Obama Camp Launches Site to Spike Rumors Obama Site Confronts Rumors

By NEDRA PICKLER

By Nedra Pickler

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign said Thursday that Michelle Obama never used the word “whitey” in a speech from the church pulpit as it launched a Web site to debunk rumors about the presidential candidate and his wife.

The rumor that Michelle Obama railed against “whitey” at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ has circulated on conservative Republican blogs for weeks and was repeated by radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh. The rumor included claims of a video of the speech that would be used to bring down Obama’s candidacy this fall.

“No such tape exists,” the campaign responds on the site, www.fightthesmears.com . “Michelle Obama has not spoken from the pulpit at Trinity and has not used that word.”

The site is a response to a world in which information travels 24 hours a day on blogs and people are increasingly turning to the Internet for information. It’s a particular problem for Obama, a relative newcomer to national politics who is still unknown to many Americans .

In another sign of the campaign moving into the general election race, the Democratic National Committee’s spokeswoman said Thursday that its political and field operations are relocating to Chicago, where Obama’s campaign is based. While other departments will remain in Washington, it’s an effort to streamline the campaign and party efforts in one strategy instead of the overlapping efforts of past presidential elections.

E-mails about Obama rank No. 2 on the list of “Hottest Urban Legends” on snopes.com , an Internet rumor-debunking site, behind e- mail greeting cards that could expose computers to viruses.

Michelle Obama has often been the target of conservative attacks, prompting Obama to demand that his rivals “lay off my wife.” Much of the criticism came from her comment that her husband’s campaign has made her proud of her country “for the first time,” a remark that inspired a Tennessee Republican Party Web video questioning her patriotism.

The Obamas recently resigned from Trinity, where the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was the longtime pastor. Wright came under fire for sermons in which he cursed America and accused the government of conspiring against blacks. Video of the sermons spread quickly on the Internet and threatened great damage to Obama’s campaign.

Other false claims about the Illinois senator – that he’s secretly a Muslim who refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance and is intent on destroying the United States – spread widely during the primary campaign, and Obama made it a habit of telling audiences to respond to e-mail rumors to set the record straight.

Originally published by BY NEDRA PICKLER.

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