1. This is just one more example of false reporting and slander. Get your facts straight and verify the source and validity before you post items as fact.

Dear Friend,

Thank you for contacting us about false and slanderous rumors against Senator Obama. Senator Obama is a committed Christian and has never been a member of any other religion. He joined the United Church of Christ nearly 20 years ago and was sworn into the Senate on the Bible.

Please see the Senator's reply below. We encourage you to share it with others who have heard this story. You can also click here to get the facts:

http://www.barackobama.com/factcheck/2007/11/12/obama_is_a_committed_christian.php

Sincerely,

Obama for America


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Thank you for inquiring about the false rumor circulating in cyberspace and fanned by the right wing media that I was educated in a madrassa when I was a child living with my mother in Indonesia.

This false rumor first appeared in Insight, a right wing magazine. CNN investigated Insight's claims and on January 22 aired a segment entitled, "CNN Debunks False Report About Obama," which declared that, "Reporting by CNN in Jakarta, Indonesia and Washington, D.C., shows the allegations that Obama attended a madrassa to be false."

I hope that this independent investigative reporting by a credible news source will lay this false story to rest. But there is also a larger issue exposed here; namely, the nature of contemporary politics.

Commenting on this false report, Washington Post staff writer Howard Kurtz observed that, "This, unfortunately, is how the media food chain works. A bogus charge appears in some magazine or on some website and works its way up to bigger news outlets, all based on little or no evidence." And observers note that it is hardly coincidence that this story broke as I announced my first formal step towards running for President.

For example, in a January 22 letter, a number of prominent religious leaders and heads of major denominations, including the head of the National Council of Churches, the National Baptist Convention, and Reform and Orthodox Jewish rabbis, wrote, "These outrageous charges began as reports of [Obama's] potential candidacy for President emerged. . .and have now been picked up as fact by Fox News and some partisan commentators. We are writing to deplore this despicable tactic and set the record straight. We have had enough of the slash and burn politics calculated to divide us as children of God. . . ."

That letter continues: "The bitter, destructive politics that have so riven our country in recent years cannot stand.... Certain moral standards should infuse our national dialogue, and the recent attacks on Sen. Obama violate values at the heart of this dialogue. The false and malicious attacks levied at him are anathema to all of our faith traditions, and we condemn them outright."

I did not make the decision to run for the Presidency of the United States lightly. My motivation is grounded in the belief that the decisions that have been made in Washington these past six years, and the problems that have been ignored, have put our country in a precarious place. Our economy is changing rapidly, and that means profound changes for working people. Americans are concerned about skyrocketing health care bills, the pensions they've lost and their struggles to pay for college. Our continued dependence on oil has put our security and our very planet at risk. And we're still mired in a tragic and costly war that should have never been waged.

But it's not the magnitude of our problems that concerns me the most – it's the smallness of our politics. America's faced big problems before, but today our leaders in Washington seem incapable of working together in a practical, common sense way. Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can't tackle the big problems that demand solutions. That's why I am convinced that in order to come together around our common interests and concerns as Americans, we have to first change our politics in this country. That, I believe, is what the Insight report about my religion and my education is all about.

I would also like to address the false accusation that I have refused to sing the National Anthem or say the Pledge of Allegiance. I knew when I decided to run for President that I would not be immune from the "anything goes" form of attack politics that has been so prominent in our elections in recent years. And this outrageous charge is just another example of the kind of mean spirited, "shock" politics I will move beyond as President.

There is a photo of me taken during the singing of our National Anthem with a false caption stating that it was taken during the Pledge, and that I refused to put my hand over my heart. I am honored to lead a life of public service, and it is inconceivable that I would ever refuse to say the Pledge or sing the National Anthem. My grandfather served in World War II and helped raise me. He was a great patriot, and he taught me that you put your hand over your heart during the Pledge, and you sing during the Anthem. That’s what I did that day, as I have done countless times before.

In fact, as a U.S. senator, I am sometimes called upon to preside over the opening of the Senate in the morning, at which time I am proud to lead my colleagues in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, with my right hand over my heart. Anybody who doesn't believe in the Pledge shouldn’t be running for President. To learn the facts and see video of me reciting the Pledge in the Senate, please click here:

http://www.barackobama.com/factcheck/2007/11/12/obama_is_a_patriot.php

Every time I have been elected or reelected to the Illinois Senate and the United States Senate, I have proudly raised my right hand, placed my left hand on the Bible and sworn to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” And I will be proud to take the Presidential Oath of office on January 20, 2009.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please share this message with anyone you know who has been misled by these baseless and hurtful political attacks.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

David T. at 1:27PM on Jan 10th 2008

2. Colin Powell is black?!?!?

Very interesting to see Dyson try to distance Obama from Colin Powell and Condi Rice.

None of the other candidates are in the position of having to defend their lilly-whiteness.

Captain Negative at 2:41PM on Jan 10th 2008

3. Sorry David? How is this post false reporting or Slander, This post doesn't even mention Barack's Religion?

Jeff at 4:12PM on Jan 10th 2008

4. Leave it to white liberals to decide just how black you have to be to be black. And I just love it when Bill Maher and Jimmy Kimmel and all those white comedians joke that they are blacker than Colin Powell. That is just such funny stuff. I'm sure Colin Powell is just roaring with laughter.

Maybe these folks would like to take a trip down memory lane and - for nostalgic purposes - bring back those really goofy black classifications that the United States government had around 50 years ago where some mixed-race blacks were cleverly designated as "quadroons", "octaroons" and "mulatoes", depending on how much "black blood" someone thought they had.

(I don't know, maybe the pencil-pushing braniac that came up with these names thought blacks were more like monkeys than white people.)

Dave at 3:50AM on Jan 13th 2008