Reply #7: I got that previous hit piece from a correspondent who's become a pretty good friend, but... [View All]

[warren pease]

...is still wading through the right wing slime he was born, raised and acculturated in. He's a good, decent guy at heart, though, and he really doesn't want to spend his life spewing unsubstantiated wingnut bullshit. I sent him this message in response to last week's Obama hit piece (I think the Newsweek article I linked in the message below is identical to the factcheck.org link DesertRat included in her post above):

Hi XXX -- I hate to give you grief about this but, in the interests of accuracy, I've got to point you to a recent Newsweek article that takes these points one by one, fact-checks them and finds them either inaccurate, incomplete or just plain wrong.

Try to find the time to read through this piece -- and that's a pain in the ass because it's about six or seven pages long -- and compare it with the assertions made in that email.

For instance, that thing about Obama getting sworn in on the Koran: That just didn't happen. It did happen with a Minnesota congressman, Keith Ellison, who's a Muslim and was sworn in on a copy of the Koran that had once belonged to Thomas Jefferson. But not Obama.

Btw, I don't really care that much about Obama one way or the other. I'm supporting somebody else, so this email is no skin off my ass politically. But I don't want to see you exposing yourself to criticism from people who may try to rip you for just forwarding information that you had assumed to be accurate.

Best,

....

To which I got this response: "Thank you. I'm glad you helped me open my eyes again.... We will pray for the best one to win this thing and to truly do what they say they will do."

I think it's non-optional to confront this unacceptable crap every time it shows up, but it's also important to make sure to attack the message and not the messenger. People need a way to save face and it's a hell of a lot easier to get their attention and buy-in when you leave them a way to do that.


wp