Swift Blog Veterans For Old, Debunked Stories
by John Weckerle
We find ourselves, as always, in bewildered awe at the jaw-dropping oddness we see out the in the flatter parts of the political bell curve. We refer once again to a Sandia Tea Party article, this one titled “A Slap in The Face By FLOTUS” (this refers to the First Lady of the United States, currently Michelle Obama. We’re getting just a bit tired of the constant appending of “OTUS” onto just about everything; then again, we got sick of the “you-name-it-gate” thing a long time ago). In this missive, the Sandia Tea Party leadership makes mention (of course, with no links) to an article which was first purported to have a photograph of Ms. Obama holding hands with Bernadine Dohrn, wife of Bill Ayers. Readers may recall mention of Mr. Ayers – a leader (along with Ms. Dohrn) of the Weather Underground Organization, or Weathermen, an extreme radical left organization of the 1960s and 1970s – during the 2008 Presidential campaign. Mr. Obama was, at that time purported to be “palling around with terrorists.” The photograph in question (but not provided) is supposedly evidence linking the Obamas to Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Ayers.
The Sandia Tea Party leadership corrects itself (after, apparently, having been corrected by somebody else), stating: “I have been corrected. The hand clutch is with Terresa Heinz Kerry.” Now, at that point, most people would have at least gotten suspicious and done a little research into what they were writing about – or at least changed the title, given that Ms. Obama had apparently not held hands with Ms. Dohrn. Instead, the Sandia Tea Party provides a link to a Freedomworks article (surprised?) titled “Charles Manson and Three Degrees of Separation” by Jack Lloyd Rowlinson. This is, according to the Sandia Tea Party, “an excellent account by Jack Lloyd Rowlinson, of politicians and their pussy-footing around with folks longing to overthrow our form of government using the most violent methods possible … warping our young people’s minds in progressive colleges and slaying our first level protectors at every opportunity.” Leaving aside the rather hyperbolic/paranoid tone of this particular piece of prose, the Freedomworks article demonstrates nothing described in the Sandia Tea Party article. It is a rather rambling discussion of Charles Manson’s purported pre-murder relationships and a short history of the Weather Underground’s activities, followed by an assertion that the Obamas maintain a relationship with Mr. Ayres and Ms. Dohrn “to this day.”
Now, we’re not going to waste a single word defending Mr. Ayers or Ms. Dohrn and their past activities. Not one. What are going to do is point out that the supposed relationship between Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers was subjected to rather intense scrutiny back in 2008, and the entire “controversy” was shown to be politically generated bunk. We refer not to the partisan blogsphere of which the author of the Sandia Tea Party is so clearly fond, but to articles by the master debunkers at Snopes.com (here) and the renowned Factcheck.org (here).
Now, we know that the falsehood factories may have lost a little of their production capacity in recent months, but this particular product didn’t gain much all that much traction the first time around and recycling it seems a bit odd, especially given that the recycling’s being done by FreedomWorks. We’re a little surprised to see FreedomWorks – with money from Koch Industries and other major corporate sponsors – wasting its resources on rehashing old and discredited attacks. With their resources, shouldn’t they be able to do better?
Unfortunately, we’re far less surprised to see the Sandia Tea Party picking this sort of thing up and passing it along.
3 Responses “Swift Blog Veterans For Old, Debunked Stories”
I originally posted the story. It was my error to label the photo incorrectly, however, the photo was not mentioned in my original blog post. The story still stands. Obama kicked off his political career at the home of former terrorists and the then outgoing State Senator.
Jack, we appreciate you stepping up and responding and thank you for doing so. Your response is a little brief and we’d like to ask you to elaborate.
The Snopes article, at least, would tend to suggest that Mr. Obama stopped by during a “tour,” if you will, of local events supporting his candidacy. This is a little different than kicking off one’s political career at a particular place. Again, we need to emphasize that this particular “controversy” was subjected to scrutiny and pretty well dismissed some time ago. Do you have some information that controverts the prior examination(s) of this issue?
Our facts are the same. You just take issue with the description of Obama kicking off his campaign at the former Weathermen’s house? I’m willing to entertain your notion that Obama just casually stopped at the party. We are still left with a sitting president who thought it was reasonable to go to such a celebration. If any Republican did something like this, (And they have) I would criticise them just as harshly, (And I have). In the end we are left to speculate because truth is hard to come across in Chicago politics.