Entry 912, on 2008-12-18 at 20:48:03 (Rating 4, Politics)
The conservatives of America must really hate Barack Obama judging by the anti-Obama propaganda that was emailed to me today. He has been named Time magazine's Person of the Year, but you would think he was the biggest liar and greatest villain of all time by reading the far right wing material I have just received (which was sent out before he was elected, presumably in an effort to sabotage his chances in the election).
Actually, after reading the Time article more closely, I'm not sure whether this is such a great achievement. George Bush was also named Person of the Year by Time in 2004 - but that was when his approval rating was considerably better than it is now!
And who were the runners up for this (now rather doubtful) honour? Apparently Treasury Secretary Henry M Paulson, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, failed vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and Chinese director Zhang Yimou. Wow! I'm so underwhelmed! Was there really no one in the world more deserving than that? So Obama was more deserving as person of the year than Sarah Palin? Gee, that's tough competition, isn't it?
So what about these rather vicious criticisms of Obama? Here's an example: 'My name is African Swahili' - NOT EXACTLY, your name is Arabic and 'Baraka' (from which Barack came) means 'blessed' in that language. Hussein is also Arabic and so is Obama. Barack Hussein Obama is not half black. If elected, he would be the first Arab-American President, not the first black President. Barack Hussein Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother's side and 43.75% Arabic and 6.25% African Negro from his father's side. While Barack Hussein Obama's father was from Kenya , his father's family was mainly Arabs. Barack Hussein Obama's father was only 12.5% African Negro and 87.5% Arab (his father's birth certificate even states he's Arab, not African Negro).
I haven't been able to absolutely confirm or refute these statements. Every reference I have found (BBC, Wikipedia, CNN) has mentioned his black ancestry and not one said anything about any Arab ancestry, but should it really matter anyway? Well, it shouldn't but, of course, in reality it would!
Actually, I'm really surprised that someone who even potentially has an Arab connection and has a name including "Hussein" was elected president. Either this propaganda campaign didn't achieve wide enough distribution to influence many people or most people saw through the negative propaganda. In fact, there is one further possibility: that people were worried about Obama but even more scared of a party which included Sarah Palin!
Comment 1 (1834) by SBFL on 2008-12-19 at 09:09:06:
My goodness, where have you been? There has been plenty of ridiculous anti-Obama drivel on blogs here in NZ, going back throught the last 12 months.
Comment 2 (1836) by OJB on 2008-12-19 at 11:10:43:
I have seen a reasonable amount of this stuff already but this one seemed to be particularly nasty and desperate.
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