2sides2ron: Swiftboated Anti-Christ

I wondered how long it would be before some religious political pundit would scratch out their anger and xenophobia about the Obama campaign. I found the answer in my inbox this week. Yes, now they are saying that Senator Obama is the anti-Christ and implying that it is the godly thing to do to oppose his candidacy for the office of US President.

Here is the original text of the drivel. I have cleaned up the formatting a bit as the original author apparently didn't understand the concept of line-breaks.

Subject: Fw: anti-christ???????

Remember--God is good, and is in time, on time--every time.

According to The Book of Revelation on the anti-christ:

The anti-christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything.

Is it OBAMA??

I STRONGLY URGE each one of you to repost this as many times as you can! Each opportunity that you have to send it to a friend or media outlet...do it! If you think I am crazy..I'm sorry but I refuse to take a chance on the 'unknown' candidate.

Especially with all his so called 'Christian' ties, who's church pledges total allegiance to Africa, and also with his strong Muslum (sic)ties, and terrorists.

There are so many things wrong with this email. First off, mentioning God in the opening line is a good touch to make people feel that they are getting something of a holy nature. Yet, there is nothing holy about mean-spirited misrepresentation of another person. In fact, one of God's top ten sins is bearing false witness against another.

By asking "Is it Obama?" without stating it, the writer takes a cowardly turn toward implication without having to risk being sued for slander. However, he or she turns the message right back into a slanderous mode when s/he refers in the last paragraph to Obama's "terrorist" ties. Which ones are those? I don't recall having heard anyone say that Obama is a terrorist or linked to any terrorist organization. Did I miss an episode of Fox News? (Oh, yeah, all of them.)

I wrote the person who sent this to me. I found that his reaction was to become defensive and to not take responsibility for his own actions. His first sentence in his own defense stated "First of all, I didn't write the email. I only forwarded it..." There ya go.

Another recipient of the email wrote back as well and was blasted for replying to all of the people who received the original email. It seems that it is OK to spread lies but if you try to clear them up, you are a bad person for shouting your rebuttal as loudly as the original lies.

If you receive an email from anyone with this kind of tone, please REPLY TO ALL and tell them what you think of the "swiftboating" approach to politics that has too long divided the good people of this country. Everyone has a right to their religious beliefs and to speak their minds. They do not have the right to slander anyone. It is sickening when it happens from campaigns and even more when it is the common man who stoops to this level of fearmongering.

If you live in North Carolina and want to learn more about the Obama campaign or you want to register to vote in the May Primary, please click here to be directed to the official campaign page for Senator Obama. I much prefer this approach to winning votes from the Obama homepage for North Carolina:

Welcome to North Carolina for Obama

It's time to put an end to the say-anything-to-win politics of the past. Together we can face the challenges of the future with a new kind of politics and a new kind of leadership.