Rumor Central: API & Michelle Obama

Here’s another little Internet-based rumor that’s been around for a while.

Allegedly, an obscure, Norway-based organization, African Press International, received a phone call from Michelle Obama last month. According to API, the phone call featured an angry Mrs. Obama raging against all manner of perceived injustices--most significantly, those committed against her husband. API claimed that it had recorded the phone call, and, for hte past month, has promised to release it “any day now.” It hasn’t emerged so far.

After nearly a month of setting dates for, and then delaying, the tape's release, API announced that Fox News would air the recording on either Hannity & Colmes or On The Record with Greta Van Susteren. This news prompted Van Susteren to post on her blog:

THIS IS SIMPLY A LIE ABOUT ME AND I HAVE NO IDEA IF A LIE ABOUT FOX AND / OR SEAN HANNITY BECAUSE I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THIS STUFF BELOW IS. I HAVE NO IDEA WHO API (AFRICAN PRESS) IS…this is the first I have heard about them….BUT I DO WANT TO “KILL THE VIRUS” LYING ABOUT ME.

Van Susteren then quotes a website perpetuating API’s claims. Additionally, TV Newser offers this denial from Fox News on whether the network has anything to do with API:

An FNC spokesman tells TVNewser: "API's dubious claim that FOX News has purchased a supposed audio tape to be aired prior to Election Day is absolutely false."

Van Susteran’s and Fox’s public negation of any deal hasn’t stopped API. Its website declares that the group has a written agreement with Fox, and that Fox will air the tape prior to election day. Don’t count on this happening.

This seems little more than a regurgitation of the “Whitey tape” story: last summer, some wags began propelling a story that Michelle Obama was caught “railing at white people” on tape. Various websites proclaimed that the tape was going to be released “any minute now.” Several specific dates of release were announced, but the tape never materialized.

The similarities between the API rumors and the “Whitey” rumors are numerous (so numerous that Ben Smith at Politico seems to have confused the two). As such, it's rather surprising that the people who believed fully in the “Whitey” tape’s existence, and who were disappointed in its non-appearance, would have fallen for a similar, albeit incredibly unlikely, story just a month or so later.

Added: Mr. Smith has amended his fine report on some of the campaign's ugliest rumors; he notes that there are two "phantom tapes."

By the way, in August, Paula (or Paulie) Abeles submitted her debunked allegations about Obama’s ties to Kenyan politics to the site, where they duly appeared as an API article under her byline (cached page here). That about spells out API’s credibility: if it were a legitimate news source, it would have researched Abeles’s claims prior to publishing them.

Heads up: Mountain Sage (no Obama supporter) has researched and published online a plethora of material on API. Take a look.

Back to White(y): Flowbee and Michelle Obama in the NYT

Dang, check out Ruben Navarrette’s new column on Michelle Obama as rumor-target. He blasts those who attempt to define her as some kind of priestess of militant black-power and he addresses the obviously fabricated TUCC dvd story as “a malicious rumor that Michelle had given a speech in her church in which she had used the word ‘whitey.’ Never happened. Shame on those who spread the lie, and shame on those who rushed to swallow it.” Oh, yes. And he goes right after Flowbee—but without naming him.

Yet, it was ironic. The rumor came from a liberal blogger, and a supporter of Hillary Clinton at that, who was eager to make a stink. And yet the folks who were most eager to buy it were conservative columnists, bloggers and radio talk show hosts.

Navarette shouldn’t really be surprised: Clinton herself used the conservative playbook in their competition for the nomination, and in her appeals to GOP moderates, so why wouldn’t her die-hard supporters take a cue from her actions? (In fairness to Clinton, she was in the middle of a real fight, and it's pretty evident that she'll back away from her earlier GOP-style critiques of Obama. A few of her supporters ain't giving up though).

Wait!

What’s this? Flowbee gets another (kind of) shout out by Michael Powell and Jodi Kantor of The New York Times?

A blogger who supported Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton circulates unfounded claims that Mrs. Obama gave an accusatory speech in her church about the sins of “whitey.”

Frankly, the NYT should have just given Flowbee's name; he has written for them after all. His full-length article, "The Declining Terrorist Threat," appeared in the NYT on 10 July, 2001.

But what I really love is Michelle Obama’s own response to the rumor, as recorded by Powell and Kantor in the NYT:

Mrs. Obama shakes her head. “You are amazed sometimes at how deep the lies can be,” she says in an interview. Referring to a character in a 1970s sitcom, she adds: “I mean, ‘whitey’? That’s something that George Jefferson would say. Anyone who says that doesn’t know me. They don’t know the life I’ve lived. They don’t know anything about me.”

Ha! I called The Jeffersons reference yonks ago. Come on, people. Do you think that there is any way this intelligent, accomplished woman would model racial commentaries on George Jefferson’s snarks at Tom Willis and Mr. Bentley?

(aside: the man who played Mr. Bentley on The Jeffersons, Paul Benedict, was a yank. Who knew?)

The Volokh Conspiracy on the "Whitey" Conspiracy

Just sharing:
By far, the best write up on the alleged tape of Michelle Obama raving about "whitey" appears at the Volokh Conspiracy. A blogger at Volokh, Jim Lindgren, heard the rumors generated by Larry Johnson, the largely incredible figure behind No Quarter, and decided to dig around a bit. After all, this tape, if it exists, can be pretty explosive stuff (or so we keep hearing from sites such as Hillbuzz). Anyway, armed with reason and employing old-fashioned gumshoe technology (e.g., he actually went somewhere--to Rainbow/Push Coalition HQ to ask questions), Mr. Lindgren provides enough evidence to undermine Johnson's claim. He remains ambivalent about a tape's authenticity--that is, whether a tape exists--Lindgren asserts "that the most common version of the story [. . .] is almost certainly false." His conclusion matches that of numerous other, albeit lazier, bloggers since the rumor appeared. Despite those bloggers' efforts, some readers just can't help but resist the call of reason:

1. dingbat Says:
   Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 11:53 pm[. . . .] I have read a number of stories which debunk the “whitey tape” existence. But, I have read lots of stories that support its existence. I give Larry Johnson quite a bit of credibility. Of course, if there is a tape, it need to come out before August, otherwise, I really dont care.

And there you have it. All these stories are questionable because they question Larry Johnson.

Folks, when Fox News and The National Review reject the story as a hoax, you have to pause and think a little bit.

Don't Worry--It's Gonna be All Whitey!

Yawn.

Chances are that you've heard about the alleged tape of Michelle Obama criticizing "whitey." I say "alleged" because no such tape has surfaced despite the fevered efforts of pro-Hillary and Conservative bloggers and msm journalists. Does it exist? I don't think so. But even if it did, what's up with the term "whitey"? Is it really racially insensitive? How disempowering, how demeaning is the word "whitey"?

Moreover, didn't we have this discussion about "whitey" a few years ago when the University of Northern Colorado's basketball team chose their official name--The Fighting Whites (or The Fighting Whities, which is more appealing to my shell-pink ear)? In spite of some vociferous (mock?) outrage, people loved it. Of course, the team chose its name in a deliberate attempt to focus on the use of ethnicity, and racist stereotypes, in sports. It's popularity, however, underscores the anodyne quality of the term. If people--white people--embraced rather than rejected "The Fighting Whites," how offensive could it be?

The only term I can think of that's more ridiculous is "honky." That one just makes me laugh. Like, what the hell does "honky" mean? What does it refer to? But both "whitey" and "honky" are terms from ages past, words you might hear in blaxploitation films (and "whitey" is used in Ossie Davis's fine Cotton Comes to Harlem), or in episodes of The Jeffersons. I'm thinking "whitey" is pretty much obsolete regarding common usage. In other words, it's not a word that Michelle Obama would throw out in public (or, I'm guessing, in private. As a highly educated woman, she's well equipped to find more articulate ways of expressing frustrations with people of a paler hue).

I am curious though; if people have encountered "whitey" in common parlance, do drop me a line and let me know.

*The Fighting Whites team members include Native Americans and Hispanics as well as Caucasians.

UPDATE:
Thanks to Factions, Fashions, and Fists, we know a bit more about the alleged "whitey" incident.
The accusers claim that the event took place at the Rainbow/Push Coalition Citizenship Education Conference in 2004. Here is the program.

1) It's been claimed that Obama appeared along with Louis Farrakhan's wife at a panel. The schedule includes no Farrakhan.

2) Michelle Obama is listed as a "special guest"at the Women's Luncheon. The other special guest is Ms. Shoshana Johnson, retired US Military. No Farrakhan appears on the schedule. Of course this doesn't mean that Mrs. Farrakhan wasn't in the audience, but her presence in the crowd, rather than as a guest alongside Mrs. Obama, does refocus the argument, don't you think?

3) The keynote speaker at the luncheon was Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr.

4) The event was chaired by Chicago's ABC7.

Expect the story to readjust now: ABC7 (or The Powers That Be) will be accused of sitting on the tape to protect the Obamas. After all, it's a big conspiracy, isn't it?