Mark June 18th on your calendar.
That’s the day the National Press Club in Washington, DC will give centre stage to the man behind one of the sleaziest smear campaigns ever perpetrated against a US presidential candidate.
Larry Sinclair has for months been blathering on his blog and in a YouTube video that Barack Obama has a dark secret his supporters wish would just go away. He says Obama likes to sleep with men.
Difficult to do, but in case you missed it, here’s a little rundown of his claims:
- Barack Obama and Larry Sinclair had sex in a Chicago hotel room in late 1999 while Sinclair was on parole.
- Barack Obama supplied the cocaine and crack cocaine he smoked while Sinclair performed oral sex on Obama
- Donald Young, the gay choir director at Obama’s former church, contacted Sinclair in December, 2007 shortly before Young was murdered. Sinclair says Young told him he had a similar relationship with Obama.
- Sinclair now claims to be getting death threats; cancel the press conference or get shot.
With the possible exception of The Cleveland Leader which points out Sinclair failed a polygraph test, the mainstream press has completely ignored him. So has Barack Obama, but leading up to Wednesday’s presser and beyond, you have to wonder for how long he can hold off.
There have been so many rumours circulating about Obama and his wife – Obama’s a Muslim, Obama’s book contains racist remarks, Obama’s hiding his birth certificate, Obama’s wife has been seen on video calling people “whitey” from a church pulpit, and other trash – they’ve set up a website to fight the smears. They even ask readers to send in new rumours they’ve heard so they can address them.
What’s notable is they still have yet to mention Sinclair. But with more than 1.25 million hits on the Sinclair blog and hundreds of thousands having seen the YouTube video, they can’t deny nobody’s heard of it.
A number of prominent liberal blogs have said the National Press Club is simply feeding the troll by taking Sinclair’s 3000 bucks and booking his room. Thousands have already signed a petition asking the NPC to cancel the event.
I hope the press conference is held and I hope Obama does get around to Sinclair. There’s a risk that the ranks of Sinclair’s deluded fans and followers will grow in giving this guy the limelight, but if you’ve set up a website to counter rumours and allegations only to ignore the worst, it will be viewed as running away from the issue or pretending it doesn’t exist. Obama has to defend himself.
Besides, Sinclair may be renting a pulpit and floor space and hoping the cameras and scribblers show up, but he must know that going to the press is a double-edged sword. If they do decide to run with this story, playing up Sinclair’s dubious past is the most likely angle they’ll take. Sinclair’s police wanted poster on charges of theft and forgery will surely be included.
But if the world does turn out to be flat and Sinclair’s allegations somehow prove to be true, Obama should be shunned and banished from the stage forever, but not for taking drugs and having gay sex. What country on earth would want to have as its leader someone with such horrible taste? Have you watched that video? Surely if Obama was bent in that direction and could have his pick of lovers and rent boys, he could do one hell of a lot better than Larry Sinclair.
Little update:
Through the magic of pingbacks I’ve discovered that this entire post was copied by and posted on a right-wing political site. So far it’s been viewed 666 times and received about 40 comments. Nice to see people are talking about it, if not on my blog then at least somewhere.
Oh, and true to form, they attack me personally by changing my name to “pissant” as the author.
Gee guys, didn’t know you cared.
http://tinyurl.com/4xygfg
Great post! Sorry to hear someone stole it… it just goes to show that they can’t come up with their own work, so they need to lift and bash yours to get readership.
Thanks, SC – it’s kind of sick, isn’t it? They can’t come up with anything positive, so they trawl the net for anything they can steal so they can twist and mock it.
You’re more of an American patriot than the people at “free” republic. Fascist republic, if the truth in advertising rule applied.
Hey Indie. Sometimes I wish I could get out and vote in this election.
That “free republic” is a joke. If you read the fine print on their homepage, it says that everything written there is their copyright! And then they go and steal your stuff. Zero credibility.
They probably found your blog googling for “naked 13-year-old”
Given what I’ve read of them so far, I bet it was eight- or nine-year-old.
I’m so sick of Americans and their smear campaigns. I refuse to give any of them any credibility whatsoever and wonder if the average IQ south of the border is a grade 5 reading level. It seems that all the media down there are descending to the depths rather than focusing on issue centered investigative journalism.
P.S. The fact that a right wing site scraped your blog post doesn’t surprise me.
He already has no credibility, but the thing is, he’s not going to go away. I say let him have his say and let the public decide.
Ian,
Thanks for visiting La Marguerite and for your comment. Hence my visit here. I always enjoy discovering a new blog!
As an early Obama supporter, of course, I am always annoyed by these kinds of smear tactics. It is to be expected however, and I trust that Obama and his team will know how to handle it.
http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com
Uh, those are heavy warfare accusations against Barrack. If he is gay, then this could have serious implications to his political career. I just wonder whether there is one politician in the whole wide world who actually has a white vest and not some ghost in their closet.
Indeed, Monika. The allegations could have a huge impact on his political career.
If it’s true that he’s a closeted gay, he’ll have to turn Republican.
Or perhaps closet Republican?
Nice to see you around headbang.
Lamarguerite: so far they’re ignoring it.
Monika – everyone has a past, but not the kind of past he is being accused of.
The scary thing is that people actually believe Sinclair.
Yeah, have you taken a look through the comments on his blog? They run into the thousands on some posts, and all in favour. So many people, so deluded.
At least lies can be refuted. Sheer hatred based on racism can’t be.
Did a little post on Obama over at DüE. I felt sure you would have commented on it by now, Ian. Perhaps it was too comprehensive and utterly irrefutable.
Hb, do you mean the one you did on April 12?
http://deutschlanduberelvis.blogspot.com/2008/04/civility-of-hope.html
If so, that was smack in the middle of my near-death experience, ie sickest I’ve been in years. Must go back and read it.
Ian,
You are right that the media is ignoring it. That’s not because it’s not true but because Obama is the media darling.
Look, I am all for TRUTH. Truth in reporting, truth-telling by politicians, etc. I am not keen on the fact that every and anything, even if it sounds really outlandish, like Larry Sinclair’s story, is immediately labeled as a “smear.”
Do you think it’s a coincidence that Larry Sinclair was arrested right after the conference? He was supposed to be arrested before-hand but they couldn’t get to it. I am not saying his story is true or not true, becaue we can’t know until we have evidence (don’t we wait to see evidence before deciding BOTH that something is true AND not true??). But you can’t ignore the fact that he has been threatened, his entire family has been threatened, he has been wrongfully arrested and detained. This is serious stuff.
And about Donald Young – even more suspicious. Three gay black men from Obama’s church were *murdered* same execution-style, within two months. THis is fact. The point is, in NEEDS to be looked into, and NOT seen as an immediate smear before we know the truth.