the ones responsible for their own political destiny) have degraded. Citizens are unwilling or unready to pursue solutions through practical, grass-roots action to identify common goods and shared interests. We fail to solve our collective problems and fall, instead, into name-calling.”
So sayeth the ’scholar’ who stalked a bunch of politically interested, ordinary citizens for posting about her hero on an online grass-roots forum.
June 28th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Some of Ms. Allen’s publications:
But she’s not bitter. Or clingy.
June 28th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
We should all pray that Imus interviews her. Or that she refuses, which gives him license to attack.
Either one will put the frosting on my cake.
June 28th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
After reading SG’s additional material, I say that this womyn is a leftist pinhead. She looks the part too.
June 28th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
“Citizens are unwilling or unready to pursue solutions through practical, grass-roots action to identify common goods and shared interests.”
Hey Ms Allen are you saying that the role of Community Organizer™ is over rated as an occupation?
June 28th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Hey Lady: Get some hair! And, try not to look like you rode the short bus to high school.
Better yet, get a real job and start contributing some of that cash that’s been growing on the grant tree for you the last ____ years. Or, if you want to write a book, make it about a winner or someone whjo was satisfied and knew why, instead of socialist losers.
June 28th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Is she the obama bus mechanic? Oh, I’m sorry, she’s a genius. Besides, I have never known a genius that needed to be identified as one. Plus, if she’s a genius, I and several others have been involved in scientific research for MANY years trying to find ways to ease the suffering of babies and young children, help us your brilliance…..oops, she’s a liberal and will only support those that want to do harm to the unborn and/or very young. She definitely looks like bus fodder, throw her under it!
June 28th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
For some reason she reminds me of my crazy aunt Jean.
She has got to be the token black/female in her department.
June 28th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
For a real treat you can listen to her (and view a few more pictures of her smug mug) discuss her political theory, along with Federalist 10 and predictable moans about how “terrible” the “smears” are for “democratic voting.”
The fact that it’s a Saturday must be the reason the editor at the Post falls for the obvious straw man she’s constructed. She identifies (on what evidence we are not told) the email in question promulgated by “nativists” is to blame for the belief that Obama is Muslim, completely ignoring the obvious point that Barack Hussein Obama sounds rather like a Muslim name would sound.
In addition, the article claims “by the time it reached Allen on Jan. 11, 2008, [the email] had spread with viral efficiency for more than a year.” Yet BO didn’t declare for the presidency until May of last year.
But hey, she’s a genius and razor-sharp (not at all pointy-headed despite the way her photos show her). Did I mention that she works at the renowned haven for some of the nation’s most brilliant minds?
June 28th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
This is what the smartest minds in academia do in modern times?
Figure out how to Google a subject, simply amazing.
Maybe she is up for a real challenge next semester, something like setting the clock on her VCR.
June 28th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Scholar Looks for First Link in E-Mail Chain About Obama and fails to find it, as has been pointed out here several times. Correct me if I’m wrong - couldn’t she just use the headers in her copy of the email to begin to track it back to its source? It would require that she attain the cooperation of a few other people as she followed it backwards, but that would seem to be a more reasonable approach than just googling additional recipients.
June 29th, 2008 at 1:24 am
Yet another slander. When McCain made this accusation after getting beat like a Saudi woman who exposed her ankles in South Carolina, the Bush campaign immediately made the unprecedented move of turning over all campaign records for that state. There was not a scrap of evidence in them of any calls accusing McCain of fathering an illegitimate mulatto child.
Moreover, in an age of voice mail and answering machines, they have not been able to find a single, solitary record of this supposed call.
It’s simply another slander against our president by the Washington Post.
June 29th, 2008 at 10:26 am
“As Allen scanned his postings on Free Republic, she noticed that Beckwith repeated several phrases that also surface in the e-mail. Beckwith called Obama “an apostate Muslim, educated in madrassas.” And when Beckwith later repudiated the “madrassa” claim — after it was debunked by the mainstream media — the term disappeared from subsequent versions of the chain e-mail. The Post located Beckwith in a Boston suburb…”
According to “Beckwith,” the Washington Post first got in touch with him about his Obama posts back in the fall of 2007, in an effort to find out who was behind these Obama emails:
Beckwith Responds To The Washington Post
http://www.freerepublic.com/fo.....7813/posts
If so that was months before Ms. Allen even undertook her historic mission.
So it would appear that Ms. Allen’s involvement is mostly to give cover to the Washington Post reporter Matthew Mosk, who already has a track record for exposing Free Republic posters for partisan purposes:
About the Washington Post Hit Piece on Free Republic Today
http://www.freerepublic.com/fo.....7834/posts
June 29th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
What comes around goes around!
Ha Ha - get a load of this S&L linked blog on our heroine Ms. Allen http://sixmeatbuffet.com/archi.....-stalking/
GREAT points are raised here.
Only in America can a “scientist” get paid to google e-mail addresses in a chain of spam to harass private citizens because they had the temerity to ask questions about a political candidate for the highest office in the land.
This is textbook cyberstalking.
(1) Have you shared any of your “research” with the Obama campaign?
(2) Is this your My Barack Obama page, honey? Because those comments about John McCain being unelectable because he has Alzheimer’s probably aren’t too nice for somebody who likes researching “smears”.
Follow the embedded link to the original source for more hard hitting question for Ms. Allen and “He Who Cannot Be Criticized” http://barackobamawasamuslim.b.....-andy.html
I would be my last dollar that “He Who Cannot Be Criticized” will come out with a Royal Proclamation tomorrow stating that it will no longer be permissible to print or talk about ANY of his supporters.
June 29th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Because (as we all know) there is no way for him to deny 1) his father was born a muslim (even though he tries with the ‘his father was an atheist or agnostic’ line, but BHO SR was born to a muslim father) and in Africa a child is identified by the fathers religion, 2) his step-father was a muslim and BHO went to a predominantly muslim school and spent 4 years growing up with muslims, went to mosque, and learned the muslim prayers in arabic and 3) chose the church he did for an expedient purpose (i.e. to get approval from the community leaders while working as a community organizer) and that specific church embraces the Nation of Islam’s Farrakhan. . .
Yes, Obamanation’s own evasion is the prime mover of this line of thought and questions - and his inability to face his muslim roots directly - indicate to a lot of people that there is a reason he insists on hiding it.
June 30th, 2008 at 4:48 am
Kinda reminds me of the Clinton War room. Deja Vu all over again with the 2nd Black President in American History?!? LMAO
June 30th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Here’s Obamanation’s problem, he stated ‘I’ve always been a Christian’
It is a lie and here’s why:
1) He is 47 years old, he attended TUCC (which by my definition is not Christian, but I will let that pass) for 20 years - we are now back to age 27.
2) His father was born and raised a muslim - the majority of his family (BHO Sr) is still muslim - and in Africa the child is the religion of the father. That is the period of birth to 2 years. (So subtracting backward again, we are back to 25).
3) His step-father was muslim, went to prayers and BHO attended a predominantly muslim school, attended mosque and said prayers in arabic. That was the time period of 4 to 10. (So subtracting backward again, we are back to 19).
And those years 10-19 which he was in the primary custody of his grandparents - how are they defined ‘religiously’ - not at all - so that can’t be Christian. (which takes him down to zero).
So while he went out and ‘proclaimed’ that he has been a Christian all his life, he really only came close for 20 years - leaving 27 years undefined - other than the first 10 as influenced by muslims. No, I don’t think that makes him a muslim - at all. I was raised from 3 to 18 as a Methodist - won’t go into that church now, at all. I am not nor do I consider myself a Methodist - I will however admit I grew up in that church and will tell you why I left it. . .
That is Obamanation’s main problem - he is attempting to deny the fact he was born and raised a few years as a muslim - and he won’t describe any religious contact between 10 and 27 - yet he ‘has always been a Christian.’
The facts don’t say that at all and to have someone who paid into his campaign pretend to ‘research’ the start of the ’smear’ on taxpayers money - 1) is stupid - to say the least and 2) should be just another nail to end his campaign. And comes close to some sort of violation of the law - I’m sure, somewhere.
Here’s a clue Obamanation - if you had come out and said yes I started life as a muslim but with my mother’s atheistic, agnostic, marxist, communist and just plain spiritual leanings and my grandparents influence - no religion took hold until I became a Christian at 27. I think more Americans would be on his side. It would have become the non-issue he wanted it to be.
Honesty and integrity are what Americans look for in their POTUS candidate. So we know Obamanation has neither as he was the (listen up Ms Allen) original cause of this email ’smear’ as he did not and does not seem to be able to tell the truth about an issue - people here have seemed to pin down the facts, all by ourselves.
The only way it changes my opinion of Obamanation is that it is just more proof he lies, covers up and obsures this issue and that becomes the issue - what exactly and really is he ‘hiding’ or why does he feel the need to lie about it? He either knows exactly why he is doing this (and does that pose a problem for America) or he is that stupid to believe it would make a difference that he spent 10 years of his life ‘as a muslim’. Therefore this is nothing new but he comes off once again as just a Typical Political Person.