Associated Press
A young Barack Obama with his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham
I have, at times, marveled at some of the more ridiculous efforts to smear President Obama and his family. Dinesh D'Souza, for example, wrote a strange book attacking Obama for trying to carry out an "anti-colonial" agenda he inherited from his Kenyan father. It's a thesis as silly as it is ugly, based on bizarre assertions about the president having the mindset of an African "Luo tribesman."
The Weekly Standard criticized it for "misstatements of fact, leaps in logic, and pointlessly elaborate argumentation." When D'Souza's thesis first appeared as a piece in Forbes, one of the magazine's own columnists blasted D'Souza's "intellectual goofiness," "factual problems," and "unsubstantiated ideological accusations." The Columbia Journalism Review called D'Souza's piece "a fact-twisting, error-laden piece of paranoia" and a "singularly disgusting work."
By the time the disgusting attack was turned into a movie, it was tempting to think the deranged attitudes of Obama's most over-the-top detractors couldn't get any worse. Michelle Goldberg's latest report proves otherwise -- now they're launching nauseating attacks against the president's mother (thanks to my colleague Vanessa Silverton-Peel for the heads-up).
For a while now, pictures purporting to show Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, modeling in 1950s bondage and fetish porn have been floating around the darker corners of the Internet. Now, though, they’ve made their way into a pseudo-documentary, Joel Gilbert’s Dreams From My Real Father, which is being mailed to voters in swing states, promoted by several Tea Party groups and by at least one high-level Republican. At the same time, Dinesh D’Souza’s latest book, Obama’s America—the first of all his works to hit the top spot on The New York Times bestseller list—has a chapter essentially calling Dunham a fat slut. [...]
What matters here is not that a lone crank made a vulgar conspiracy video, one that outdoes even birther propaganda in its lunacy and bad taste. It’s that the video is finding an audience on the right. Gilbert claims that more than a million copies of Dreams From My Real Father have been mailed to voters in Ohio, as well between 80,000 and 100,000 to voters in Nevada and 100,000 to voters in New Hampshire. “We’re putting plans in place, as of next week, to send out another 2 [million] or 3 million, just state by state,” he told me.
It may seem hard to believe that even the most gullible, wild-eyed fools would find such garbage credible, but there are those on the right who are actually embracing this. Goldberg added, "[T]he fact is, people are reporting receiving the disc in the mail. Tea Party groups and conservative churches are screening it. It was shown at a right-wing film festival in Tampa during the Republican National Convention, and by Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum Council in Missouri. Alabama GOP Chairman Bill Armistead recently recommended it during a speech."
We're well past the point at which these right-wing activists care about basic levels of decency, but if there's any justice, this kind of attack will backfire, and make the purveyors of the garbage look far worse than their intended targets.
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We have an extremely strong President, I don't know how he can do what he does, to be so blatantly dis-respected by the same people he has helped protect, disgraceful I don't know how he does it day in and day out. He needs our prayers more than anything. That's his daughters, Gramma.
And he could stand in front of the United Nations and defend their right to free speech.
I love president Obama for that reason. He is probably the most maligned, slandered and lied about leader in my lifetime, yet he would gladly go to the mat to defend the right of free speech. Something I suspect those on the right would like to limit.
Attacking the president deceased mother is beyond the pale. Do none of these people have mothers? Yes President Obama is a strong man. He got that from his strong mother.
So tell me, does Obama's brother still live in a hut? Apparently he asked D'Souza for money because Obama couldn't be bothered.
Thought you folks believed in boot straps.
I'm not sure Shorty242. Are Mitten's brothers still living on that Mormon polygamist ranch in Mexico? I hear they're having a drug war down there. Do you think they're making meth or growing dope? Ha Ha Ha!
We should probably have Governor Brewer look into it don't you think? We wouldn't wan't any of those illegal drug dealing Mexican Romneys sneaking across the border would we? Ha Ha Ha
Shooter, that's BS, you know it's BS, and I could give you a link proving it. But you're too busy flitting around the liberal blogs spreading BS. Quite ineffectively.
"Mexican Romney's sneaking across the border"? Build the fence...build the fence!
I hope there's an extra deep pit in hell for all of the slanderous fools peddling this garbage... and that all the idiots that believe in this swill fall into the same pit as well!
Well said, Angel.
"They know no limits; they have no shame."
Really people, this man's mother is dead, have you NO respect for anything or anyone?! The fact that churches are showing this let's me know two things 1) the IRS needs to revoke their 501(c)(3) charitable deduction status, and 2) those supposed "Christians" have never heard the one about "casting that first stone, and bearing false witness"!!
These people are on the 5th level of Dante's hell - damned by the river Styx!!
I believe in Karma, and if my belief is correct, these people are going find out what a b!tch Karma can be.
I've been saying it for years . . . it's time to tax churches who push a political agenda.
The easiest targets are the ones who can't defend themselves.
True, but we can defend them. What are we doing about it? Are we making sure everyone we know is registered and committed to vote? Are we volunteering for the Obama campaign to make their ground game is stronger. We must do that if we want to make this kind of disgusting mindset go away once and for all.
https://my.barackobama.com/page/event/search_simple?source=primary-nav
Expect that it is only going to get worse before it gets better.
The right wing madness is being exposed for what it is: unhinged.
Very sad that our national discourse has gotten so vulgar.
Thanks, Republicans. Keep on with the class.
The President needs to call a press conference- inside the White House. And show these images on a screen as he tells us the Republicans- the same ones who called Chelsey Clinton the "White House Dog"-are not content to attack him, they now have targeted his dead mother.
The important thing is for the entire nation too actually see these images that are crawling through the internet sewer. Because words are not enough!
The Obama operation seems to have a well regulated response team to those matters which bear a response . It beats the devil out of me how you even describe these "Dali esque?" matters properly , let alone dignify them with a tidy response .
The entire nation has been spoon fed right wing propaganda for thirty years , enough so that when right wingers are arrested for various sundry felonies , and misdemeanors they are routinely identified as Democrats .
I agree the nation must see , but through the haze of trick knee reporting , it may take a while yet .
And God forbid that Romney denounce this piece of trash. Romney is a coward. Plain and simple.
Romney didn't make it. Why should he denounce it?
One would hope that he would denounce it because he was a decent human being rightfully appalled at the attacks on Obama's deceased mother. But he's not a decent human being. He's a coward, a sociopath, and worst of all, he's a Republican. Which mean's he'll say nothing against this.
The good news is that the chance that many of those of alleged million recipients of the book actually READ the book is almost zero. Any that do read it are unlikely to be swing voters in any case. While disgusting, is it really going to affect any thing?
I hope it does. And by that, I mean I hope that the moderates and independents - people who actually think for themselves - see how disgusting the right wing has become, and then make the decision accordingly to vote Obama in for a second term.
I hope that even some who usually are diehard Repubs will take one look at that, get as sick to their stomachs as I am at the mere thought of it, and reject that party's candidates down the line.
I doubt it Jayne. One thing the 20th century propaganda ministers learned early and practiced often is that the more salacious, and even outright pornagraphic, a slander is, the more widely read and believed it will be.
Look up Julius Streicher, hid paper Der Sturmer and the pornagraphic anti-semetic cartoons it published on Wikipedia sometime. Preferably sometime when you haven't eaten recently. First thing I thought of when I read this, anyway.
I think it's likely that to some extent at least, this kind of thing will backfire on the right-wing loonies. Anyone who is going to buy into the conspiracy is already probably an Obama hater ... maybe they'll get a little more fired up by the "shocking revelations".
But I think of my mother, who is a lifelong blue-collar Democrat, just turned 70, salt of the earth -- she's mostly non-political, the type of person who could definitely be persuaded to vote for someone like Mitt Romney. She sees this hate and instantly recoils. My siblings have tried to pull her into Fox-News-fantasy-land, but when I point out the vicious insanity of the right's attacks -- and when she sees garbage like "Dreams From My Real Father" -- she is much more inclined to think that Obama must be OK.
They are the sons of RMN , for heavens sakes . They have had a trying time , struggling with an eighteen minute gap . That which leaves these sorts of socially estranging disorders to grow to full strength , provides a well circulated odor , a pungency that I hear is hated by skunks .
While it may seem like a harmless prank to merely beat up a sissie and cut the hair of said sissie , there is just a bit of rolling nausea that attends my thought in the otherwise beautific life of fair haired Mittens , King of Rome .
D'Souza had better make his money now because after the election, I don't think there is a soul alive who will want anything to do with him - not even the rwn's!!!
Your keypad to the mighty ones ear .
This is the new republican normal.
There's no bottom to the crazy well...
There is no end to the the worm Orouborous .
I really believe it'll backfire .
I'm not sure Dinesh (et al) but, I think your desperation is burning!
Darn, that looked good too..
Anyone who votes for the candidate chosen by these folks is covering himself with slime that will not ever come off!
I don't know who paid to print 1,000,000,000 of a book they must be giving away for free, otherwise would anyone actually buy it? I suppose there are enough demented billionaires to think this is a good idea, but really, this is so despicable, I doubt even the churchgoers will fall for it.
Agreed!
I live in SW Ohio and got 3 of those DVDs in the mail on the same day. Apparently they are just sending them out en masse. I watched a few minutes of the video and it was just so god-awful I couldn't take any more (and I usually get a lot of enjoyment out of watching fringe, paranoid nuttiness, e.g. Glenn Beck and friends). People who have, you know, real lives and jobs and stuff like that couldn't care less about some loser geek's wet dream of Obama's secret Commie dad.
I think Steve's final point is dead-on -- nobody is going to be convinced by this garbage except those who are already living in tinfoil-hat territory -- and they don't need convincing. It's just a colossal waste of money and plastic. The landfills will be well-fed this week. If there's any consolation in this travesty, it's the thought of some a**hole billionaire blowing wads of cash on this nonsense, to no effect whatsoever.
The only people who will be convinced are those who already believe the lies and hate Obama. I doubt it will change large numbers of votes for people who are undecided and those voters are very few. At best, the film will bring out voters who were going to vote for Obama. How many? Negligible. This is much ado about nothing.
Much despicable adoo ...
Thinking like this propels the republican party through its apotheosis to true cult status.
I read "Dreams from My Father" in '08. I came away thinking Stanley Ann Dunham was a bright and very caring woman. When she re-married and moved to Indonesia, she was so concerned about the quality of Obama's education, she sent him to Hawaii to live with her parents. Gilbert's portrayal of her is a DISGUSTING LIE.
I know a woman (Betty) who saw D'Souza's film. She swallowed it whole, told me what she "learned" from it, and then asked me how I could vote for Obama. Betty is a decent person who could be called a low-information voter. She's prone to adopt the opinions of whomever she spoke to last. Unfortunately there are many more just like her. But I have faith that most Americans won't buy D'Souza and Gilbert's trash. One day the right-wing crazies will understand that most of us aren't falling for their lies anymore.
Muggleborn: For me, I have no problem with people who oppose my views. My husband, a Texan, leans right. But for these people that produce and disstribute this $hit and the people that would read/ watch it, are haters. It's pure and simple.
President Barrack Obama's mother is not president of the United States. If even 1% were true, why go there?
"Tea Party groups and conservative churches are screening it."
Tea party and phony christians care nothing for truth. I wonder what kind of people would continue to go to such a church?
Easy, the church preaches what the congregation will tolerate. It's how they keep from offending their "flocks" and maintain the tithe levels needed to get those million dollar projector systems to put hymns on the wall and mic up the choir.
Imagine how many churches would fold if they taught religion the old Puritan way, preaching all the Bible even the damning parts, actually expecting the commandments to be upheld, and worshipping in an church without luxuries like A/C.
I wonder what kind of people would continue to go to such a church?
Hateful people, Paul. Very hateful 'christian' people.
Needmore, I agree. Strip tax exemption from political churches to help balance the budget. They should confine their energies to saving souls and not engage in the political process whatsoever.
However, in the course of human events it's very unlikely the church could keep it's paws off the rights of individuals. They never have, they never will. Tax the m'fers as a for profit business such as they are. They own real estate, they manage personal estates, etc. Churches are businesses!
Either they stay out of politics and tend to the poor, sick and homeless per the gospels. Or they contribute to the political discourse openly and be taxed accordingly as a business (which they are).
It's a very simple - either or position for them to take. What's it going to be?
Myself, I'd op to eliminate churches altogether as I think they're all a scam. But, that's just me.
gordona, it's not just you.
Lynn Barry and United for separation of church and state does go after politicking churches I do not normally advertise for anyone but AU does good work and they could use your support. They are not anti-religious (Barry is a reverend, they just know that mixing religion and politics threatens not only government but the church itself.
I find it highly ironic that the GOP is sending porn to the Religious Right who is embracing it instead of throwing it away like their family values would dictate. When all else fails, appeal to their sexually-repressed tendencies?
Porn as political persuasion? Republican have indeed hit the bottom of the barrel.
What would Ryan say about someone sending out a video of his elderly mother or his dearly departed Irish grandmother in such a disgusting way? I remember seeing Mrs. Ryan at that FL rally with her son last week thinking that if President Obama's mother had beat cancer earlier in her life that she might look just like her.
There is no dignity or integrity left among the leadership of the Republican Party. They have lost control of their party to the lunatic fringe and lost their souls as well. There is nothing left to salvage in the RNC.
sandyh - the Rape-Public-CONs have indeed hit the "bottom of the barrel", but rest assured, they are energetically sawing their way right through it!
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heart ache
sadness
some tears
anger
now I'm just pissed and feel outrage.
Angel#77 ... great post, couldn't have said it better!!
As Goldberg puts it,
What is D'Souza's problem, I wonder? (Not that anyone actually paying attention has ever considered him a "legitimate conservative intellectual" -- he's just an angry, spiteful guy who knows some big words.) He's an embarrassment even to Dartmouth, the Ivy League's most notorious incubator of wing-nuttiness.
Reading this prompts me to ponder whether there ought to be a new class of voters. We have already delineated "low information" voters. I think there is a new group of voters who have lots of information, but its false. They might be called "low fact" voters.
I have a tendency to believe its desperation .....they are so afraid that they will lose after throwing the kitchen sink to elect Mitt that they are really scrapping the bottom of the barrel to keep the base from giving up.
The bigger question here is what will House & Senate Repub's do if they do lose.....all this effort for naught......where do they go from down?.......further down?.....do they keep digging?
Books, movies... What's next? A theme park? Dineshland -- it's the most fantastical place on earth!
-- it's the most
fantasticalfanatical place on earth!FTFY, ok?
I have no intention of looking into the hit piece any further, but my only response in reading this brief article is that even if people believed the yukky portrayal of his mom, what would that have to do with Obama himself? I'm not a Romney fan, but I would never say because grandpa was a polygamist that Romney shouldn't be president (that reason doesn't come close to making my list.)
Any fans of this mailer weren't going to vote for Obama anyway. It will just serve to feed their existing hatred. Hope there is plenty of kleenex on hand for the frothing mouths.
KAK1958 - I too wonder what this has to do with Obama and the kind of person he is; I believe it is due to OBS and just one more way for the nutjobs to label Obama as "other", "different", "not like me" they need to find ways to justify the hatred they have for Obama.
Hell, I dislike Mitt and lots of other politicians, but would never think to slander their Mother