The "Tapes"

All the right wingers are up in arms about a bunch of purported "tapes" which will once and for all prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Barack and his wife are white-hating anti-Semites and are involved in international genocide.

First, there's the LA Times tape of Obama at a dinner for Rashid Khalidi.  We know this tape does in fact exist, but LA Times won't release it.  They reported on it a while back, but there was nothing suspicious about it then.  Now that there's questions about Obama's associations, there's fear that the times he's been around people who have before expressed unpopular sentiments that Obama himself has joined in the fun.  Nevermind that Obama never associates himself with any of their beliefs, denounces them when appropriate, and has never been suspected of doing otherwise.  But they claim the existence of, and refusal by the LA Times to release, this tape, is proof enough that Obama was videotaped either nodding in approval or maybe even leading the cries of death to Israel with former PLO operatives.  More likely, there was nothing else of importance on the tape, the LA Times wants to protect its sources, and that's that.

Then there's the Michelle Obama tape.  Well, two of them actually.  Neither of them exist.  The first is fairly predictable really.  Bill O'Reilly reports and some other hack confirms two days later that there's a tape of Michelle Obama referring to white people as Whitey.  That never happened, no tapes have been seen, it's just sily.  Then there's the other tape, such a far-fetched story as to be barely believable.  My eyes roll back in my head as I type this...this guy claims Michelle Obama called him, ranted on about how those that don't support Barack are racists, and admitted various things about her husband that would be damaging to his presidency.  This was reported on a blog called African Press International.  It's some random Kenyan living in Norway who blogs about African politics mostly, and sells designer handbags through ads on his site.  One day he wrote (or reposted, a lot of the material there is sourced from other sites) about the controversy surrounding Obama's birth certificate and the suit brought by Philip Berg, since it was being suggested Obama was born in Kenya...Kenyan news agency sees story about American politician maybe being born in Kenya, and reports it.  Nobody really noticed except the wingnuts following this story who then went to API to start posting...I'm sure the editor Korir saw this as a great way to increase his popularity and noteworthiness, so he then claimed that Michelle was upset an African publication would repeat stories damaging to her husband.  Because instead of calling US bloggers and news outlets which reported on Phil Berg's case charging that Obama must reveal his vault Birth Certificate, she picked the one nobody ever heard of on the other side of the world to express her disappointment and bribe them with an invitation to the inaugeration ceremony.   But wait, there's more.

So Michelle Obama in a fit of rage picks up the phone to speak to the Chief Editor at API, a completely unknown blog, and somehow he manages to tape the whole conversation.  Without getting into painful details, he insists there are tapes and they will be released, but always ties it to a deadline with a pre-emptive excuse about what could go wrong and that we all need to pray for him.  Without fail, each deadline comes and passes, and each thing he warned about happens as he said it would.  People continue to have faith in this man who they've never met on another continent with no verifiable credibility.  It's now at the point where he has named Fox News as the recipient of the tapes and there is some agreement (which he also has not revealed any proof of) to air the tapes.  Just hours ago that "deadline" passed again, and have I mentioned that numerous times over the last few days Fox has had to deal with irate morons demanding access to this fictional tape and have posted several statements denying all claims and confirming it is a lie?  Fox News may not be my favorite new network but I still believe them when even they won't play along with such a ridiculous assertion from a little known blog with no evidence, even a taste, to back up his claims.  Tomorrow morning is supposed to be the final statement from API since Fox again "broke their agreement" by not airing the tapes for the last time.  Will they air a tape tomorrow AM, which the public will have to rapidly examine for authenticity before the election on Tuesday, or will there be another delay?  Maybe he will come clean, with a heartwarming story of how a little known Kenyan really just wanted to get recognized by the American media machine, but instead was embraced by a bunch of lunatic fear-mongerers sitting at their computers, hating people of the whole rainbow of colors, religious beliefs and sexual orientations that don't match their white christian straight ways, while pounding out incoherent blatherings about rapture and the love of Christ, spittle flying all over their depressed CAPSLOCK key and plastic Jesus!!!1!11

There are plenty of tapes of the Obama speaking at other events, in interviews, on the radio, where he brings up topics containing buzzword the right wind would have you believe are indicators of a betrayal to American policies.  If an educated person watched those, they would understand that any time Obama touches on a topic, it's usually an intellectual discussion of a specifc aspect of that ideal, not a call for action by hoardes of supporters to take to the streets and round up capitalists and start forcing abortions on them.