It's getting to be that time of year when the ghouls and goblins come out to play. One of our jobs is to shine the light of day on them.
SCHotline.com is a clearinghouse right-wing political blog for people who follow politics in South Carolina. It's basically the Palmetto State's answer to the Drudge Report. I check it periodically just to see what the conservatives are up to in a state that is known for dirty tricks from its hard-core conservatives.
This afternoon I saw a link to an article entitled "A BLACK MANS [sic] VIEW OF OBAMA". It was, and at the time of this writing, is near the top of the page. It's an article by Ken Blackwell, something that was widely circulated during the primaries, making the case against Obama. No news, right? Not quite...please read on after the jump.
The article appears to be a column written by Blackwell, whom we all know as the Secretary of State of Ohio, one of the key deliverers of that State to George Bush in 2004. The piece was originally published on Townhall.com on February 14, 2008. It is predictable right-wing stuff, nothing too amazing about it really but it was picked up by conservatives who trumpeted the fact that it was written by an African American.
Our friends over at SCHotline, however, have for some reason decided to reprint it today, attributing it to themselves, and publishing it on their own site. They only note that Blackwell is a columnist for the New York Sun.
What makes this interesting and infuriating and potentially libelous is the fact that they have added a few more paragraphs to Mr. Blackwell's column--and quite ham-handedly, as you will see. Here's the new ending, beginning with the original final paragraph:
It’s time to talk about the real Barack Obama. In an election of firsts, let’s first make sure we elect the person who is qualified to be our president in a nuclear age during a global civilization war.
Kind of scary, wouldn’t you think—
Remember–God is good, and is in time, on time–every time.
According to The Book of Revelations the anti-Christ is:
The anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal….the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything. Is it OBAMA??
If you think I am crazy.. sorry but I refuse to take a chance on the “unknown” candidate.
So the Lee Atwater babies down here in South Carolina are not content to use Blackwell's already nutty (and quite old) commentary, without attribution, in hopes of stirring up fear of Obama. They feel the need to add this crap about the anti-christ.
For those who'd like to do something about it, here's SCHotline's info:
Contact Us:
admin@schotline.com
Fax: (803) 753-9095
I should hope that this gets some wide play. They may very well have simply pasted an e-mail they received directly onto their website. But if that's true, it means such crap is circulating again. Let's make an example of them.
UPDATE: My friends, job well done. SCHotline has changed the column. It now ends with the original final Blackwell paragraph and then this:
[Related]: Breaking: SC Website Alters Column to Add Antichrist Smear
[Editors note: The following is not attributed to Kenneth Blackwell]
Kind of scary, wouldn’t you think—
Remember–God is good, and is in time, on time–every time.
According to The Book of Revelations the anti-Christ is:
The anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal….the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything. Is it OBAMA??
If you think I am crazy.. sorry but I refuse to take a chance on the “unknown” candidate.
~Unknown contributor…
[Editors note: Given the frenzy of threatening emails by pro-Obama supporters regarding this post it will stay until discredited. This is a blog, news aggregator folks, we are SCHotline.com, we are not the MSM so get a life...]
They also now attribute it to Townhall.com.
But for those who are interested, here are the original page views in question:
pawning off the column as their own:
sleazily adding smear: