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By absentee Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | War Rooms — Comments (27) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Poor, poor Barack. So many vicious rumors to discuss, so few teleprompters available to tell him what to say about them. Why is the internet so unfair?

Well he's mad, and he's not gonna take it anymore. Steve Foley at the Minority Report blog reports that Barack Obama is launching an internet "War Room" to fight back. According to the Times Online, a "crack team of cybernauts will form a rapid response internet 'war room' to track and respond aggressively to online rumours that Barack Obama is unpatriotic and a Muslim."

Just read this totally objective excerpt:

As he gears up for his general election fight against John McCain, Mr Obama and his chief advisers are aware of the danger of such rumours, amid polling data showing that a significant number of Americans believe he is a Muslim or are suspicious about his background. Such doubts were a factor in his poor showing with white, blue-collar voters during his primary battle with Hillary Clinton.

In recent days Mr Obama has — unprompted — brought up the subject of the chain e-mails and blog sites making the false claims. Some state that he is a radical Muslim who was sworn in as a US senator on the Koran; others that he sympathises with Palestinian radicals. Many focus on his middle name of Hussein, which was taken from his Kenyan father.

Read on ...

What caused his poor showing with white, blue-collar voters versus Hillary? Misplaced Islamaphobia! Also note how they equate "he sympathises with Palestinian radicals" with his being sworn in on the Koran. No need to look at his many radical associates! That's just a bunch of rumor mongering! We have a war room!!

"The 'war room' comes as the Obama campaign prepares a series of biographical speeches, television advertisements and campaign appearances to tell his life story, an attempt to make voters more familiar with him. Despite his long nomination fight against Mrs Clinton, his campaign aides concede that millions of Americans still feel that they do not really know him."

To know, know, know him, is to love, love, love him. Why should Barack be overly concerned with people not knowing him? He seems perfectly comfortable with the fact that no one he knows is the person he knew.

Leaving aside the hilarious image produced by trying to imagine a bunch of Obama bloggers as crack cybernauts (boy are there some jokes in that), the idea isn't a total loss. The left is notoriously successful at conjuring fact from rumor through the magic of repetition. So I'm thinking, "why, I'm a crack cybernaut! Why can't I do the same thing?"

There are a lot of nasty rumors and memes that pass around the internet. Sometimes these things make it into the real world. They spread, they grow, and they become KnownFacts™. One of the supreme deficiencies with the Bush administration was their unwillingness or inability to combat such things. So I suggest we do so here at RedState. The blogs have shown the ability to fight it. The left pushed as hard as ever on the "100 Years of War" flap, but blogs and YouTube pushed right back. The video is the proof, but without people pushing back it would be 'common knowledge' at this point that John McCain had advocated 100 years of war.

So, when you see one of these nasty rumors about John McCain or any Republican, you can email me the link (use my RS contact form). If you blog about them, send me a link. I will either post immediately or save them up for a weekly wrapup. We can be our own crack team.

I don't think I'll call it a War Room though, too hilarious. Maybe ... The Rumor Kill?