This "Foundation" is collecting letters from military personnel all in one place, so we can read them. Some of the stuff in them is pernicious. A few even go so far as to accuse Obama of being involved with organized crime. Easterling’s letter is linked here. As is a letter from Col. Harry Riley (Ret.), who is a player in the anti-immigration movement and involved with a Freeper organization that portrays anti-war activists as violent insurgents. Four Tennessee state legislators are also in on this action. Defend Our Freedoms is using their participation as fuel for bigoted, McCarthyite propaganda aimed at Obama. A few dangers I see with this stuff. First, military rank, or a title like “ambassador” (in Alan Keyes’ case) gives this stuff automatic credibility with some people. Second, smart propagandists can lift out the parts of these letters that might make effective marketing tools and run with them. Third, the purpose of these lawsuits is to pressure the gatekeepers of information on Obama’s personal history to do document dumps. If this is allowed to continue until some of those gatekeepers give in, wingnuts and GOP oppo researchers will comb over every last detail, looking for things they can use to breathe new life into old news, or (even better!) to pressure the administration to agree to a formal inquisition. This article is important enough to emphasize here. It contains some good history, and will give you a lot of insight into how campaign smears get transformed into conspiracy theories. Throw in a few people like Jerome Corsi, and you have a very useful picture of how this stuff works. I’m pretty gobsmacked by how similar this all is to the early stages of the Clinton scandals. I’m still convinced this is an important issue, and that this is dangerous, no matter how silly it looks to those of us who know better than to fall for it. (Tinfoil hats all around! Kincaid’s resume includes time as a staffer for Ollie North, and Col. Riley was an NSA division chief during the Reagan administration.) |
