DISTORTIONS OF THE TRUTH AND OUTRIGHT LIES

If you’ve been following my blogs, you know that I have very little use for President Obama. I don’t like many of his left-wing positions and I detest Obama for siding with the Palestinians against the Israelis. Like him or not though, he is our president and he deserves better than to be the object of daily distortions and lies.

Hardly a day goes by when I don’t receive an e-mail containing some ridiculous or outrageous accusation against the president. The latest one accuses Obama of ordering that “No U.S. Serviceman Can Speak At Any Faith-Based Public Events Any More.” That accusation was contained in a purported "printout" of an article allegedly written by Charlie Stokes, MSU Area Agronomy Agent/County Director of the Extension Service. The article was alleged to have been published in t he DeKalb County Record Herald, Maysville, Missouri.

Here is that alleged Stokes article as it appeared in the e-mail:

[Subject: DeKalb County Record-Herald - YOU'VE GOT TO READ THIS ONE....]

"I wanted to give y'all some disturbing information on our wonderful president. I work with the Catch-A-Dream Foundation which provides hunting and fishing trips to children with life-threatening illnesses. This past weekend we had our annual banquet / fundraiser event in Starkville.

"As a part of our program, we had scheduled Sgt. 1st Class Greg Stube, a highly decorated U.S. Army Green Beret and inspirational speaker who was severely injured while deployed overseas and didn't have much of a chance for survival. Greg is stationed at Ft. Bragg and received permission from his commanding officer to come speak at our function.

"Everything was on go until Obama made a policy that NO U.S. SERVICEMAN CAN SPEAK AT ANY FAITH-BASED PUBLIC EVENTS ANYMORE. Needless to say, Greg had to cancel his speaking event with us. Didn't know if anyone else was aware of this new policy.

"Wonder what kind of news we all will receive next. You're just starting to see the Obamanation. Your religion is on the list next."

And here is how the originator concluded that e-mail: I don't know about you, but this makes me furious. What a rotten thing to do by the "commander-in-chief". And I'm afraid we ain't seen nothin' yet.

Whenever I get one of these e-mails, I usually go to check out the urban legends on Snopes.com. In this case the story was FALSE, as most of the wild charges against Obama are. According to Snopes, Obama NEVER issued such an order. The Department of Defense appears to have a policy that prohibits servicemen from giving speeches at fund-raising events. That policy is NOT directed at any faith-based organization.

I went even further than Snopes. I googled up the DeKalb County Record Herald website. I spent over half-an-hour searching for the article using all the names, key words, etc. I could find no reference on that newspaper’s website to the alleged article. So it seems like no such article ever appeared in the DeKalb County Record Herald.

If I’m correct, it would appear that some Obama hater picked out the name of an obscure little Missouri publication to make his lies look like they were authentic. The use of the initials "MSU" was another deception intended to make the reader believe that Charlie Stokes held a position at Missouri State University, when in fact it was Mississippi State University where he worked.

Here is how craigslist.org responded to this lie: You morons will believe anything as long as it was written in an email sent to you by another moron.

What really pisses me off is that all those right-wing nuts and other Obama haters who fill the Internet up with deliberate distortions of the truth and outright lies about the president tend to discredit the rest of us when we express legitimate concerns about Obama’s policies. When we forward these outrageous accusations to our correspondents, we are just as guilty of lying as those who originated these hateful messages.

Here’s some good advise. If you do not want to be called a moron, check out the e-mails you get on Obama with Snopes.com. And if you find out they’re false, DO NOT FORWARD THEM! Instead, be sure and notify the people who forwarded those e-mails that they have been snookered into spreading a bunch of malicious lies.