Note: We'll take a quick break from the local political rumor mill for this interesting report on rumors about our presidents. This post originally appeared on J.L. Bell's blog Oz and Ends.
By J. L. Bell
American right-wing leaders are responding to complaints about their adherents’ insults, threats, and acts of violence by claiming that such problems occur on the left as well. Of course, they don’t dare to compare and quantify such behavior. That would mean acknowledging that, for example, Congressional historians find no precedent for Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouting at the president during a joint session of Congress. Or that there was a disturbing spike in death threats to the president in the months after President Barack Obama took office.
To keep on top of urban myths of all kinds, I subscribe to the Snopes.com update list, and I noticed a pattern there that I thought deserved to be examined more arithmetically. It struck me I was seeing a lot more rumors about President Obama, and a lot more false rumors, than I remembered from earlier years. So I ran the numbers, as of this week.
After eight years in the White House (with Snopes.com around all that time), George W. Bush has been the subject of 47 internet rumors. After less than two years in office, Barack Obama has been the subject of 87, or nearly twice as many.
Even more telling is the relative accuracy of those stories. For Bush, 20 rumors, or 43%, are true. Only 17, or 36%, are false. The remainder are of mixed veracity (4), undetermined (4), or unclassifiable (2).
In contrast, for Obama only 8 of the 87 rumors, or 9%, are true, and a whopping 59, or 68%, are whoppers. There are 17 of mixed veracity and 3 undetermined.
20 comments:
Let's see, since you only quote Snopes as your source of information, and you limit your "rumors" to internet rumors, it is interesting that the cathartic death threats to President Bush were the subject of a movie, a book, and character assassinations by a great deal of people on the left during his presidency. Granted, these were not internet rumors, but were real and were not repudiated by anyone on the Left; and yet, with the Right, if someone dare speak against the Almighty Obama, you will be arrested, or harassed by his black shirts. (Witness just today a protest against His highness by a group of Tea Party members, and then someone called the SWAT team agianst them in Missouri.)
Your sad commentary is pathetic in comparing his limpness, Obama, to President Bush in regards to abuse from those opposed to their respective presidencies.
FYI, gun sales also increased significantly after Obama was elected.
Who is anyone kidding? The racism, xenophobia and hate by the white conservatives since Obama is nothing less than shameful for those of us who are normal.
Even now we see the sickness of rationalized hate with all the tit for tat responses from the Anonymous bigots. They are a lost cause - and make a decent argument for social sterilization.
Oh, I know, I just wrote what the bigots would really like to do. They would love that type of big government.
A lot of ammo was also sold at that time; I myself bought 500 rounds of .223 for my AR-15. I wanted 1000 rounds but they didn’t have that much so I bought some 12 gauge 00 buckshot. You never know when you’ll need it but I’d rather have it and not need it than ...
Change is hard to adjust to. But what is happening nationally with the Obama hate and crazy Birther thing and the Arizona scapegoating is a form of mental illness.
It is what happens to bigots when stress gets overwhelming. Anger, blaming, rationalizing, minimizing - all old signs of defined neurosis from a new social helplessness. Not surprisingly, it seems to be mainly southern and southwest, white older people.
We probably will just have to wait until the old American bigots simply die off - and hopefully their children and grandchildren won't carry around their hate and bigotry legacy.
Charlie Crist was smart. He will do much better in the long run getting out of the white hate party.
Al-Anonymous 1 is so typical of the hate apologists who try to discount a source of reliable information by over-emphasizing some bogus tit for tat example. Hey white man, one valid counter example does not offset multiples of hate examples.
As the article so clearly points out, it is the quantity of hate we see now that is so pathetic. Some 20% of the US population are showing their true sociopathy, i.e. racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and homophobia.
And the fact that Texas has more hate groups than any other state tells us why people like Al-Anonymous 1 are minimizing the ugly Obama nativism.
I wonder: If Obama goes to Arizona, will he be asked for his alien ID? And can he sue the state for racial profiling when Sgt. Cracker asks for his ID?
Hey, Sarah. Spill, baby, spill. Good call.
We have "Haiti in the Gulf", "30s Germany in the Desert", and "Spiked Tea Sippers on the Right."
How's that move to the right working out for ya?
What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
Trilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
Bilingual.
What do you call someone who speaks one language?
American.
I wonder if the Birthers would even get that joke?
Hey Pete, they also went up during the years when people thought that the feds were going to pass tighter gun restrictions in the 90's under Bill Clinton. (He's a white guy.)The sales of guns also spiked shortly after 9/11 (Bush's term, he's also a white guy, who just happens to also be a moderate Republican).
So, again, it's attack the messenger, and not the message. Can no one see the hypocrisy of the blog post? Narrowing the parameters of "internet rumors" and only from "snopes", you eliminate the other comparisons that are relevant.
I thought liberals were smarter than that. Can't you see that it is not racism? I didn't make a claim against Obama because he is black, I am pointing out the hypocrisy of what the liberals did and said, and didn't say when others did, about a sitting president (George Bush), all the while acting so freaking sanctimonious now that their guy is in office and there are RUMORS going around. Hell, there were DEATH threats coming in books, movies, etc., and no one on the liberal side spoke out against it then, they said "oh, it's just people speaking out against what they believe is an unjust war and president". What the hell do you think the other side is doing now? Speaking out (albeit with rumors and not death threats) for what they perceive and believe to be a possible illegimate president (not a natural born citizen - whether true or not, I can't say since no evidence has been offered to dispel the RUMOR), a president who with a Congress chose to act against the will of the majority of the people with a health care bill that will potentially bankrupt the country (interesting that European countries are facing economic crises due to their STYLE of socialistic government with unsustainable deficits DUE to their STYLE of government and social programs, and here we are trying to emulate them. Guess what the consequences are going to be? Duh...)
Please someone with any shred of integrity stand up and debate the arguments not the person and belittle or tear down the messenger. If not, it just confirms that you have no argument, other than to show your ignorance and lack of a true argument.
Hate is always in season. Texas exceeds California in hate groups by only 6.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map#s=TX
With the use of the Internet there are more rumors and unsubstantiated "facts" being thrown about that ever before. Get used to it.
Neither party is interested in providing any truthful discourse on
most issues. Currently the TX GOP is bashing White for governor, but not saying what Perry has done or will do if he is reelected.
In this nation it's bash the other guy and if you make enough noise and make the most in campaign contributions you will win.
How great is that?
I've noticed many rumors against the current President are perpetuated by a certain "non-mainstream" cable "news" network, guess that makes them the fringe media.
Peter Stern, your post contained a link to a known leftist site, “The Southern Poverty Law Center”. They only consider them hate groups if the are “right wing” groups. You talk about hate as if it were something new and unique to our time.
Hate is a legitimate human emotion and has a purpose. Hate is in our DNA and to imply that it is wrong and always evil is going against nature. Just displaying your hate is foolish and non productive. If you cannot satisfy your hate you are doomed to frustration. If you say you don’t hate, you are a liar. For instance, I hate my cancer because it is trying to kill me. Am I supposed to turn the other cheek? Hell no, I’m fighting to kill it.
If you are a soldier in war, you have pretty well have to hate the enemy to kill him. During WWII our people hated the “Japs” for their cowardly attack on Pearl Harbor and eventually satisfied that hate with the nuclear bombing of their cities and the killing of thousands of their people. Now we get along fine with the Japanese people and nearly everyone considers them allies and good people.
In all of our wars since, many of our young people were fearful of fighting and dying, and they claimed to hate war. That was an illegitimate hate because they were such cowards they couldn’t admit they were weak and afraid of dying. Nobody that fought in WWII wanted to die but they hated the enemy more than death. Because of those later “wars” we ended up hating each other more than the enemy. Now we are still reliving that frustration at every turn.
You are comparing hate in war to general racist hate?
While the site may or may not be "a known leftist site" the point is accurate, which is why I provided the link.
Even if a site is leftist or rightist, isn't there some truth within all the muck and garbage posted? We need to wade through it all to pick out the important matter -- something similar to what writer Virginia Woolf stated a long time ago.
Don't be so quick to just discard something because it may have a left or right slant. Try to find the stable middle ground to make sense of it all.
BTW, you don't need hate to win a war. You need to be in the right, believe in your actions and have the military leadership, majority approval, munitions and transportation to win it.
No, Sir, hate is not a natural human emotion.
Hate is anger turned into hate by ignorance and helplessness. It can be a result of child abuse or some sort or real life trauma that cannot be resolved in a caring, legal or civil fashion. Or worse yet, hate is a family legacy passed on to children by unhappy, bigoted, or dysfunctional parents.
Also, Sir, deciding to fight the Nazis in WW2 was not hate. It was just the opposite. It was love for humanity and common decency implemented by the co-operation of nations to combat evil and repression. The good wars are never based on hate. Those who start a war based on hate are the one we should declare war against. That is the only humanity of war.
To respond briefly to the above statement, hate is not in our DNA. For those who claimed they despise war, that is not founded in fear of dying. It is a rejection of killing civilians, destroying livelihoods and individuals well being. It is a rejection of violence as the only means to solve global-issues. Your comments make me feel saddened and discouraged that as a nation we are so unwilling to move on from such brutish behavior.
Next, it is true that this person only looked at Snopes.com but I can guarantee that I never perceived Facebook groups openly praying for Obama's death.
Another pathetic lie about SPLC from the right wing hate machine.
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) targets all hate groups, including black, jewish, and muslim based hate groups that promote anti-white hate and violence as well. All you have to do - if you have any personal integrity at all before you lie about them - is to go to their website (www.splcenter.org) and read the description of the groups they identify and you will see the facts.
However, there are many more white hate groups because America was founded on slavery and white superiority and as a result we still have more racist and xenophobic haters in America, especially in the south and southwest.
The deep racist and immigrant hate was dormant as long as we had white men as President. But now, the Empire is run by a black man who the haters are stupid enough to think isn't a US citizen.
Learn to live with it, white people. You will be the minority sooner rather than later.
How do you like them enchiladas?
I LOVE cheese enchiladas! Just had some today.
Obama and Bush are both establishment puppets! The only difference between a Stimulus Package and a Bailout is party affiliation. Wallsteet still gets to rip us off.
Obama continues the Bush legacy of Empire. He isn't bringing the troops home and even kept W's Sec of Defense. What about Cheney's unitary executive?? Do Republicans want Obama to be the "decider"? The War on Terror is a bi-partisan excuse to destroy the Constitution.
I'm curious which rumors you don't believe? Bush's National Guard duty? The DWI or Coke bust? I bet he has his birth certificate though. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH DON'T RELY EXCLUSIVELY ON SNOPES.
Anon 1 and near last again, what's the matter with Snopes? Usually it's on the money.
Post a Comment