HERE WE GO AGAIN.
I've received yet another right-wing propaganda email.
This one is written by a Lou Pritchett, and begins with a sort of advertisement for him, including photo and logo, as "one of corporate America's true living legends".
It's titled "AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA"
Like many other conservative emails, it's an education in how to do propaganda:
Dear President Obama:
You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.
You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.
Notice how he subtly buries an absurd assumption—that after all these months, he really knows nothing about Obama.
Obama has given so many press conferences, speeches, and interviews since he has been elected that there are actually people questioning the wisdom of so much exposure and transparency. And when he gives a conference or interview, his answers are detailed and comprehensive, some would say too comprehensive.
About the only things Obama can be accused of concealing are the sins of the Bush administration.
The fact is that if Mr. Pritchett knows nothing about Obama, it's because he hasn't been listening.
But he doesn't defend this statement, he merely gives it as the reason Obama scares him, thus slipping in an assumption without any proof.
Do you think that the reason he does this has anything to do with his convictions for bribery in 1997?
There. You see? I did the same thing. Except I'm telling you right now that I made up the whole bribery conviction thing. But didn't it sound convincing, when I gave it as a reason for something else?
He continues with the same trick throughout the letter:
You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.
This one is even better. Notice how he weaves together multiple snide suggestions:
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He implies that Obama got money from some questionable source.
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He implies that Obama's education is elitist—unlike, say, George Bush's education at Yale.
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He implies that Obama is wealthy, and thus out of touch with us common folk.
That's a lot of bang for the buck. I wonder what Lou Pritchett, "one of corporate America's true living legends", makes in a year?
It's all very nasty, and again, completely unfounded.
Obama's education was paid for, like most graduate students, with a combination of scholarships and student loans. His two best-selling books and some hard work as a successful lawyer helped him pay off the student loans, and account for his "upscale lifestyle".
If you don't believe me, check it out at Fox News.
You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.
I won't bother to point out the fact that he's once again given his real attack as a reason for his fear, in order to make us less critical of it.
See how it's done? (I did point it out, didn't I?)
The sleazy implication, of course, is an intentional play on racist fears. We're supposed to think that Obama grew up in Africa, and consequently isn't a "real American".
The truth about that one next time...
