Official Obama Website Repeats Fake Banned Book List — and Embellishes the Story!
Posted on September 5, 2008
I honestly think I was among the first, if not the very first, to figure out that the alleged list of books that Governor Palin is accused of trying to have banned. When I first saw “the list”, I wrote a comment at the site where I saw the claim. I “called BS” because it is just implausible on its face that any one single human being would want that broad a scope of subjects (pretty much every book you’ve ever heard of) banned. I very easily demonstrated that the list was a fake as applied to Governor Palin and wrote about it here at STACLU.
That post did the trick. Sort of. The original site where I saw the claim/smear/very clumsy bit of libel to its credit posted an update that said in part “This list might not in fact reflect the books Sarah Palin wanted banned.” Good enough, but the toothpaste is out of the tube, and even at that updated post, this very afternoon, people are still posting “hey, I have the real list!” and linking to the same thing.
But with the hoax decisively put down, the official Obama/Biden campaign website (may I presume that Barack Obama is somehow affiliated with BarackObama.com?) is this day not only repeating the hoax list, but has embellished the story, adding the following:
“This is the list that comes from the records of the Wasilla library…[snip]…This information is taken from the official minutes of the Wasilla Library Board.”
And then, of course, the Obama/Biden campaign site repeats the “list” of practically every book ever sought to be banned by anyone in the United States during the course of its history — all attributed to Governor Palin, who must have been Governor for at least 100 years to have read and been dismayed by all those books.
Here’s the link to the Obama site with the repeated and embellished hoax.
UPDATE: I didn’t notice the first time, but there is a comment at the end of the Obama/Biden website entry. It seems they have a vetting problem over there: “I have no way to vet this information. But it should be taken into consideration for whatever value it has”. New .pdf with comment included.
UPDATE 2: Welcome, Michelle Malkin readers and others. First things first; yes, folks, I know that the Obama site contains blogs that are not written, per se, by the campaign. That doesn’t take away at all that this is the official Obama campaign site, and the guy who is ultimately responsible for his own site is the same guy who’s latest claim to executive experience is that he has successfully run a campaign. OK? I’m ArrMatey, I don’t own STACLU, but STACLU takes responsibility for what I write.
Second, can you believe the Obama site still has this up? Some of the new comments are precious. For example: “By Grace from Redmond, WA Today at 2:34 am EDT (Updated Today at 2:34 am EDT) — Well, even if she didn’t actually ban the books, she probably wanted to. I was reading my well-loved copy of Saul Alinsky’s book last night and was so grateful that she didn’t get around to banning this book.” You’ve got to love their faith in the stereotypes to which they cling.
UPDATE 3: It took longer than I would have expected, but the portion of the Obama/Biden website referred to in this post has been disappeared. One last .pdf of the way it looked a few hours ago is here.
LAST UPDATE: Because the original portion of the Obama site has been removed, and because my .pdfs aren’t very pretty, I give one more, better looking link to a cache of the important parts of the first post. It’s been an interesting day watching this grow. Last comment: I know a natural response from the Left (and what I’ve seen in comments and email) is that the list being fake is not what’s important, the Obama website allowing a contributor to enlarge the lie and insist that the list comes from official Wasilla library records is not important; that what is important is yet another thing only rumored and lacking context. It’s another case of wanting to believe “fake, but accurate”, and you should know where that gets you. As a litigator, I’d say that it this point in the hearing, were you presenting your case, your credibility would be ruined.
» Filed Under News, Obama/Biden, Politics As Usual, Propaganda
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40 Responses to “Official Obama Website Repeats Fake Banned Book List — and Embellishes the Story!”
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The bigger the lie, the louder they shout it.
You realize that anyone could have left that list. Even you.
Yes, I realize that. It is a blog for supporters. It’s the campaign’s website, though, presumably moderated. If it’s not moderated, this counts as a gaffe. The buck stops with somewhere, theoretically.
Lunatics are blogging over there, and the Obama campaign seems to condone this type of behavior. You can sign up for an account and send out emails under someone else’s email address.
It’s simply irresponsible and reprehensible.
Two type of folk go to that Obama site. Obamabots and the folk who need a chuckle at all the BS smeared over there. Arrmatey you have done a great service… good on ya!
Evidently you failed to read the disccaimer at the bottom of the blog which clearly reads…”Content on blogs in My.BarackObama represents the opinions of community members and in no way should be interpreted as endorsed or approved by the campaign.”
And for the record the blogs of members are not moderated.
I would point out that there is a hefty list of books in libraries which annually are challenged in communities around the country. We’ve experianced them here in my own community as well. The National Association of Librarians each year updates the list and ranks it in order of thye most frequently challenged.
I don’t know what books Sarah Palin was concerned about and would be interested to know the titles, still the fact that she wanted to exercise such governmental interferance and censorship is well documentated and that alone causes me grave concern.
Censorship reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. ~Potter Stewart Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
I heard Michael Moore mention Sarah Palin censors books on Larry King Live tonight. I think I also heard Arianna Huffington mention it on LKL last night, too.
On her blog HuffingtonPost.com yesterday she had a frontpage link to a story on it, and the post had about a thousand comments and about 500,000+ page views.
Everyone on the left who repeated it must have assumed it was true presumably because the original source was TIME.com?
It’s amazing how many liberals repeat what other liberals say without thinking for themselves or investigating anything on their own.
None of them had even asked Palin or her campaign staff for comment.
You guys don’t get it. The librarian was a public employee and this was a public library. We all pay taxes to support public institution such as the library system. If you and I disagree on whether or not a book should be on the shelf, who gets to be the arbiter? The reason we have the Constitution and the First Ammendment is to safeguard against precisely what Sarah Palin attempted to do. By attempting to ban books and fire the librarian she declared her rights were more important than anyone else. Thank goodness the community rallied around the librarian and forced Palin to rescind the termination. Censorship and book banning has no place in a democracy. If she had been successful think of the precedent that would have been set. Would every incoming mayor have the right to decide what was on the library shelf based on their preferences? If so, can you guarantee that every incoming mayor will agree with YOUR definition of what is offensive? The Constitution is there to protect all of us, because whether you want to believe it or not, your side could be the losing side in an election. Think about it.
Loki and Michael Wells, do you know how to read? Apparently not. At no time did Palin try to ban books. Now go back you your O-cult sites.
Here’s some snippets of info for the sane, courtesy of Michelle Malkin’s post about the latest leftist work of fiction:
http://michellemalkin.com/
“Take a look at the list below and you’ll find books Gov. Palin supposedly tried to ban…that hadn’t even been published yet. Example: The Harry Potter books, the first of which wasn’t published until 1998.”
“The smear merchants who continue to circulate the list also failed to do a simple Google search, which would have showed them that the bogus Sarah Palin Banned Book List is almost an exact copy-and-paste reproduction of a generic list of “Books Banned at One Time or Another in the United States” that has been floating around the Internet for years.”
The person who first spread the Palin smear is identified as “Andrew Aucoin,” a commenter on the blog of librarian Jessamyn West. West has done the right thing in keeping the bogus comment up and pointing out in her main post that “there appears to be no truth to the claim made by the commenter, and no further documentation or support for this has turned up.”
…Were any books censored banned? June Pinell-Stephens, chairwoman of the Alaska Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee since 1984, checked her files Wednesday and came up empty-handed.
“Pinell-Stephens also had no record of any phone conversations with Emmons about the issue back then. Emmons was president of the Alaska Library Association at the time.”
the list is bogus. i had it on http://www.bannedstuff.net/banned/banned-books/
issa,
Even the list itself is bogus?
Maybe the Left believe that two wrongs make a right?
That BLOG posting on the Obama website is maintained by a private citizen who created a profile. It is NOT written by anyone affiliated with the Obama campaign, and because the webmasters DO NOT CENSOR member postings unless they are reported as offensive or include vulgar images/imagery, it remains on Mark’s personal community blog.
loudblackgirl,
Guess a flat out lie is not “offensive or include vulgar images/imagery”.
So it stays up on Team O’s website.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
–Joseph Goebbels
I hope everyone realizes we’re in a war and the other side will use every filthy, rotten trick and tactic imaginable. Sarah and Johnnie Mac are gonna need every ounce we can muster. This one’s for all the marbles. Time to get goin’ Take it right back at ‘em. Sell blood if you have too!
Interesting… the blog on the Obama website is no longer there. Obama sending out Hillary to redeem his falling support is laughable. This is one Democrat who cannot stand Obama!
The 1996 argument is a little unconvincing because Palin’s executve experience as Mayor of the metropolis of Wasilla, Alaska actually extended past 1996: she served until 2002. It is not at all impossible that the controversy continued for more than just the first calendar year of her executive experience and that books were added to the list over time. In fact, it is very hard to believe that this woman woudl drop ANYTHING that quickly.
The spin from the Palin camp suggests that they are afraid that the list might in fact be real.
Bwahahaha!
OK, which one of you guys are pretending to be this Horrigan guy? Fan-freaking-tastic imitation of a “I’ll believe anything so long as it’s on my side” moonbat!
There is no way the Obama campaign can screen every irresponsible post in the blog section of their website and still run a campaign. The bogus page has been taken down.
That said, Sarah Palin did approach the town librarian about the possibility of censoring books and the librarian said she would not cooperate. She was fired shortly thereafter for “not being fully behind” the governor. She was rehired due to public pressure. This is from Michelle Malkin’s site, so spare me the anguished cries of “liberal media.” For many Americans, this is a problem.
When a friend sent me the list, I suspected a hoax and looked into it. I replied to her and the list she’d sent it to explaining that it wasn’t true and she told me she would stop circulating it and tell those she’d sent it to and told about it that it was untrue.
I also think it’s a shame that people are so credulous about obviously fake character assassinations sent around the internet, but you cannot tell me it is exclusive to one side.
There should not be ONE book banned. The fact that you are going to criticize someone who expanded this list does not make it less horrendous. You forget that we do live in a democracy. But maybe that’s why Sarah Palin and her husband wanted to be part of the AIP-they thought they could make up their own rules.
Content on blogs in My.BarackObama represents the opinions of community members and in no way should be interpreted as endorsed or
approved by the campaign.
To the last three commenters. No one is standing up for book banning.
No one.
What are you standing up for? That it is wrong of me to point out lies, fabrications, and fantasies?
See, this is so typical. No matter WHAT Obama does, or what his supporters do, you will fault it. So someone posted a fake “banned books” list. How in the ever loving [edited] does that put Obama in the wrong? So what if someone posted it on his site? You don’t think people post CRAP on this site and other right wing sites?? It happens. FOCUS ON THE FACTS. Perhaps she didn’t call for all of these books to be banned, but she did pressure a librarian to resign because she wanted the woman to bend to her will. Is that okay?
OK. Focus on the facts.
What are they? How do you know what they are? I know what they are not, and thus this simple “the list is fake” post.
I mean this very seriously. I am a defense attorney. 100% of my clients are poor, and in crisis. And I often see from the state agencies who do things like take their children away that there is often nothing more to their prosecution than a “well, just look at her” kind of thing. I defend those people every day.
I believe that what you are doing is using the “just look at her” form of prosecution. You just know she is evil. She just knows that she wants to control what you can read. You just know it. I mean, just look at her! She is pro-life! What else do you need to know?
And yes, I will fault what Obama’s supporters do, if they appear on Obama’s site owned and operated by Obama and existing for his political benefit. If I’d not posted this, do you believe that the blog post would have been removed today? If instead of being an obvious wild shot in the dark that was sure to appeal to the stereotypes of Obama’s supporters and blew up fast, one gets the impression that the Obama campaign would be happy to let the allegations hurt the Governor.
Look at this in the context of all that has happened the last week. Surely you are aware of the tidal wave of made-up wild allegations. What am I to do in that context? I can FOCUS ON THE FACTS, as you say in caps, and that is all I did (I posted not one inaccurate or false word), and that is what I have done. The facts are that someone made up a smear. The facts are that the Obama campaign operates a website where those made up smears are repeated and amplified and added to and compounded.
The Obama blog post would still be there had I not written this post. By focusing on the facts, I perhaps aided Senator Obama in doing the same.
Sure, you posted fact, but the problem is that you, and the posters that follow you, did not stop there. There’s plenty of whining about how someone posted it on the Obama site (fact), thus proving what a slimy guy he is (opinion). I feel like the argument should be this: Is it true or not true that she tried to get books banned? Is it true or not true that she tried to force a librarian’s resignation? Do we, as reasonable people, think this is acceptable or not? We are each entitled to our own response on this.
Why on earth bring up the pro life argument? It simply proves my point that you don’t strictly stick to facts, you throw in whatever else to obscure the simple, clear argument.
Finally, it is ludicrous and unsupportable to say I am engaging in “just look at her” prosecution. I don’t even think I said one word about what I think of her, and you have zero idea how much research I have done on the topic. Guess you just don’t like someone to disagree with you.
True, but it was several months after the fact, and this incident wasn’t mentioned as the reason ( http://www.adn.com/sarah-palin/story/515512.html ). It is apparently a political appointment, so she was lucky to be there as long as she was when the new mayor stepped in.
Ok Sally why don’t we get into some real serious stuff like what is and was Obama’s connections to Ayres and especially Rezko. You don’t seem to care about things like that. You just run around trying real hard to smear anyone questioning Obama. If only you and people like you would really do some questioning of him instead of giving him a continual free pass. Your all up in arms about the librarian, but I am sure you showed real outrage when Obama took over $200,000 in political contributions from a convicted felon. And if your and his excuse was it was a mistake and I didn’t know about it either he is a liar which proves a whole lot of people’s points about the Palin smear, or he obviously does not have the executive experience to be president because he doesn’t know what the people underneath him are doing. So please instead of you and so many people like you running around attacking everyone who does not trust this guy at all, why don’t you go out and do some searching on his record. Of course I am sure you won’t because you think this is an academy awards nomination in November instead of the future of the country and world.
Wow. How closed minded can we be?! I absolutely do NOT “just run around trying real hard to smear anyone questioning” him. I’m curious how you’d come to that conclusion. Do you follow me all over the web and read every post I make? Where have I even stated support for Obama? All I did here was ask a few simple questions about this librarian issue, which seemed relevant to the topic of this site. Why on earth would I drag all these other issues into it (pro-life, illegal campaign contributions, etc.)? Again, I see no reason to obscure what is a simple argument and a search for answers.
Reposting a diary from a community blog – as if it represents the opinion or judgment of management – in direct contradiction of a posted disclaimer? –> FAIL
Who cares what she wanted banned. The HORROIBLE fact is that she wanted to do it at all. If she didn’t want to read a book she didn’t have too, but who in hades does she think she is to stop someone else?
I could write a list here of things that were untrue and even uglier couldn’t I? I guess I feel that choice is the issue with books and bodies. Palin seems to think God is her director so what she thinks is right. Sound familiar? Eight years is more than enough of that kind of thinking. Got us all into a massive mess, likely to take years to recover from. We all have more in common and want the best for our families. Can’t we concentrate on issues that are less devisive?
Oh Richard,
Obama donated the Rezco $$ to charity. FYI
What’s important is that she asked about banning books and then fired the librarian.
Web 2.0 gives us the ability to express opinions, inaccuracies and ideas with a collective voice (the wisdom of crowds) – the best tool yet for intellectual freedom. Anyone who questions the need for intellectual freedom in a democracy does not need to be near the White House.
To reiterate what others are saying, this is a blog, comments by members of the site. The list, which I immediately knew was fake, has been put up there by an individual. The problem with your article is that you purport this list to be somehow something official from the campaign itself. Now considering that I also received a copy of this list via email this morning, immediately knew it was probably not correct, checked around using google, realized it was not..would indicate to me that you also probably realized the same thing. Next, when I read your post, I also realized that this was most likely a member at the open group on Obama’s website and certianly not an official statement from the Obama campaign. Thus, either you realized that same thing, and are creating a smear or you are just ignorant.
I would guess that the McCain/Palin campaign also has a website with members and posting privileges – which leaves to door open for all types of posts that their campaign does not support…or maybe not?
kinda like the LIES about Obama. you started the crap – get use to having to debunk stuff
Richard Rhodes on September 7th, 2008 3:28 am
Sad Richard… Last I check Ollie North still runs around with McCain and et al and he was a conficted subverter of the Constitution of the United States. How more traitorious can you be – then lying and going around the laws of the land. We could make this real interesting.
Hey – Why don’t we talk about Sarah’s fake glasses….. Project much Sarah
That list was posted on a blog contained within the Obama website, not “official” website content. Like if I post on my blogger.com blog it’s Google’s “official” position? As Jason said “You realize that anyone could have left that list. Even you”
As Jason said “You realize that anyone could have left that list. Even you”
Cool! We can start posting pro McCain/Palin content on Obama’s website.
Hmmm… lets see if we can find anything untrue on John McCain’s website – whoa that didn’t take long. It was a blog, people…And, yes you could post things there – just make a contribution when you register!