From Michelle Malkin

Check out the Washington Post’s reporting on Obama’s campaign push at black churches–part of a “three-city gospel concert series over the weekend” throughout South Carolina. You’ll motice how there is none of the anti-religious alarmism that regularly infuses the ominous coverage of Republicans and the “Religious Right.” Whereas religious conservatives are cast as brainwashed sheep (see David Limbaugh’s excellent “Persecution“), Obama’s followers of faith are treated respectfully. They’re hip, earnest, and “innovative:”

Each concert stirs some of the fervor that typified the Obama campaign in its early days. As the gospel acts perform, people rise to their feet, mothers hug daughters, old friends reach out to one another and then embrace strangers. Couples hold each other tight. Some close their eyes and sway in their seats. In Greenwood, most of the room is drawn to the stage, leaping up and down as if it were a mosh pit. The concerts’ playbook was open to innovation. In North Charleston, the sister combo of Mary Mary recalled Beverly Crawford to the stage after her set, asking her to sing a few lines of her song “Praise Jehovah.” The following night, with the show running long, Byron Cage did an impromptu set with a group of young liturgical dancers before he jumped from the stage to jam with the believers who had surrounded the stage.“We’ve got the faith,” Obama senior adviser Rick Wade tells those assembled on the first evening. “But now it’s time to go to work.”

Read the rest here

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Related:  - Bigots in the Tent  and Liberal faith, Obama style?

Old article in case you forgot: A Candidate, His Minister and the Search for Faith

I found this on the liberal blog: Scoobie Davis Online

Christopher Hayes article ” The New Right-Wing Smear Machine” in The Nation on the under-the-radar spam e-mail smear campaigns by some right-wing operatives and how sites like Snopes.com and BreakTheChain.org have been countering the disinformation. Hayes mentions the now-infamous Hillary/Gold Star Mothers smear started by an operative writing for the right-wing website NewsMax (I wrote about the Gold Star Mothers smear and about NewsMax). It is a thorough article about how unscrupulous meme-creators are using e-mail for the purposes of modern day whisper campaigns. What I found ironic about reading the article online was that it had a Google ad for, of all things, NewsMax.

I found this post humorous, this is an oft repeated liberal blog tactic to get liberal blog sheep to get pissed off and ignore right leaning talking points. Particularly talking points aimed at Hillary Rodham. Here is another old blog entry hightlighting the same old rant.

Some examples:

“the right wing approach to US media - the sort of thing that propaganda historians will one day take apart smear by smear by lie by echo. Reduced to its basic elements, the strategy is both simple and familiar”

1. Have people in the biggest media outlets who run a neocon line, like Michelle Malkin and Bill O’Reilly. That is easy because Murdoch runs most of it and he has been consistently committed to the war.

2. Allow those people to blur the gap between fact and opinion, allowing editorial to stand as journalism.

3. Change the nature of editorial, so opinions can be selected and ventilated with no reference to facts whatsoever - what we would call naked, unadorned ranting.

4. Use the blogosphere to raise smears and false claims, usually based on some tiny fact. Use those facts to ignore or divert arguments.

5. Amplify the smear around the online pundits to create an apparent consensus around a “scandal”.

6. Spread it around the large media conglomerates like Fox.

7. Then claim that the conglomerate is some kind of truth-telling outsider, which is being attacked by “mainstream media”.

8. Use this to make the traditional journalism outlets like the New York Times uneasy, and increase the power of their own neocon elements.

9. Never ever retract - just repeat lies.

10. Revel in the impotence of the truth tellers.

You will see shit loads of articles like the one linked particularly when Hillary officially captures the nomination.
Every Hillary stump speech will include the phrase “Right Wing Smear Machine.”

Let’s get real. I get e-mails from Newsmax and a few other right leaning sites that have these bullshit, “breaking news” crap about Democrats and what they are doing.
However I subscribe to far more of the Democratic left leaning sites and campaigns just to see what they are whining about.

I take what I read from a SINGLE source with a grain of salt. If the story is juicy enough and it interests me, I look to see what right AND left leaning blog sites are writing about it.

THEN I go to the major news sites, to see the spin. What I’m getting at, is I do my homework.
If Newsmax were to send me an e-mail link saying “Hillary wants to kill all children” I would be like what the fuck.
They tend to have sensational headlines. But stories that have the elements of truth will rise to the top and will be supported likewise.

Like I have said many times before, the top bloggers on the right will do their research and pick a story apart to get at the truth, headlines on Drudge or Newsmax be dammed.
If something is a flat out “lie” the right wing blogsphere will simply reject it. This can’t be said for liberal bloggers or websites like Media Matters on the left.

You don’t have to take my word for it, take the time to read some of the crazy shit on liberal blogs.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is finessing her support of Rep. Charles Rangel’s (D-N.Y.) controversial new tax bill, highlighting Democrats’ concern about how Republicans plan to use it in the 2008 elections.Following the unveiling of arguably the most politically explosive domestic policy bill of the 110th Congress last Thursday, Pelosi seemed to wholeheartedly support the tax overhaul authored by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rangel.

“I certainly support his plan,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said to the assembled reporters.

But when the transcript of the briefing came out, words were inserted — highlighted by brackets — clarifying that she supported his goal, if not his specific proposals.

The final transcript read: “I certainly support his plan [to begin tax reform.]”

Read the rest here

 

With a year and a few days to go before voters across the United States go to the polls to elect their 44th president, The Daily Telegraph today unveils the first instalments of its list of the 100 most influential conservatives and 100 most influential liberals in America.

2008 US presidential election

Most influential conservatives: 61-80 81-100

Most influential liberals: 61-80 81-100

The 2008 election is arguably the most open contest since 1928, the last time there was no incumbent president or incumbent vice president running for their party’s nomination. The victor will become the most powerful person in the world at a time of almost unprecedented challenge and turmoil.

 Read the rest of the story here - The bloggers mentioned in this group:

69. ERICK ERIKSON
Blogger

Founder and CEO of the conservative website redstate.com who also blogs on his personal site erickerickson.org, entitled Confessions of a Political Junkie, and on Georgia politics at peachpundit.com. A Republican political consultant and self-described “recovering lawyer”.

At just 32, Erickson epitomises the new power of the internet. A small-government fiscal and social conservative based in the south, he taps into and influences the Republican “base” that the GOP’s 2008 candidates are courting. Only started blogging in 2003.

93. MICHELLE MALKIN
Blogger and author

Born in Philadelphia to Filipino parents, Malkin’s michellemalkin.com and Hot Air websites attract massive traffic while her column is syndicated to 200 newspapers. She has enthusiastically embraced multi-media to spread her message and take the Liberal mainstream media to task.

Her outspoken opposition to “amnesty” for illegal immigrants reflects the views of most grassroots Conservatives. At 37 and already battle-tested in the culture wars, her influence looks certain to grow and grow.

62. JEROME ARMSTRONG
Democratic activist and blogger

A former environmental campaigner, 43, who first became interested in politics after the 2000 election, he founded the MyDD – My Direct Democracy website and coined the term “netroots” – the grassroots internet activists who hit the big time during Howard Dean’s campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2004.

The first major liberal blogger, he also works as an internet strategist and campaign adviser. Sees blogging as a “key component to the revitalisation of the progressive agenda” but believes in getting Democrats elected rather than in ideological purism.

VIDEO: Two of the three were on stage here