The Obama Madrassa Hoax

Fox really is a total disgrace, isn't it?

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The Obama Madrassa Hoax

What a bogus report on Barack Obama reveals about the media food chain.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY

By Jonathan Alter

Newsweek

Updated: 12:08 p.m. ET Jan 27, 2007

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16842036/site/newsweek/page/2/

Jan. 27, 2007 - What will the first full week of Campaign '08 be remembered for? That Barack Obama was under attack for his behavior as a 6-year-old. It’s worth revisiting the Madrassa Hoax story for what it tells us about our warp-speed politics.

The subtext of the story was that Obama was some kind of Muslim Manchurian Candidate (or the Russian spy played by Kevin Costner in “No Way Out”)—trained in an Indonesian religious school to be a jihadist who would do Al Qaeda’s work from within. Under the old media order, the whole thing would have made for a nice joke amid the somber mood surrounding President Bush’s State of the Union address. But this is a different time, when every campaign lives in fear of being Swift-Boated. Even after the story was debunked, the folks at Fox News Channel wouldn’t apologize, and in one case kept pushing a line on the air they knew was false...