Sunday, July 25, 2010

Dirty Tricks? Or Just Ignorant Internet Cruisers?

With Tuesday's contested primary elections just hours away now, there are reports of what some say are dirty tricks on the Internet. Others say it's just ignorant Internet cruisers spreading rumors that have no basis in fact.

Regardless, the rumors spread.

Lt. Governor Jari Askins says the rumor there's a Barack Obama robocall being made on her behalf is not true. She replied to a question from blogger Jamison Faught of www.muskogeepolitico.com.

And in what may be the closest thing to a real dirty trick is a lightly-read, anonymously-written blog's assertion that 5th District candidate James Lankford, for some mysterious reason, is trying to hide his Baptist Church affiliation. That assertion comes, the blog conspiratorially whispers, because Lankford uses the phrase "Falls Creek Church Camp" instead of "Falls Creek Baptist Church Camp" to describe his relationship to that entity. And that, the conspiracy theory goes, is because Lankford is somehow soft on Muslim terrorists. The blog is an ardent supporter of Lankford opponent Kevin Calvey.

The problem with this conspiracy theory is that the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma itself uses the phrase "Falls Creek Church Camp" to describe it and most shorten that to "Falls Creek" when describing it. Lankford's simply using the proper name given it by the BGCO itself.

In Norman, an anonymous blog's reporting on the background of GOP congressional candidate RJ Harris has resulted in Harris accusing opponent Tom Cole of being the source for the blog's accusations; he makes the assertion without a shred of evidence in an otherwise eloquent defense of himself.

In Tulsa, GOP Congressman John Sullivan sent an email in defense of himself after an email was circulated making numerous claims about his record, all of them outright lies. ~ Mike McCarville

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