Lies and the Internet

In last week’s column, I urged both Democrats and Republicans to tone down the rhetoric, stick to the facts, and have civil debates about the serious challenges we face as a nation. I also mentioned that people should stop the spread of false and malicious emails. Well, it so happened I was on the receiving end of two such emails this week. I seem to get a lot of those in my inbox, and since most, though by no means all of my friends and family are quite conservative, the vast majority of what I receive is aimed at Obama and the Democrats in Congress.

The first email suggested that Barack Obama never actually attended Columbia University where he claims to have graduated in 1983 before attending Harvard Law School. It said that NO ONE has ever come forward who actually remembers being there with him. Mysteriously, Obama has refused to release his transcript from the school or any of the papers he wrote while in attendance. This dearth of information has led to wild speculation on the part of ultraconservatives. Did he lie about his education? It took me less than three minutes to type “Obama Columbia University” into Google, and right away, I was directed to a web site that debunks urban legends and other falsehoods. It turns out it is true that Obama has never released any papers from his time at Columbia, making it appear that he has something to hide. However, it is NOT true that no one remembers him from his time at the school. Columbia claims him as one of their graduates. A former professor remembers that he easily aced the class he taught in foreign affairs. A school publication contained an article written by Obama. A former roommate has also come forward with information about their time there. And finally, there is no way Obama would have been admitted to Harvard Law School without having graduated from somewhere!

The second email claimed that Obama had cancelled the 2009 National Day of Prayer, held each year by Christians throughout the country, and then sanctioned a National Day of Prayer for Muslims on Capitol Hill. This time I went to www.snopes.com and checked it out. The National Day of Prayer was not cancelled. Obama did decide not to have the public White House ceremony which was held annually during the eight years of the Bush administration. Instead, he signed a proclamation announcing the day of prayer and urged Americans everywhere to pray for their country and leaders. There was never a publicly-sanctioned National Day of Prayer for Muslims. There was a privately organized event for Muslims to pray for America that took place in the nation’s capital in September of 2009. A little something called freedom of speech allows them to do that, just as it allows Christians to gather around the flagpoles in communities all over America on the National Day of Prayer. We Christians had better not try to take that right away from others, because if we do, it will soon be taken away from us.

Frankly, what we know about Obama is enough to worry me – I don’t need people going around making stuff up! I don’t buy all these conspiracy theories and outlandish accusations. There are well-respected conservative journalists like George Will and William Kristol who would be all over these stories if there were anything to them. Occasionally, bloggers do uncover stories that turn out to be true and eventually get picked up by the mainstream media (like the ACORN scandal). Until that happens, it seems to me we should ignore rumors and speculation.

Such falsehoods are spread by members of both political parties. Another email that made the rounds a few years ago claimed that President George W. Bush had the lowest IQ of any president from the past fifty years. This information supposedly came from a study by an organization that does not even exist. It listed the twelve presidents that have served in the past 50 years in their order of IQ. Interestingly, all those with top IQ’s were Democrats, with Bill Clinton having the highest one of all!

I used to just delete these emails, but I am now engaged in a campaign to stamp out ignorance. As soon as I get one, I check it out on sites such as Snopes or www.factcheck.org. Then I send the link to the person who forwarded me the email and suggest that they check out future emails for themselves.

The Internet provides a wealth of valuable information. Unfortunately, it is also the source of rumors and outright lies. We all need to make it our personal responsibility to verify information before we pass it on to others.