I'd like to see a Joekleinesque netroot response to the Washington Post, with a boatload of letters to the editor.

But reporting by CNN in Jakarta, Indonesia and Washington, D.C., shows the allegations that Obama attended a madrassa to be false. CNN dispatched Senior International Correspondent John Vause to Jakarta to investigate.

He visited the Basuki school, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971.

"This is a public school. We don't focus on religion," Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told Vause. "In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."
[...]
"I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Vause said on the "Situation Room" Monday. "I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that."
[...]
Obama has noted in his two books, "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope," that he spent two years in a Muslim school and another two years in a Catholic school while living in Indonesia from age 6 to 10.

This is something that I believe the Obama campaign has made clear in reference to Republican attacks and lies spread about his opponent, Sen. Clinton.

If Obama would like to amend that statement (Paraphrased:  "It's not her fault, but that history is there."), then I think I'd feel 100% compelled to do a better job refuting these lies and refrain from pointing out that this history (the history of these attacks) now exists with Obama.

It's not an easy point for everyone to get.  But boil it down.  Do two wrongs make a right?  Maybe not.  Do you reap what you sow?  Maybe so.  If this actually ends up hurting Obama, I'm not sure why a Clinton supporter should give a crap at this point?

Maybe it's something I'll care about after the Primary is over.

For now.  No.  This comment is no better than the Obama campaign itself on the larger issue.

I expect you have gotten flak about your article on Barack Obama and the "rumors" that he is actually a Muslim.

I also expect that a fair amount of that flak revolves around the undeniable fact that the story consisted of little more than repeating said "rumors" along with Obama's denials, thus serving only to give the stories a wider circulation in what amounted to an "A said B said, who knows if it's true?" format.

Those criticisms are entirely valid, which brings me to the actual point of adding my voice: The part that struck me most strongly was your saying that Snopes.com had up a letter referring to the "rumors" - without noting that the site labeled the story flatly false.

I can think of no reason for that omission except that a deliberate decision was made - by you, by your editor, by someone - to actively avoid labeling these "rumors" (and this is why I put the word in quotes) as what they are: demonstrably untrue. And that is unforgivable.

Now, since it would be too easy to dismiss me as just an aggrieved Obama supporter, let me make clear that I am not. I'm not even a Democrat. But precisely because I do hold my own convictions and I do believe that in a true open "marketplace of ideas" they would succeed, I am a very strong believer in honest journalism - which the article in question was not.

PS: The letter at Snopes.com neither begins with nor contains the phrase "Be careful, be very careful." In fact, that precise phrase appears nowhere on Snopes.com, with or without capitalization or punctuation. Just what was the source of the letter you quoted?

But, hey, at least they're honest about what Democrats can expect. The media has shown since at least the 1990s that no Democrat will get a fair shake.  Folks like to dream that only applies to the Clintons, but all you have to do is look at 2000 and 2004 to see the media operates more under a Democrats Rule than it does a Clintons Rule.  Until now, Obama had avoided most - but certainly not all - of this crap, but that couldn't last.  It wouldn't be the media if it weren't picking up and amplifying rightwing smears.

But, of course, the media will want to be fair, so I predict a Post article about the smears out there regarding Hillary (lesbian Muslim lover) any day.  Because fairness requires they smear all Democrats equally.  If John Edwards wins Iowa, then they'll have to resume their interest in him.

Just so y'all know, it wasn't an easy decision throwing the full weight and power of my support, which is considerable, :-) behind Barack Obama.  I did so after carefully considering the positions I took in the last two presidential elections, in which I initially supported Bradley over Gore, and at least for time Edwards over Kerry.  But in both instances my support was rather soft and flexible, and I eventually came on board with the front runners, though I never joined either campaign or took a particularly firm stand.  Much the way Clinton is viewed today, both Gore and Kerry were the safe choices, that looked like they would win handily, at least in a country where reason and logic would prevail in the end.  And of course we all know what happened.

So this time I'm not playing it safe, nor will I be willing to seriously entertain a second choice until the race for the Democratic nomination is decided.  No longer will I compromise my principles, for the sake of the Democratic Party who has consistently shown in recent years that they don't have the guts or the balls to take the presidency, even when it's all but handed to them.  Simply put I don't put much faith in the Democratic Party any longer, and apparently many Americans feel the same way, so I will no longer go quietly into that good night which they would decide for me and the rest of the American people.

As to these attacks on Obama, this is nothing, it's only going to get worse.  And should he somehow win the nomination, I have no doubt in my mind that the Republican Party will do everything, and I do mean everything in their power, every dirty underhanded bigoted racist anti-Muslim trick that they can think of to try and undercut Obama's support in the hopes of putting another one of their corporate lackeys in the White House.  And I firmly believe that this is what America needs see, and it's what America deserves as well, an opportunity to see what the Republican Party has really become, and what they actually represent in this country today, the face of dictatorial monarchy and a future that will surely lead to the fall of the Republic and the rise of an American empire.  An eventuality that I think we still have time to prevent.

Does anyone here believe that the Republicans won't play the race card and the religion card in a general election, of course they will, and they will play them to the nines.  They'll be portraying Obama as Rufus Rustus Johnson Brown in black face, they'll have posters of him alongside Osama bin Laden, with phrases like "Obama, Osama, What's the Difference".  

Well the corporate controlled pseudo conservative's know that one more Republican president will lock down this country for the their interests permanently, through the Supreme Court which, who I have little doubt will begin deciding every US election, as the gap between the popular vote and the electoral vote continues to widen.

(I hope everyone is paying attention to what they're trying to do in California).

Bid to Change Electoral Vote May Decide '08 Race

Backers Of California Electoral Vote Initiative Raise Half-Million Dollars In Two Weeks

Obviously the Republicans are pulling out all the ethical stops in this election, and it won't really matter who the Democratic nominee is.  If it's Hillary, she'll be portrayed as the murdering lesbian devils concubine, out to destroy marriage and bring back the evils of free love, free speech and an uncorrupted media.

But if it's Obama, then I believe we'll really get to see who these people are, and perhaps those who are still blind will begin to comprehend the depths of depravity and corruption to which the Republican Party has sunk.  The national election will be a great purging of the disease and putrifaction that resides in the bowels of this country .  We will once and for all finally know, assuming that the elections are legitimate, who will be the victors in this country, the human beings, or the ignorant apes who reject evolutionary theory, because they could never face who and what they really are, primitive primates who have gotten ideas above their station, and whose pretensions at civilization and reason are nothing more than a thinly constructed façade.

I see the Barack Obama campaign and his candidacy as a crucible that has the potential to either burn away everything that is holding this country back, or it will confirm all of our worst suspicions about ourselves and what this country has become.

[Can Mr Obama recapture his early promise? And can he translate it into a victory in the primaries? Two months ago it looked impossible. Today, with just a month to go until the Iowa caucuses, he is on a roll. He delivered one of the best speeches of his career at the annual Jefferson Jackson dinner there. And his campaign has been reinvigorated by a recent poll that put him four points ahead of Hillary Clinton. ]

[A few recent polls have shown him doing better than Mrs Clinton in head-to-head races against the main Republican candidates, and a Zogby poll this week showed her losing to all leading Republicans, but him winning.]

[The case for Mrs Clinton has always rested heavily on a combination of inevitability and electability. People will vote for her not because they love her--her crowds are notably less enthusiastic than Mr Obama's--but because they calculate that other people will vote for her. An Obama victory in Iowa might just persuade Democrats to take another look. Mr Obama, who is by far the most popular Democrat among Republicans, is probably the best placed candidate to turn a good Democratic year into a landslide...]

New poll shows Clinton trails top 2008 Republicans