"Do You REALLY Know Obama??"

Bill Ayer’s recent media appearances brought up and sometimes addressed a line of thinking created by the GOP and their right-wing media lapdogs: Do you REALLY know Obama? What could he be hiding? This is significant not only in its major illustration using the caricature of Ayers and not only in providing a correct narrative of Obama but in explaining what is behind the continued attacks on Obama and progressives (namely racism).

The hack that tried to get tough interviewing Ayers on ABC continued to try and pry out of Ayers some info on his relationship with Obama. Just like McCain, Palin, and Hillary Clinton, he acted like something was being kept secret. The problem is, nothing is being kept secret and their relationship is minimal at best.

I heard a bit of Sean Hannity’s sorry excuse for a radio program. Hannity was also echoing the sentiments (aka GOP talking points) that this relationship needed further investigation and Ayers and Obama needed to answer to it. Of course, they both have and nothing is there.

I think all but the shrinking diehard audience of these automoton talking heads has dismissed this fear-mongering. And so, the rightwingers are left to demand that some nonexistent truth be uncovered. What this really means is they will not stop until it produces either the answer they want or the intended effect of severely damaging Obama (and progressiveness). Not dissimilar to a dog with a toy, these talking-point-regurgitators just can’t let go of what they keep hoping will stick.
Hannity insisted that the media would never allow McCain to get away with it if he had a coffee fundraiser in the house of an admitted abortion clinic bomber. This immediately made me recall Bush issuing a radio address “congratulations” to militant anti-abortion forces. This barely made the news. Sorry, Sean.
This constant hammering at Obama’s past also reminded me of when Bush’s history was questioned. Unlike Obama, who has been very forthright about addressing his own history, Bush refused to release medical records and declared the accusations of his coke use and the covering up of drug induced crimes as off limit. This was, of course, well respected amongst most of the media.

Of course, when your line of thought is based on nothing but pure speculation, it can’t be disproved. If the secrets you are waiting for never surface, perhaps because they don’t exist, it still allows your speculation to burn. This is the same rational the Bush administration used/uses for WMD’s in Iraq.
The obvious danger with promoting this non-thinking as Fox News and the rightwing are so excited to do is that it produces a populace with no rational thought; a populace that is grounded in fear and just waiting to be told what next. Oh, benevolent fascism.
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Perhaps, this is of little concern to radical circles. It certainly isn’t like we need to be allied with the fans of Fox News and rightwing talk radio. I am writing from a somewhat selfish position as my family falls firmly into this fear-mongering camp. No amount of logic or introduction of rational thinking can convince such people that Obama’s incoming administration will not create a totalitarian socialist regime.
Being in CA, I was sheltered from much of this fear-mongering dialogue as it occurred in GOP campaign ads for “swing states.”