Larry has always been clear that he has never seen the tape and does not know, by name, who has seen it. He's reporting third hand information as third hand information. And Obama let the smear perpeturate for weeks rather than adddress it.

I think it's a useful process.  Not everyone who believes this stuff is a hater, some are just regular people who get an email from a friend and think oh, I guess this must be true.  The strategy of ignoring it and hoping it goes away doesn't really apply these days, particularly when the Internet catapults every crazy rumor around the world.

She's important, because she can turn white voters off to Barack Obama if they think he buys into her anger and negativity.  She trashed the Clinton years, complained about how hard it is to raise her family on way, way over $100k/year, said things suggesting she has not had much pride in America for a long time, and has said that America has been going downhill for the past 50 years or so.

It's not that anyone would say "I hate Michelle Obama, so I'm voting for McCain."  It's that she would cause them to have second thoughts about Obama that they might not even realize were triggered by her.  His greatest strength is the perception that he's something new and different.  She can undermine that.

I would really be upset receiving an unsolicited email addressing smears which someone though, for whatever reason, I should receive.  

I don't know if anyone brought this up...

But it's not like an "Independent Third Party" is verifying that the "smears" are not true.  It's the person the "smears" are supposed to be about that is saying they aren't true.  

But what if they are true?  

What if the first smear had been about Reverend Wright being the preacher in Obama's church for 20 years?  And Obama denied it.  And later on, you found out it was true.  What would that make you think of the website and the candidate?

Larry Johnson already has an answer up at his site; say what you will about Larry, he isn't going to drop any of the bones he's been chewing on just because a lame Obama "Fight the Smears" web page says so.

And he won't be the only one who won't let go just because Obama has decreed something to be false.

As a follow up to my post yesterday about Obama's new internet offensive against rumors, you can't get much more definitive than the cover of today's Chicago Sun-Times.

Lynn Sweet's lede demonstrates what a sea change this represents for the Obama campaign, going from standard, play it safe tactics to a high risk strategy:

[Sweet writes--link at URL above]

"When I phoned the Obama press shop a few times in recent weeks to check out rumors about whether there was a videotape with Michelle Obama using the word "whitey," the campaign declined to issue a denial or to pass along the question to Michelle's staff to find out what might be fueling the rumors.

From "declining to issue a denial" to a headline on the front page of the Sun-Times screaming "SMEAR!, SHE NEVER SAID 'WHITEY.' That's a long way to travel in just a couple of weeks.

Again, while risky, I think this represents a smart strategy on Obama's part, so long as they have all the facts on their side. But if they don't, and if there is anything that comes out that is even somewhat contradictory, the Obama campaign will be barraged with questions and forced into a defensive posture that will involve some serious parsing of language and could damage the candidate's credibility quite severely. It is a high risk, high reward gambit.

Rush will have a field day with smearing Michelle over her already documented comments.  "Whitey" just adds more flavor to the pot.  It doesn't need to be true for it to have an effect.