McCain, Obama and the politics of sleaze

This overheated presidential race is getting uglier by the minute. But I don't have to watch the debates, read the New York Times, tune in MSNBC or CNN, dial up my favorite political Web sites, or Twitter endlessly with my peeps to know that.

I just need to look at my Thunderbird inbox.

In the last week I've received two scurrilous, dubious, take-no-prisoners emails about the two leading contenders for the highest office in the land. (And no, I don't mean Bob Barr and Ralph Nader.) What's interesting to me is not what the letters say as much as who sent them to me, and the effect they've had on otherwise reasonable people.

I won't quote from the messages, since that would be doing their dirty work for them. But you may have seen one or both of them -- if not in your inbox, then in the comments fields on red and blue blogs across the Web.

The first email strings together vague 'facts' about Obama with a lot of nonfacts, tied together with insinuations about shady connections with radicals, terrorists, criminals, and foreigners. The purpose is to drive a wedge of fear and uncertainty into the brains of people who haven't made up their minds yet.

But because the letter deals with facts (or lack thereof), it's pretty easy to debunk. In fact, Snopes.com has already done it.

The second email is harder to debunk. It's an alleged first-person account of McCain on vacation in Fiji. Needless to say he comes off as the world's biggest jerk. But because it's a "personal" account, the email is almost impossible to fact check. Snopes has that letter's status listed as "undetermined".

Though you'll find people online who claim to know the alleged author and vouch for the story's authenticity, that author has not come forward to lay claim to it. Without that, it can't be considered anything but propaganda.

(I just received yet another piece of email fakery, claiming that the guys behind the collapse of Fannie Mae are Obama's top economic advisers. That too is a load of manure.)

Now, I don't believe either campaign is behind these emails. I think these things bubbled up from some partisan with an agenda (as well as some crackerjack viral marketing skills), and then got carried along by similar true believers.

What's odd is that people who would not for one moment believe they were selected at random to receive $35 million from a former minister in the Nigerian government or that they'd won a lottery they never entered will swallow this stuff whole and pass it on to everyone else they know.

It's because they want to believe it. It's because these accounts fit their preconceived notions of who the candidates are. We're living in an era where people form their opinions first, and then look for the 'facts' to support them. And on the Net, you can find a constituency for any belief, no matter how loony.

Don't like the truth? Make up some of your own -- and then spam the rest of the world with it. Or you can take everything you see with a heavy dose of skepticism and do your own research. Vigilance and relentless Googling: It's the new price of liberty.

Did you get one of these emails -- and did you believe it? Post your thoughts below or email me directly: dan (at) dantynan (dot) com.