Rumors about Obama

A front page story in this morning’s Washington Post highlights the effects of persistent false rumors about Barack Obama. The rumors are spread on the Internet and by word-of-mouth, this last still being the most effective means of communication devised by humankind. Indeed, the story’s protagonist admits that he has seen news accounts that show these rumors to be false, but that "it’s hard to ignore what you hear when everybody you know is saying it." In response, Obama’s campaign has set up a special website called "Fight the Smears." Maybe this will work, maybe not. Once a story is being passed by word-of-mouth, be it these nasty rumors or a good review of a new restaurant, it is very difficult to refute. Ten percent of the American people, according to several polls, believe that Obama is a Muslim. All of this puts me in mind of my mother. She taught fourth grade for thirty years and each year, her class received free copies of the local paper, the Hartford Courant, and spent their morning learning how to read a newspaper, the difference between a news account, news analysis and an opinion piece. This was done as part of the reading curriculum but it was really an early lesson in civics too. Because she taught in an inner-city school, many of the children’s parents were poor and had never read a paper with any regularity. Their children taught them how to do so. None of the alumni of my mother’s fourth grade class would fall for these anti-Obama smears. But, my mother is no longer with us. The clergy, however, are with us and this is the kind of issue that should engage pastors of all denominations, all ideological dispositions, and all partisan leanings. For Catholics, there are some good reasons to be against Obama. For example, he is pro-choice and runs at the head of a rigidly pro-choice party. That is a good reason not to vote for him. Believing a false rumor that he "refuses" to wear a flag pin or that he is a Muslim is not a good reason. This is fodder for some sermons: citizens have an obligation to educate themselves and cast informed votes. There is also an opportunity for Obama here. He should call for the return of civics to America’s high school curriculum. Part of the reason so many people are ill informed about the processes of our government is because they have never been taught. My generation got new math (and I still can’t do calculus) but we were not taught civics. In fact, Obama can make it a twofer: call on John McCain to join him in the pledge that whoever wins in November, federal funds will only go to schools that have civics classes. Love of country is about more than flag pins. To really love our country we need to know something about it. Will it matter? A recent poll showed that three in ten Americans admit to some measure of racial prejudice but only one in ten say a candidate’s race matters to them. That means that two in ten know they harbor prejudice but that it is somehow wrong. Obama has a clear self-interest in demonstrating why it is wrong, but so do America’s churches. Priests and bishops and ministers should mount their pulpits in the weeks and months ahead and urge their flocks to educate themselves, to not be swayed by rumor-mongering which happens to be a sin. This is how religion should be involved in politics. And, Obama should go to small town America (the town in the Post article, Findlay, Ohio, might be the place) and, for once, not have the advance team carefully select those who will ask questions. He should answer any and all questions. The enemy here is ultimately bigotry, and just as John Kennedy had to go to the Houston Ministerial Convention to confront anti-Catholic bigotry head-on, Obama must confront the bigotry he faces head-on. It could be his finest moment. Michael Sean Winters