Stop lying about Obama

I won't mind if Obama loses the election, but it bothers me Republicans are again attempting to win through the use of lies and innuendos. Remember Swiftboating? Remember "Al Gore thinks he invented the Internet?" Remember "John McCain has a black daughter?"

Well, the current specious attacks on Obama are every bit the equal of those nefarious Republican dirty tricks.

See, for example, the current article by Marc Zell in the Jerusalem report. [Marc Zell is Co-Chairman Republicans Abroad in Israel ] Absent any evidence, Zell trots out the tired, and unsupported claim that Obama is "bad for the Jews." Among the lies Zell spreads:

First and foremost among the considerations that should trouble friends of Israel is the foreign policy team Obama has selected to advise him... Headed up by Jimmy Carter's ("Israel is an apartheid state") national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski..

Headed up? Hardly. Here's the New York Times:

Mr. Brzezinski has met with Mr. Obama, but he is not a top adviser

Brzezinski is actually an "informal adviser," among many others. (and halivai the Republicans should subject McCain's legions of informal advisors to the same scrutiny)

Continues Zell:

Obama's team includes such problematic figures as... Robert O. Malley

And again the lie is easily exposed:

Mr. Malley has communicated with the campaign by e-mail but has never spoken to Mr. Obama, a campaign spokesman said.

Zell also thinks it matters (or at least he pretends to think that it matters) that Obama prays at a church presided over by a man who has the unfortunate habit of saying crazy things. Of all people, how can an Orthodox Jew possibly hold that against Obama? As Krum has pointed out the same can be said of almost every RW Orthodox shul in the world. I, myself, have heard pulpit Rabbis fiercly denounce black people, as well as Israel, secularists, and modern Orthodox Jews. In fact, I pray at a shul where the Rabbi can't seem to break himself of the habit of using an unfortunate Yiddish slur for African Americans and I have a friend who lives in Israel, like Zell, who reports that pulpit Rabbis there often indulge in vicious disparagements of ordinary Arabs. It is the height of hypocrisy or anyone who davens in a shul like that (most of us, by my estimate) to criticize Obama for belonging to the same sort of church.

Finally, Zell brings up the Farrakhan connection which is a total non-starter. Obama has denounced and repudiated Farakkhan in the strongest possible language. He has utterly rejected Frarakkkhan's support. As Abe Foxman (of all people) has put it:

He distanced himself and condemned it and rejected it. What more do we want? On that issue we should move on.

And Republican water carriers like Zell, who boast of belonging to the party of morality and integrity, shoud stop trying to derail Obama with dishonesty.