Barak Obama and 'net hoaxes

This kind of goes along with the phony "Swift Boat" stories about Kerry in 04 which deflected attention from the real issue, a failed miserable policy in Iraq.

Apparently someone (Republicans, Clinton camp, fringe libertarians??) claims Obama refuses to say the pledge of allegiance and is a Muslim in secret (Joe Average American thinks he sounds like Osama so why not) and emails this around. It's complete and utter bunk according to the candidate and his supporters. It's also here on Snopes, a popular fact checking site.

I'm not an Obama supporter, my guy was Richardson (but he's out now). So I'm up in the air. General election I'll go for the best person also, not necessarily a Democrat, although most of the time I have voted that way.

Anyway, just goes to show most of what you hear on the net is just that, hearsay at best and at worst smearing lies targeted to discredit the opposition. It's really hard to track this stuff down though and some of it gets into the subconscious of the electorate as de facto truth. People love conspiracy theories also (look at the Dan Brown phenomenon) and this just fits right into another Al Queda bogeyman around the corner.

With all the chatter online recently I wonder if the same is happening on the T&G board on a smaller scale. Personal smears are increasing as the dirty tricks gangs drudge up whatever they can to hurt the other side. After all there's a Highway Department position at stake and maybe even with the Charter review the spectre of - gasp - a DPW!