Black Box Report

Winston Churchill once said, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." These days the lies come in anonymous emails, rightwing blog posts and via FOX News, repeated by Rush Limbaugh and the cashier at the supermarket. They are legion:

So we’ve all heard the rumors: Obama is a Muslim. Obama isn’t American. Obama hearts terrorists (and gives terrorist fist-jabs). Obama is too black. Obama is not black enough. Obama is a thug. Michelle Obama is Barack Obama’s baby-mama. Obama wants to give up all of our rights to the Muslims, and probably the French, too. Obama is every right-wing scare tactic ever.

And all it takes is for normal Americans, non-political junkies who are only tangentially aware of the Democratic candidate with the funny-sounding name, to hear these rumors repeated ad nauseum as the gospel truth...and believe it. People like the good citizens of Findlay, OH, aka Flag City, USA, profiled on today's cover of the Washington Post:

[Jim Peterman] believes a smart vote is an American's greatest responsibility. Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama continues to eat at him.

On the television in his living room, Peterman has watched enough news and campaign advertisements to hear the truth: Sen. Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is a Christian family man with a track record of public service. But on the Internet, in his grocery store, at his neighbor's house, at his son's auto shop, Peterman has also absorbed another version of the Democratic candidate's background, one that is entirely false: Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

"It's like you're hearing about two different men with nothing in common," Peterman said. "It makes it impossible to figure out what's true, or what you can believe."

Well, no, not impossible. Because all of the rumors, from flag pins and faith to his heritage and “questionable patriotism,” are demonstrably false. With proof and everything. But when critical thinking has gone the way of pet rocks and platform shoes, it may not make a difference:

The problem is, of course, that even when they’re "corrected", the correction is simply another story they're being told about Obama, one they then weigh against the story they're being told by their friends and neighbors, and one that they're allowed to approach as if they're simply equivalent narratives.

Reading the Post’s piece, I’m reminded of William F. Buckley saying the job of conservatives was "to stand athwart history, yelling, 'Stop!’” Small town America is often more conservative than its urban counterpart, suspicious of change and the inexorable flow of history that threatens their idyllic status quo. They’re set in their ways and quite happy about it – and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, except when reality needs to be perverted to maintain the illusion. There’s a term for this kind of behavior, and it’s not a kind one:

A friend of mine emailed me recently, mentioning that he and I have a mutual acquaintance who believes all of the same nonsense about Obama (and then some). When he tried to set our friend straight, it was pointless. Any and all evidence was simply rejected out of hand.

He asked what to do. I’m at a bit of a loss. Someone who hears a lie, is given evidence that proves it’s a lie, but chooses to believe the lie anyway is being willfully ignorant.

Fortunately some people aren't taking willful ignorance lying down:

The Obama campaign is fighting back with television ads and its rumor-debunking website, plus it has a couple college students going door to door in the town trying to set the record straight. But seeing as how people seem to believe the rumors because they hear them from people they know and trust, you wonder if the Obama campaign's tactics will actually work.

Good luck on that. When each new day brings a new internet headline like – honest to god – this one:

Is Obama devotee of monkey-god idol?

...they've got their work cut out for them.