Great Moments in Election-Year Blogging

No matter what happens in this year’s election, the conservative blogosphere deserves to win a collective Pulitzer Prize for its election-year coverage. While the mainstream media has given Americans a very distorted picture of Barack Obama, portraying him as a thoughtful, intelligent, unflappable, decent family man who has the temperament and judgment to be President, the conservative blogosphere has been the only place where you can get the real story. Hampered by quaint, old-fashioned rules of journalism that require citing evidence and reputable sources, the mainstream media has failed to report a number of important stories about Obama and the conservative blogosphere has had to step up and do the media’s job for them. As a public service I have collected some of the most important of these stories in one place. Pulitzer Prize judges, take note!

Some of the stories below are shocking and even hard to believe, but they weren’t published on crazy, fringe websites. They appeared on some of the most distinguished and well-respected sites on the Internet. The bloggers and online journalists who published them have staked their reputations and their sacred honor on the veracity of these reports. To doubt the truth of their findings, you would have to believe that an entire segment of the blogosphere has suddenly been gripped by hysteria and gone collectively insane, which is a pretty unlikely scenario.

During Obama’s dark, mysterious years at Columbia, he was involved in domestic terrorist bombings

Although some mainstream media sources have alluded to Obama’s mysterious years at Columbia, only one intrepid reporter, Tom Maguire of Just One Minute has made the cognitive leap required to connect all of the dots. Noting that Obama admitted in his book Dreams of My Father that he was “interested in South Africa divestment,” Maguire does some digging and discovers that some protests against the 1981 tour by the South African Springboks rugby team resulted in violence and even some bombings. Guess who “was involved in some fashion” in these bombings? The Weather Underground! “These are just dots and it may be impossible to connect them,” says Maguire, modestly, “but we have Barack Obama at Columbia working on South African divestment (as were many peaceful protestors) while other radical elements with a Weather Underground flavor are setting bombs, killing cops, and working on South African divestment. As a bonus, Bill Ayers is studying at Bank Street College a quarter mile from Columbia.” Wow! How can the mainstream media possibly ignore the fact that Obama must have been “involved in some fashion” in domestic terrorism because he was “interested in South African divestment.” “Tom Maguire steps pretty far out on a limb with this bit of speculation,” says CPAC Blogger of the Year Ace of Spades, who links to the story. “But it would explain why Barack Obama's ‘lost years’ at Columbia have remained so very very secret.” It makes me wonder how my friend Tom Watson, who was at Columbia at the same time as Obama and was also “interested in South African divestment,” was connected to the Weather Underground, not to mention hundreds of other former Columbia students who today freely walk the streets despite their terrorist connections. I wonder if Tom has mentioned his radical connections in his upcoming book CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World, or if like Obama, he mysteriously left it out.

Obama didn’t actually write Dreams of My Father. In fact, it was ghost-written by none other than Bill Ayers!

Jack Cashill at the aptly named American Thinker found it difficult to believe that Barack Obama, who is not one of the most articulate politicians around, could possibly have written a whole book all by himself. He must have had help. Probably from someone evil. So on a hunch Cashill decided to compare Obama’s book with a book written by Bill Ayers and lo and behold, he discovered some shocking similarities, including the use of nautical imagery and the fact that a very scientific test to determine the grade level of the prose was a match. This wasn’t the first story Cashill broke. Cashill also proved that Arab terrorists and not Eric Rudolph were responsible for the 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta and that the Clintons covered up the real cause of the death of Ron Brown and the downing of TWA Flight 800. Unfortunately, Cashill’s overwhelming evidence wasn’t enough to convince the mainstream media to report on his theories, but Ann Althouse, who is a tenured professor at the 36th most prestigious law school in the country according to U.S. News & World Report, took them very seriously. “Mere confirmation bias? Or is Cashill onto something?” wrote the respected professor ominously after presenting her exhaustive analysis. Former U.S. prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, who now writes for the National Review’s The Corner, wrote that while he didn’t “want to feed into what sounds, at first blush, like Vince Fosteresque paranoia,” after reading Cashill’s analysis he found it “thorough, thoughtful, and alarming.” Scott Johnson at Powerline called Cashill's work "interesting" and said that while "Cashill could also make the case that John Hinderaker and I qualify for recognition as Obama's secret collaborator" they didn't live in Obama's neighborhood, as Ayers did, which is in itself pretty damning. “Nautical metaphors may sink Obama,” Ace of Spades wrote hopefully. Flopping Aces saw Ayers’ ghost-writing of Obama’s book as just one part of a vast conspiracy to get a socialist elected President. “Eventually, if successful, their dreams of a Communist nation can be realized,” wrote Flopping Aces. “Sounds crazy….I know.” By the way, before Cashill hit on his theory, I noted some eerie similarities between Dreams of My Father and the Horatio Hornblower novels of C.S. Forester, which also contain nautical references and are written on a high school level, but I gave up my investigation when I realized that Forester died in 1966 and probably could not have written Obama’s book. Why didn't I think of comparing Obama’s book to Ayers’ book instead? I guess that's why I'm not one of the A-list bloggers.

Michelle Obama attacks “American white racists” in an interview with obscure online news site

I bet you probably didn’t know that Michelle Obama gave an exclusive interview to the obscure online journalism site African Press International in which she said that “American white racists” are trying to derail her husband's candidacy by claiming that Obama was adopted by his Indonesian stepfather, which would make him ineligible to be President under one of the secret, little-known provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Mrs. Obama was apparently so disturbed by these charges that she decided to call this press agency, which most people have never heard of, and vent Martha Mitchell-like, even though her words might scuttle her husband’s chances of becoming President. Although the mainstream media hasn’t yet picked up the story, and the Obama campaign denies the interview took place, Gateway Pundit, Protein Wisdom, Right Pundits, Stop the ACLU, Maggies Notebook, Death by 1000 Paperecuts, Strata-Sphere, Gina Cobb, Macsmind, News Busters, World Net Daily, Jim Treacher, Townhall and a number of other conservative blogs and news sites ran with it. Although some cynical bloggers were skeptical of the story for some reason and demanded more proof, API assured them that it had tapes of the conversations and was just waiting for the right moment to release them. Although API still hasn’t managed to work out the logistics yet, and several deadlines have already come and gone, conservative bloggers are very patient and understanding and just hope that API can work everything out before the election. “We will know soon enough,” writes Gateway Pundit. “It is amazing how the media will believe a hoax that some Republican yelled ‘kill him’ at a Palin rally with no evidence but will disregard a harsh story on Michelle Obama from the start. It's interesting how that works.” It is funny how that works, Gateway Pundit.

Obama had a girlfriend that his wife found out about and forced her to move to the Caribbean.

What would an election be without a sex scandal? If you only read the American mainstream media, you might not know that the U.K.’s Daily Mail reported that Obama was “the target of a shadowy smear campaign designed to derail his bid for the US Presidency by falsely claiming he had a close friendship with an attractive African-American female employee…. The woman, now 33, vigorously denies the vicious and unsubstantiated gossip.” Unfortunately, the American mainstream media apparently has some kind of silly rules about publishing stories about unsubstantiated rumors as a way of writing about those rumors, but conservative bloggers have been all over the story like white bloggers on rice. Once again the conservative blogosphere’s most respected blogger Ace of Spades led the way. “Having now spoken to someone tracking the story, I can say: 1) It's not just a silly little rumor. 2) It will break in some form shortly,” he wrote. Ace even noticed that Obama had vacationed in the Caribbean, noting his source “hadn't even made that connection.” That’s just how Ace’s mind works, making connections that don’t even occur to peddlers of sleazy gossip.

Unfortunately, the story hasn’t broken yet in some form, except on a number of prominent conservative blogs. Jammie Wearing Fool presented a very credible case for why the story might be true, writing, “If you're Obama and you're married to the modern-day incarnation of Aunt Esther, you've got to figure the temptation to get your thang on must be pretty strong.” Say Anything advised Obama to “disclose this woman’s pay records, her travel records and her job history as it relates to working for his Senate staff and/or campaign.” Stop the ACLU cautioned, “Just remember…this is only a rumor until the media get off their behinds and actually investigate this,” but that didn’t stop Right Voices, Protein Wisdom, Hill Buzz, Confederate Yankee, Jammie Wearing Fool, Silent Running or Black Five from discussing it. Unfortunately, these bloggers have been unable to offer any evidence that the story is true, but just because there is no evidence that something is true, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

There is a tape of Michelle Obama with Louis Farrakhan talking about “whitey”

Larry Johnson of No Quarter used to be a liberal until the Democrats decided to nominate an unqualified African-American for President. In a last-ditch attempt to get Democrats to come to their senses, he revealed the existence of a secret videotape featuring Michelle Obama speaking to a group that included the wife of Louis Farrakhan and maybe even Farrakhan himself in which she confirms the most feverish nightmares of some white Americans by ranting about “whitey.” Johnson claimed that Republicans had a copy of this tape, which they were holding onto until October, when it would do the most damage. Although he didn’t actually see the tape himself, he had many friends and friends of friends who did see it. Stop the ACLU wrote, "This is all a rumor, but if you read Michelle’s college thesis on race you will find it is most likely true." Macranger reported, "Too many insiders are talking about it to outright dismiss it." Jim Geraghty of National Review's The Corner initially believed the tape existed but later grew skeptical, writing, "I note that despite my readers' hopes, this fits the pattern for rumors like this — they're always simultaneously vague but hyped to be huge, and they're always coming just around the corner." Killjoy. If Johnson is right, and there is no reason to doubt him, we should be seeing that tape any day now. But you might want to send him a note and remind him that there are only two more weeks left in October so they better release that tape quick.

Obama was not born in the United States and his birth certificate has been forged.

What would happen if we elected a President who was not born in this country and is not eligible to be President? Some of the best minds in the conservative blogosphere are doing everything they can to stop this horrifying scenario from happening before it is too late. “This is serious: Barack Obama's campaign has endorsed the accuracy of what is almost certainly a forged birth certificate for Obama,” writes Right Wing News. According to Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, Doug Ross of Director Blue and Israel Insider, the birth certificate the Obama campaign released is without a doubt a forgery, which they have proven using all kinds of scientific analysis that involves anti-aliasing and kerning, which makes my head spin but looks really convincing. Tiger Hawk was really concerned about this: “I do not think that it would be good for anybody, including Republicans, if it turned out that Barack Obama was not 'natural born' under the law. What a mess that would be for the whole country.” And Andrew McCarthy of the National Review’s The Corner also wanted answers, adding, in case anyone had any doubt, “I am not a conspiracy theorist.” (Update: What is the real reason for Obama's trip to Hawaii?)

So if Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii, where was he born? Prestigious conservative news organization World Net Daily reports, “Pennsylvania Democrat Philip J. Berg, who filed a lawsuit demanding Sen. Barack Obama present proof of his American citizenship, now says that by failing to respond Obama has legally ‘admitted’ to the lawsuit's accusations, including the charge that the Democratic candidate was born in Mombosa [sic], Kenya.” Berg claims he spoke to Obama’s grandmother and she said she was in the delivery room when he was born in a hospital in Mombassa. Although Philip Berg once filed a RICO lawsuit against Bush and others blaming them for the events of 9/11, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong now. (Update: Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs has determined that not only was Obama not born in Hawaii, his father is actually Malcolm X!)

As if being Kenyan weren’t bad enough, John Ray at Stop the ACLU reports that Obama is also Indonesian according to another birth certificate and that he traveled to Pakistan in 1981 on an Indonesian passport where he no doubt met with members of Al Qaeda. “I suspect that Obama may have dumped his Indonesian citizenship at some point along the way, to advance his political career,” writes Ray of the wily, ambitious politician. “But I would not be shocked if he still holds it. This question, however, should not overshadow the serious problem of hiding his Indonesian identity from the electorate….. What else is he hiding?” Despite so much evidence that Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen, some conservative bloggers have been as dismissive of this story as the mainstream media. “Let’s stop chasing absurd conspiracy theories that make it more difficult to win the real arguments in this election,” Ed Morrissey of Hot Air wrote, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who is the Father of Konservative Kerning Analysis has banned mention of the birth certificate story on his site and AJ Strata of Strata-Sphere did his own scientific analysis to disprove it. Who got to them, I wonder?

Barack Obama had an underage, gay “affair” with a pedophile.

When the National Enquirer reported that one of Obama’s childhood mentors wrote a semi-autobiographical book that includes passages about sex with an underage girl, the conservative blogosphere collectively made the next logical leap that even the Enquirer was too skittish to make: Obama must have had sex with this man when he was nine years old. “The National Enquirer now suggests Barack Obama had an underage, gay affair with a pedophile,” wrote Erick Erickson of Red State. “Yup. That Frank Marshall Davis guy Barry says was his good friend? Turns out he was a perv of the first order and liked young boys." In case anyone should make unfair accusations against him, Erickson added, "This post is not intended to spread that rumor.” Indeed, that post was only intended as a public service to pass on information that was right there between the lines of the Enquirer story for all to see. “That may be worse than his having been counseled by Jeremiah Wright,” wrote Dan Riehl. “No wonder he says "Pakit-stan" in that funny way of his! heh!” Confederate Yankee wondered why this very important story was being buried by the mainstream media, explaining, “Barack Obama's list of known mentors now includes child rapists ('Uncle Frank' Marshall), racists (Rev. Jeremiah Wright) and terrorists (Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn). When is someone going to question how these associations must have warped Obama's views and render him unstable, and unsuitable for the Presidency?” Jules Crittenden, who called the story an “October Surprise,” dismissed Obama’s being “mentored by a suspected commie pervert in underage late-night drinking/dirty limerick slams” as a “youthful indiscretion,” but added, “with the subsequent adult pattern … 20 years in the pews of a frothing America-bashing bigot and the professional palling around with an unrepentant ex-terrorist … you begin to see what they mean when with that ‘doesn’t look like us’ line. Turns out it’s not a racial cue at all.” Dan Collins of Protein Wisdom also reported on the story, but as usual, I have no idea what he was trying to say. “No doubt Obama will claim this as a desperate smear by the forces of evil who are afraid of change,” said Jammie Wearing Fool, with that delightful sarcasm he uses when not smearing people.

You might think that the fact that Obama was palling around with pedophiles when he was nine years old, which is the exact same time that William Ayers was blowing up the Pentagon, would be an important story, but once again the mainstream media ignored it. Conservative blogger Don Surber also demurred, writing, “Some bloggers are calling this an October surprise. I call it stupidity” and predictably liberal bloggers proceeded to shoot the messengers. “When people discuss (possible) sexual contact between ten-year-old boys who are not their political enemies and grown men, they usually refer to the 'underage gay affairs' as sexual abuse,” wrote Jim Henley of Unqualified Offerings. “They also recognize that adults who have been abused may or may not wish to tell the whole world the details, and they respect it. Admittedly, most people are not members of the NAMBLA wing of the Republican Party, or, failing that, curdled into pure meanness. Maybe Erickson just holds with the more sweeping theories about the cultural construction of the age of consent. Whatever the reason, he’s sure that that little vixen, ten-year-old Barry Obama, was asking for it man.”

Obama had cocaine-fueled gay sex in the back of a limousine with a not-very-attractive disabled man with a criminal background

While the mainstream media requires their sources practically to be saints before they will even think of publishing sensational allegations, the prestigious World Net Daily is under no such constraints. It reported on Larry Sinclair’s allegations that he did cocaine and had sex with Barack Obama in the back of a limousine without making him jump through all the hoops a mainstream media organization or even the National Enquirer would have required. Although some people didn't find Larry Sinclair's story credible considering his criminal record and the fact that he failed a lie detector test, WND decided to publish the allegations and let the people decide. Although many in the conservative blogoshpere also doubted Sinclair’s veracity, some, like Rusty Shackleford at Jawa Report, decided the gloves were off after the National Enquirer ran a salacious report on Sarah Palin, and reluctantly decided to link to the story anyway, because, as he explains, “this kind of slime is now in play.” Mick Stockinger at Uncorrelated agreed that “it’s only fair” to bring it up and Rude News called it “tit for tat.” That oughta teach the National Enquirer.

Obama was getting answers in the first debate through a clear plastic hearing aid in his ear

Ann Althouse has a unique ability to see things that no one else sees, not unlike my Aunt Agatha, until she was sent away to a rest home and forced to take medication that took away her abilities. During the primaries, Althouse discovered that a Hillary Clinton ad included the subliminal message “Nig” written on a child's pajamas. Then during the debates, Althouse noticed on her high definition television that Obama was wearing a clear plastic hearing aid in his ear and noted that he spoke haltingly as if someone was giving him the answers in the debate. “It's clearly there, a crescent of clear plastic,” she said in response to some skeptical comments (note her use of the word "crescent," a clever reference to Obama's secret Muslim heritage). Although Althouse later backed away from the story, which Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit linked to, she didn’t repudiate it entirely, concluding in the comments, "You know, just because the thing I saw wasn't there doesn't mean there wasn't something there that I didn't see." I don’t know if this is an acceptable standard of evidence in courts of law since I am not a law professor like Ms. Althouse, but it has come to be the standard of evidence in the conservative blogosphere, and I don’t see why the fuddy-duddy mainstream media can’t adopt this way of thinking, too.

Ace of Spades’ Super-Secret Unified Field Story That Connects All the Dots

For weeks Ace of Spades has been working on a super-secret story about Obama, which "called Obama a straight-up liar on his supposed 'flimsy' relationship with The Terrorist William Ayers" and finally connected all the dots, linking Obama and Bill Ayers, Acorn, Tony Reszko, Charles Manson, the Chicago mob, the Illuminati, Freemasons, the Trilateral Commission, Jewish bankers, Nazis living in South America, Fidel Castro, the KGB, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Bigfoot, Area 51, the Harlem Globetrotters, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Bermuda Triangle, Mrs. Calabash and Mr. Gorsky. Apparently, Ben Smith at Politico, had the story, too, according to Ace and Hill Buzz, and he was just sitting on it (though Smith denied it). Then just as Ace was on the verge of breaking the story, he made this heart-breaking announcement: “The source was considering dropping his demand for anonymity. Thus likely moving the story forward. (He wasn't considering going forward with the Politico, by the way: but with the other, more important organization.) And now, today? After witnessing Politico, among others, savage Joe Wurtzelbacher? Cold feet.” Curse you, mainstream media and your accursed fact-checking! Will your cover-up of the truth about Barack Obama never end!

Update: Ms. Althouse is not happy about New Yorker writer George Packer's post about this modest post and calls me terrible names in her comments. See more about her disappointing reaction here.

Update 2: Ms. Althouse now cites her hearing aid exclusive as her worst post of 2008.

Carnivals: Bobo Carnival of Politics, Carnival of the Insanities, Fuelmyblog Carnival, Carnival of Aloha, Carnival of Conservatism, Scribes Carnival

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