Obama, the Bogeyman!

Let's make Obama the Bogeyman! This is the not so new strategy of the right-wing! Although not an official strategy, essentially it is what is being done. The right has set out on a mission that started even before he was elected, to make him out to be the bogeyman. Dictionary.com describes a bogeyman as "an imaginary evil character of supernatural powers." ¹They first labeled him a Muslim in Insight magazine owned by none other than Rupert Murdock, who incidentally also owns Fox News, which repeated the libel. Insight magazine claimed in a January 2007 article that Barack Obama spent at least four years attending what is variously described as a "madrassa," a "radical Muslim religious school," or a Muslim seminary" in Indonesia, but CNN has more recently reported that its own investigation found these claims to be false. The Associated Press also reported the claims to be false.

The next try to make Mr. Obama into the bogeyman, was to falsely accuse him of not being a natural born citizen of the United States by saying he was not born in Hawaii, but in Kenya. Currently, this is being called the "Birther" movement as it is still going on. Despite having put a copy of his birth certificate on the web and showing newspaper clippings of his birth announcement in Hawaii papers from August of 1961, there are still people who don't believe that he was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii, therefore being without a doubt a natural born citizen of the United States, and eligible on his 35^th birthday to become the president.

What this all boils down to is a systematic effort to put fear, uncertainty and doubt into the electorate so that maybe we will remove Barack Obama from office or at the very least, put Republicans back in the Congress in 2010. The people responsible are either right wingers scared of change, or racist that can't deal with having a black man as president. The media is just fueling the fires of dissent by reporting on the current wreck going on instead of reporting on good things that are being accomplished. Of course, this is what the twenty-four hour news cycle has become, mostly lies, and bad journalism. Barack Obama is not the bogeyman, but just watch, they will succeed in convincing the electorate he is.

¹Snopes.com – Who is Barack Obama?