Tell a story

Some good advice here.

The Fight The Smears website is a good start at applying sunshine to the garbage floating out there, but countering a smear with facts often solidifies the "story" behind the smears in the minds of the reader even if they read facts that counter it. The "story" in this case is that Obama is someone that the American people just can't trust to be president.

The advice here is that countering the larger story requires a more compelling story to drive it out. And the suggested counter-story is to answer the question who stands to benefit by spreading smears about Obama.

The author of this post provides a sample counter email to spread in response to the smears, but a commenter provides an even better sample that we all might want to rejigger for our own purposes.

The question is this: who is using good honest Americans to spread lies about Barack Obama? Who is so afraid of Obama that they're attacking him with the vicious online smears?

You've got to think like a detective. Who benefits? Who benefits from spreading anonymous messages filled with lies, trusting that we'll blindly distribute them to our friends?

Let's run down a list of culprits:

Barack Obama wants Big Oil Companies who make $35 billion in pure profit every few months to pay their fair share.

Barack Obama intends to bring our troops home--to invest in America not just Iraq--even though Haliburton makes tens of billions on the war.

Barack Obama plans to lower taxes for ordinary Americans earning $75,000 and less ... but raise taxes for rich folks making more than $800,000 a year.

Barack Obama plans to insure all American children, even if the big health insurance companies don't think they make a big enough profit helping injured kids.

Why are anonymous cowards lying about Barack Obama? Not just because they hate him, and hate the change he represents. No, because they're scared, they're threatened.

Because when you stick your neck out for the little guy like Obama does, the Big Guys try to chop off your head.

So the next time you get a lying smear email about Obama, don't wonder if the smears are true. You know they're not.

Instead, wonder: who's behind all the smears? And why are they working so hard to bring down a man who wants to change things for the better?