She doesn’t get MSNBC on her cable system if she even has cable, and she never heard of Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. She voted for Bush because she wanted him to keep her safe from the evil Muslims and thinks he’s a good guy because he sent our soldiers to bring democracy to those poor people who weren’t lucky enough to be born a white Christian. She ACTUALLY BELIEVES that. She doesn’t know we torture prisoners and if you tried to get her to sign a copy of the Bill of Rights she’d report you to the sheriff for distributing communist propaganda. She thinks America is supposed to be a Christian country because all the founders were Christian. Yes, that’s not true, but that’s what she was taught in either public or private faith-based government funded church school down here.

I live in the South and I am surrounded by these people. I hear my aunt and uncle repeat these talking points that get circulated through their church. If you met them, you’d think they were perfectly nice people and they are. There’s nothing obviously backwards about them – for this area, they’re sort of upper class because my aunt is in county government. They’re “good people,” they don’t believe in evolution and they think I’m damaged because I’m well-educated.

This is what Barack has to deal with if he’s going to get votes down here. A good number of these people won’t vote for him because he’s black (or as they’d say, “colored”), even if they are Democrats. We don’t actually have Democcrats here, they’re Dixiecrats- that’s the word they’d use to describe themselves in many cases – and they think Hillary is the only thing standing between them and the Apocalypse. The challenge is going to be for him to seem non-threatening to the ones that can be reached and it won’t be easy. The local news parrots all the misinterpretations of his speeches here as if they’re fact.

I wixh I could work for him down here as an interpreter, because that’s what it’s going to take for him to learn their language.

But, as for the “as far as I know” moment? Review the transcript (or, better still, the video as I did). She could have stopped at “No. No. Why would I? No, there is nothing to base that on.” without out the brief pause and the “as far as I know” added on.

I’m sure there are many human life forms that, after two firm responses and a third that was also clear and direct, would NOT have weakened the third with the unnecessary “as far as I know”.

2) The “as far as I know” moment? Review the transcript. Clinton was asked three times consecutively if she “believes” Obama is a Muslim. The first two times, she answered definitively. When pressed yet again, she answered, “There’s no reason to think that…as far as I know.”

Did you review the transcript? I think you didn’t. Did you follow up your answer to my earlier question, “But other than that, who in the Clinton campaign has said anything that would lead someone to believe Obama is the antichrist?” I think you didn’t.

Instead, you’re trying to make it Clinton’s fault for doing what any other human life form would do under the same circumstances.

That would have required her to be tough.

SDM: Ah, so as far as being a strong woman goes, all one has to do is ask her a question THREE times and she’ll cave.

QiaB: Now you’re being silly. And lazy. You can’t bother to go find the transcript?

Huh???

I was going off your description of the interview. Now you’re telling me I (meaning you) didn’t have it right?

Yes. And who is most at fault for letting her continue to believe such nonsense? All clues point to the media. We tune into the news to be better informed. They don’t seem to do that job anymore.

In a restaurant in Greenwood on Tuesday, Obama approached an older white guy who waved him off, muttering afterwards to a reporter: “I can’t stand him. He’s a Muslim. He’s not even pro-American as far as I’m concerned.”

If you need help counting all the things wrong with this paragraph, go see today’s Daily Howler. Somerby takes filets this mackerel cleanly in the second part of today’s post.

When you’re done, come back and explain why you think it’s OK for Obama Democrats to do the same thing to Mr. Obama’s Democratic opponent.

Now you’re being silly. And lazy. You can’t bother to go find the transcript? Here ya go:

CLINTON: Of course not. I mean, that’s–you know, there is not basis for that. You know, I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn’t any reason to doubt that.

KROFT: And you said you’d take Senator Obama at his word that he’s not a Muslim.

CLINTON: Right. Right.

KROFT: You don’t believe that he’s a Muslim or implying? Right.

CLINTON: No. No. Why would I? No, there is nothing to base that on, as far as I know.

KROFT: It’s just scurrilous –

CLINTON: Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors. I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time.

OK, this is what the Clinton campaign has done to make Ms. Bunger in Indiana believe Obama is “the anti-christ from the Middle East”?

And then Beetlejuice shows up.

Ah, so as far as being a strong woman goes, all one has to do is ask her a question THREE times and she’ll cave.

That was McCain.

1) The African garb photo? Drudge claimed that it was “being circulated” by the Clinton campaign, but he carefully did NOT say he had received it from the Clinton campaign. No one has said that Clinton campaign staffers sent that photo to anyone in media.

2) The “as far as I know” moment? Review the transcript. Clinton was asked three times consecutively if she “believes” Obama is a Muslim. The first two times, she answered definitively. When pressed yet again, she answered, “There’s no reason to think that…as far as I know.”

3) Pinprick attempts to connect him to Farrakhan, Hamas? Clinton piled on with Russert in calling for Obama to denounce AND reject Farrakhan and that was a stupid moment. But it was Russert who asked, not Clinton. Hamas? I’m drawing a blank.

4)Ayer? You’re balling up a couple of things. Obama and Ayer both sat on the board of a foundation and Ayer hosted a meeting at his home that Obama attended as a fresh-faced candidate for the state house. Obama was eight when Ayer was in the Weather Underground.

There are some Obama supporters who have accused Clinton of being a closet racist, but not for anything she has said or done. They accuse her based on their own interpretations of what some campaign operatives and officials have said. Some of the quotes they point to are genuinely offensive (see Ferraro, G). But in some other instances, the logic is so incredibly tortured that the Geneva Conventions should be put in play.

There is “Barack Hussein Obama/Osama,” which I do not blame on Clinton, but which I think she could have been noble enough to denounce outright. And I would have wanted to see the same from the Obama camp if anybody had dared engage in such childishness with Hillary Clinton’s name.

I know there are Obama supporters who hold outlandish opinions of Clinton. I have not seen those opinions enter the mainstream with the same ridiculous dissemination as the similar ideas about Obama.

OK, there was Bob Kerrey and his idiot rant. But other than that, who in the Clinton campaign has said anything that would lead someone to believe Obama is the antichrist? I think this sort of delusion is fueled not by the Clinton campaign, but by an assortment of conspiracy theorists, religious zealots, xenophobes, racists, and other crackpots. And I’m willing to bet there are some Clinton supporters included.

Now if a candidate’s supporters are fair game, I don’t think you’ll have any problem finding Obama supporters who hold outlandish opinions of Clinton.

That said, can somebody point me in the direction of the campaign tactics from the Obama group that would create a similar creature using the same language about Mrs. Clinton? Because I know I’ve seen plenty of subtle moves throughout the primary from her campaign that would lead to this sort of idiocy.