Anatomy of a smear

Normally, when I attribute words to someone and it is possible, I try to link directly to what they are saying. I won't do that in this diary because I now am against giving any web traffic at all to either Hillbuzz or Larry Johnson's No Quarter.

They have both now passed the point of despicable. These are not people to be reasoned with, mollified or placated in any size, shape or form. I don't pretend to know their motives or their real politics.

I will say this: their tactics, their smears and their lies are all evocative of the same tactics used by Old far right organizations such as the John Birch Society when it tried to portray Martin Luther King as a communist.

On Sunday, Larry Johnson promised us "Breaking news" on Monday about an Obama tape. On Monday, the breaking news was that Larry Johnson wrote more about the gossip about the existence of this tape. On Tuesday, he promised us there would be a bombshell on Wednesday and linked to a videotape of Fox News with a supposedly "pro-Obama" commentator talking about how some possible disturbing rumors had been piped to him that had him "worried" about Obama. Of course Fox news then went on about why did Obama even get 20% of the vote given his links to Farrakhan.

So here we are Wednesday morning: Where's the tape? Well, it's not coming out today...It's coming out in "the fall" (the exact opposite of what Johnson said Sunday, Monday, Tuesday). And keep in mind, Johnson has never seen the tape, talked to anyone who has seen the tape: he has talked to people who claim to have talked to "a person' who claims to have seen the tape.

But then Johnson gets even worse. He quotes a story from a site called Hillbuzz (a pro-Hillary site) that seems almost entirely devoted to smearing Obama with the brush of Farakkhan and Afro-centrism. But the story on hillbuzz is about Larry Johnson blogging about the issue.

There is significant speculation on Hillbuzz about what might be on the tape. And all of it is pure BS.

I will say this for the record: if Michelle OBama called Bill Clinton out in 2004 over how his administration handled Rwanda-then all I can say is-good on her. AS Hutus slaughtered Tutsis, the Clinton administration conintued to dicker over the meaning of the term genocide. Between 400,000 and 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered (see the excellent and movingly disturbing film "Sometimes in April."). In my judgement, Hillary's record on Rwanda deserved to be a campaign issue: Where was she exactly? What did she do about Rwanda?

And if Michelle wants to know why'd he Clinton-let this happen-so do I. If Michelle wants to know "why'd he" (Bush) allow New Orleans to drown, so do a lot of people.

And if Michelle happens to be in a photograph with Farrakhan's wife-so fuckin' what? This is the same bullshit people used to smear King as a commie: see-here he is-in a photo with someone I call a commie.

Back in the 1950's a guy named McCarthy stood up and said "I have a list". That "list" never existed but the radical right went on to use this tactic repeatedly in the 1960's with help from the Cointelpro program.

And so here we are full circle: someone with ties to the CIA actively pushing far right wing smears and tactics, and a pro-Hillary blog acting as an amplifier.

It's time for Hillary to put up or shut up: either she disavows these people and these tactics, or Obama needs to call her on it.