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Carnes: Obama a sleeper-agent Islamofascist!

Richard Carnes
Vail CO, Colorado

Pretend you receive an e-mail with the subject line: “Barack Obama is a real Muslim!”

Though receiving one is not much of a stretch nowadays, and ignoring the obvious of there being no such thing as a ‘fake’ Muslim, you have a few choices as to what to do next.

a) Delete it.



b) Open it, read it, and then delete it.

c) Open it, read it, and happily forward it to friends and family.

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d) Open it, read it, shake your head in disgust that this type of nonsense might actually be believed by naive readers, write a fiery retort basically begging people to do at least a minimal amount of research for themselves before reaching such ridiculous conclusions, and forward it to everyone in your address book in order to prevent yourself from punching a fist-sized hole in your monitor.

“C” is the only choice I hope none of you would choose, but the mere fact that I am commenting on this subject proves sadly otherwise.

As we crawl, ever so slowly, towards November’s election, I am receiving more and more of these racist, bigoted, xenophobic, paranoid delusions based on the same foundation as those believing in magical beings.

And just like belief in the supernatural, none of these e-mails are based on any actual facts whatsoever, just out-of-context assumptions based on wishes with intent to influence others in a particular manner.

“Obama refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance!”

“Obama will not put his hand over his heart!”

“Obama refuses to wear an American flag pledge pin!”

Notice how they all end with exclamation points. This is not a NationalEnquirer-styled coincidence. And the attacks go both ways, of course.

“McCain cheated on his first wife, what about the second!”

“McCain fathered a “Love Child” with a black prostitute!”

“McCain wants the war to last 100 years!”

We are left asking ourselves what kind of idiot writes this tripe and is allowed to then hit the SEND key.

First and foremost, accept the fact that those doing the writing are anything but idiots. They are well-planned and thought-out strategies conceived, constructed and released into cyberspace by the likes of Terry McAuliffe and Karl Rove, along with the thousands of bit-players they have in their respective arsenals of Innuendo and Malicious Insinuation Departments.

And the attacks are only going to grow exponentially worse and even more outlandishly ridiculous over time.

“Obama thinks we have 57 States!”

“Hamas prays to Allah for Obama win!”

“McCain thinks diplomacy is NOT a strategy!”

“McCain’s temper worse than Hitler’s!”

Perhaps the saddest part of this column will be the responses from those who take actual offense to any of the above e-mail subject lines (each of which has been actually received at poor@vail.net) because they honestly believe (or at least wish to believe) the “claim” to be true and factual.

They will respond to the online version of the Vail Daily with their typical nasty remarks, taking words far out of context, shooting the messenger, and writing just about anything they can come up with to mislead readers towards whichever candidate they wish to have lose come November.

“Obama says YES to ‘Yo Mama!'”

“McCain doesn’t know Shi’ite from Shinola!”

Granted, I made up those last two (though neither would surprise me too much), but I did actually receive the headline you see at the top.

Regardless, I would love to somehow, someway, be able to confront one of these bozos before they hit the SEND key, and then have them be the recipient of our very own fiery brand of Happy Valley ultimate punishment.

Yes, that’s right, I’d have them be publically humiliated by standing in front of the Vail Town Council while being subjected to a verbal tongue-lashing for all to witness.

That’ll teach ’em a lesson.

NOTE: The preceding opinions belong to Richard and are not necessarily shared by this newspaper… but for a painfully obvious reason, he thinks they should be.

Richard Carnes of Edwards writes a column for the Daily. He can be reached at poor@vail.net. E-mail comments about this column to letters@vaildaily.com.


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