Friday, January 11, 2008

Debunking chain emails, Part 2

In addition to debunking the false claim that Obama belongs to a racist church, factcheck.org (as well as snopes.com) also debunk the false claim that Obama is secretly a muslim.

From factcheck.org:

Readers have also asked us about an oft-forwarded e-mail falsely claiming that Obama is a Muslim and suggesting that he is part of an Islamic plot to take over the U.S. "from the inside out" with "one of their own." This screed reads like the outline of a bad remake of the 1962 movie The Manchurian Candidate, in which Frank Sinatra unravels a Communist plot to make "one of their own" the president.

There is little excuse for those who continue to circulate this one. The most audacious falsehood it contains (of several) is a claim near the top: "We checked this out on 'snopes.com'. It is factual. Check for yourself." Anyone who actually does that would quickly find that Snopes.com, the respected debunker of urban myths, judges the message to be "false." And yet we continue to receive examples sent to our readers by others who either don't take the time to check, or who don't care that they are repeating false and damaging statements."



Links: Factcheck.org debunks false chain emails about Obama, Snopes.com debunks false chain emails about Obama

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