Bogus E-mail: Worthy of Front-Page News!

Yes, it's revolting that somehow, an Internet rumor is important enough to hit the front page of the Washington Post. There is a way for this to be justified, if the reporter refereed on the side of truth and framed the story as "why are these obviously fake stories about Barack Obama being a Muslim so widespread on the Internet," but that's not what the reporter did.

Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a "Muslim plant" in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year [...]

An early rumor about Obama's faith came from Insight, a conservative online magazine. The Insight article said Obama had "spent at least four years in a so-called madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia." It attributed this detail to background information the Clinton campaign had been collecting.

After Obama denied the rumor, Jeffrey Kuhner, Insight's editor, said Obama's "concealment and deception was to be the issue, not so much his Muslim heritage," and he suggested that the source of the madrassa rumor was the Clinton campaign. The Clinton campaign denied the charge.

Human Events, another conservative magazine, published on its Web site a package of articles called "Barack Obama Exposed." One of them was titled "The First Muslim President?"

Robert Spencer, a conservative activist, wrote in Human Events that "given Obama's politics, it will not be hard to present him internationally as someone who understands Islam and Muslims, and thus will be able to smooth over the hostility between the Islamic world and the West -- our first Muslim President."

The denial by Obama is perfunctory, but there's a series of add-ons to the "rumor," not lie, which is what it is. The whole article, as Josh Marshall notes, is structured as if he is a Muslim, and how the public would react to that, and how it might help him abroad, which would be great and all except it's NOT TRUE IN ANY WAY.

The piece actually breaks new ground in the use of the word 'rumor'. In public writing, 'rumor' generally refers to a wholly or partly unsubstantiated report. To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that Obama is a Muslim any more than I am. So I would think the Internet sludge that has him attending Madrassas in Indonesia and being a covert Muslim today who plans to turn the US into a Muslim theocracy with mandatory gay marriage are not really 'rumors' but rather scurrilous lies which the Post has chosen to peddle (wink,wink) second hand.

This is completely irresponsible of the Washington Post.