Straight from the Pravda Playbook

Dear Friend,

I'm sure you've heard some of the many lies about Sen. Barack Obama that have been circulating over the last year or so, both online and in the mainstream media. The truth is that Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim; he was born in the United States; he doesn't refuse to recite the Pledge of Allegiance; he wasn't endorsed by Fidel Castro; the list goes on and on. While many of the attacks on Obama are outright lies, other attacks are outrageous distortions with just a kernel of truth at their core.

Many of these right-wing attacks have been spread in emails and reported in the echo chamber that is the mainstream media. While they may seem disconnected, the truth is that these attacks work together, like separate voices combining to form a chorus of fear and resentment. The claims that Obama is a Muslim or somehow foreign; that he represents a black radicalism more at home in the 1960s than today; and that he is a liberal elitist with a radical, even socialist agenda work to reinforce an overarching narrative that Obama is alien and threatening -- that he is "not one of us."