Falsehood in OA News reader letter

Opelika-Auburn News reader Jim Kimbrough has a letter to the editor in the newspaper this morning wherein he suggests that Barack Obama should have been removed from the U.S. Senate for not following protocol as it applies to decorum during the playing of the National Anthem.

Kimbrough then merged one tired, discredited Internet rumor about Obama -- that his sometimes-failure to place his hand over his heart while the National Anthem is played indicates a disrespect for the Anthem -- with a second, less-publicized (but still just as false) Internet rumor about Obama -- that he thinks the Anthem "conveys a war-like message" and is "parochial" and "bellicose."

Kimbrough goes on to quote Obama: "I like the song 'I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing.' If that were our anthem, then I might salute it."

Um, one tiny little problem, Jim: Obama never said any of these things about the Anthem.

As a mere 10 seconds of Googling proves, the quote was invented by conservative writer John Semmens, who used it in the Oct. 27, 2007, edition of his political satire column, "Semi-News." No fewer than 300 different web pages -- including giants like FactCheck.org, Snopes.com and About.com's Urban Legends section -- have entries to that point, discrediting the erroneous attribution of the quote to Obama.

I don't know why it is, but Obama has been the target of many more Internet rumors of this nature than Hillary Clinton or John McCain. I receive several e-mails a week with various versions of the rumor du jour. In fact, Obama's campaign has had to devote an entire portion of its web site to the singular purpose of addressing such rumors, debunking them and replacing them with facts.

I also can't understand why people who oppose Obama's candidacy believe that the promulgation of false information helps their cause. The more erroneous information I receive from a source, the less likely I am to consider that person to be a credible source of political information -- and that undermines any argument that person makes for his own candidate, whomever it may be.

On a personal note, there is little that is more aggravating to me than to have my e-mail box clogged with information that could be verified or discredited with just 30 seconds of Internet research. It is incomprehensible to me that the same people who happily hop on to the Internet to check their e-mail aren't willing to use that same Internet to check the validity of the information they're receiving in that e-mail.

And finally, when someone writes a letter to the editor for publication in a newspaper, that writer has -- at the bare minimum -- a responsibility to ensure the validity of the information he is providing in that letter. An author's failure to meet that responsibility indicates a disturbing lack of concern over the possibility that he, intentionally or unintentionally, may be providing false information through the newspaper. Did Kimbrough know that the information he provided had been widely discredited? We can only hope not.

You've no doubt heard Mark Twain's famous quote, "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

It seems Mark Twain may have understood that people don't mind spreading lies.