Liz points out that the anti-Obama meme — Barack as muslim, terrorist, invader, traitor, deep mole, Manchurian jihadist — isn’t just for adults anymore. Heck no, let’s get the kids involved! From Lego, the company that brought you the ubiquitous and annoying Bionicles phenomenon:

The accompanying text reads, in part: “Merciless and armed to the fangs with Squid ammo, the Barraki know what they want and stop at nothing to get it!”

Squid ammo, indeed.

I got word of a press release yesterday from a website calling itself ObamaTruth.org. So, of course, I checked it out. Didn’t take more than a second to realize that it was almost certainly a secretly funded, Swift Boat-style astroturfing project.

Is it from Club for Growth? McCain? A shadowy group of Democrats? Perhaps, we’ll never know. But, like with all of these sinister projects, there is very little "truth" to be found.

For example…

The first item — posted below a four part YouTube video, which attempts to reinforce the claims below and includes some suspiciously professional voice work — is from a September 26th piece at the Sun-Times entitled "Senator’s family rakes in nearly $1.7 mil. in 2005."

In it, we learn that Obama earned $1.2 million from his book deals. And that Obama now makes $154,047 as a Senator. Both extremely shocking.

We also learn that Michelle Obama earns $316,962 in 2005 in role as Vice President for Community and External Affairs for University of Chicago Hospitals. She also earned $45,000 serving on the board of a foods company called Treehouse, Inc. (More on Treehouse below.)

Barack Obama explains…

She was promoted to the hospitals’ vice president for community and external affairs in March. Obama said that his wife, who, like him, is a Harvard law school graduate, was deserving of the promotion and raise.

Her previous position was less demanding, he said, and because his Senate campaign had ended and she had more time to devote to her work, she was more marketable with her educational background and other strengths.

‘’You can’t fault her for being smarter and better qualified for all sorts of jobs than I am,'’ he said.

Now, for comparison, according to Salary.com, the "median expected salary for a typical Dean of Medicine - Higher Ed." in Rockford, Il, where a branch of the UI College of Medicine is located, is $364,688. Hey, at least with her Treehouse board position, Michelle Obama was able to gain a little compensation parity with those fancy deans in Rockford.

Oh yeah, and in 2005, the Obamas donated a generous $77,315 to charity.

Next up is an article from the Chicago Tribune about the now discarded Tony Rezko land deal "scandal." And then we move down the page to a link to a site called WhereTheMoneyGoes.com, which includes quite a few circular references back to ObamaTruth.org. More research needs to be done there, I think.

And then there’s an article from December 17th, which the site gives it’s own breathless headline "Chicago Sun-Times Columnist Carol Marin reports on Obama and Pork." In it, we find out that Obama once secured $100,000 for a museum project while he was a state senator.

Shocking, huh?

At the bottom of the page, they feature the now completely debunked Dick Morris story, followed by a right-wing blog posting that desperately tries to connect Obama to Chicago-area corruption.

OK, so what about the La Hunta, CO story, which seems to be the real purpose of this site. The attack, you see, is not so much on Barack Obama, but on his wife Michelle. And she’s being cast here in the same negative light as was used against Hillary Clinton in ‘92, also a lawyer with her own career.

Her sin? Well, she was on the board of Treehouse, Inc., which apparently shut down a pickle plant in Colorado, laying off 153 workers.

Now, assuming this La Hunta story is true, it may be interesting to have a converstation about the role of corporations — and their social responsibilities. But, unlike the likely people behind this bogus site, I suspect that the Obamas are more than willing to discuss these issues as indicated by their responses…

The Harvard University Law School graduate says she’s not cashing in on anyone’s fame. "My income is pretty low compared to my peers," she says, meaning other Harvard Law grads. "You wouldn’t ask that question if, like some people in politics, we had trust funds and were rich."

Mr. Obama also rejects any suggestion that his family is improperly benefiting from his fame. Although a recent land deal with political insider Tony Rezko raised such questions, Mr. Obama has spent the bulk of his career working as a civil rights lawyer, not as a partner at a lucrative LaSalle Street firm.

On the question of whether there’s any hypocrisy in his bashing of Wal-Mart while his wife draws pay from a company that does business with the retailer, he says his views on corporate reform and social justice remain the same regardless of what happens at TreeHouse. Until those views are implemented, he says, "Michelle and I have to live in the world and pay taxes and pay for our kids and save for retirement" just like anyone else.

And, just for added perspective, it’s important to note that, according to OpenSecrets.org, Barack Obama is ranked 50th in terms of net worth of all members of the U.S. Senate.

So, what have we learned from ObamaTruth.org? That, in 2005, both Barack Obama and Michelle Obama were paid at a level that is rather unremarkable for people who share their educational background and professional stature.

Sure, it’s far more than I make in a single year. But, I’m not a graduate of Harvard Law School, or a best-selling author, or a Vice President of a massive medical instituion, or a U.S. Senator.

And, in the end, ObamaTruth.org simply screams the question: Is that all you got?

UPDATE: RunObama.com pointed me to this find on AlterNet that suggests that “Low Blow” Joe Novak, a Chicago-area dirty tricks politico, may be behind the site.

FURTHER UPDATE: According to this article, Joe Novak was the editor of the (now dormant) FollowTheMoney.org, a name remarkably similar to the above-mentioned WhereTheMoneyGoes.com. Coincidence? Highly unlikely.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: JHC at Obamarama.org has his own excellent, and well-researched, version of the Truth About ObamaTruth.org.

Here is the letter from religious leaders that accompanied Obama Communications Director Robert Gibbs’ official response to the fake Madrassa story…

January 23, 2007

An Open Letter to the Religious Community:

Many of you have seen hateful emails, blog postings and reports circulating on the Internet and in the media about Senator Barack Obama and his religious upbringing. These outrageous charges began as reports of his potential candidacy for President emerged and, as has become a shameful custom of modern politics, it has swirled through cyberspace with a vengeance and now has been picked up as fact by Fox News and some partisan commentators.

We are writing to deplore this despicable tactic and set the record straight. We have had enough of the slash and burn politics calculated to divide us as children of God.

We must come together as one nation, and see our stake in each other as Americans. The bitter, destructive politics that have so riven our country in recent years cannot stand. As American leaders of different faiths who have worked cooperatively and greatly respect all of the 2008 candidates in both parties, we do not offer this statement as an endorsement of any individual candidate. However, certain moral standards should infuse our national dialogue, and the recent attacks on Sen. Obama violate values at the heart of this dialogue. The false and malicious attacks levied at him are anathema to all of our faith traditions, and we condemn them outright.

The facts below are no mystery. Senator Obama wrote openly about his life in his autobiography, Dreams from my Father. We take Senator Obama’s long-cited and uncontested description of his educational and faith journey at face value.

• Senator Obama never attended a radical Madrassa nor was he ever educated in a wahabi school. In the years he lived in Indonesia as a child, from ages 6 to 10, he attended a neighboring Catholic school for two years and then a public school.
• Senator Obama was not raised in a religious household.
• Senator Obama became a Christian long before he entered politics. While working as a young community organizer in the mid-1980s, working with a consortium of churches in a depressed neighborhood of Chicago, he became a Christian and became active in Trinity United Church of Christ. He, his wife and family are still active members of Trinity today.

It is important that we take a stand today against this willful, malicious attempt to mislead and inflame - and against any further attempts to use political attacks to divide the religious community. We ask that you share this letter widely, and help us beat back these hideous tactics, whatever their source. As people of faith, we cannot allow divisive attacks like these to stand.

Dr. Robert W. Edgar
General Secretary
National Council of Churches USA

Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner

Salam Al-Marayati
Executive Director
Muslim Public Affairs Council

Rev. Stephen J. Thurston
President
National Baptist Convention of America

The Rt. Rev. Preston W. Williams
President, Global Council of Bishops
African Methodist Episcopal Church

Sister Simone Campbell, SSS
Executive Director
NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby

The Rev. John H. Thomas
General Minister and President
United Church of Christ

Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy
President
Interfaith Alliance

Rabbi Jill Jacobs
Director of Education
Jewish Funds for Justice

Alexia Kelley
Executive Director
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good

Dr. T. DeWitt Smith, Jr.
President
Progressive National Baptist Convention

And here’s the text of a good piece from the local ABC affiliate in Chicago. There’s also video that includes a response from Obama himself.

Sent to the official email list today [my emphasis]…

Dear Friend,

If nothing else, the last election proved that politics-by-slogan and poll-tested sound bites aren’t going to cut it with the American people anymore, and that’s why the real test of leadership is not what the President said to Congress last night, but how he works with Congress in the months to come to find real solutions to America’s problems.

The good news is that in the halls of Congress and across the nation, there is widespread support from both Democrats and Republicans on how to meet the major challenges facing America.

Most Americans believe that escalation will not bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end, and that’s why I’ve proposed not just a troop cap, but a phased redeployment that will start bringing our troops home.

Most Americans believe that energy independence will come from using more biofuels like ethanol and making cars that actually use less oil, which is why I proposed a bipartisan plan that would raise fuel economy standards for the first time in decades.

Most Americans believe that the biggest domestic challenge facing the country is the high cost of health care, and that’s why incremental plans that do nothing to bring down costs or guarantee coverage are simply no longer sufficient. We must pass universal health care for every American.

The American people are looking for something new. They are hungry for a different kind of politics. In the last week, I’ve been humbled and inspired to see more than 100,000 of you sign up to join our efforts to change the debate in this country, so that we can begin solving our common problems and pursuing our common dreams.

Last night was an evening for rhetoric and promises. But now is the time for action - now is the time to actually get something done. You deserve leadership that’s commensurate to the challenges we face in this country, and I look forward to working with all of you to make this happen in the days and months to come.

Sincerely,

U.S. Senator Barack Obama

To get on the official email list, go here.

Barack Obama
Prospect Magazine - London,UK
His unusual background and his ability to use it to articulate a hopeful version of the American dream have turned Barack Obama into a political star. …

Santorum Picks Hillary Over Obama
NewsMax.com - West Palm Beach,FL,USA
"I just don’t think Barack Obama is ready for prime time,” Santorum said. "You can’t put a man like that in a situation where the country is in the state …

Obama-mania may backfire
Yahoo! News - USA
Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) (D) of Illinois announced he is officially considering possibly running for president in an election almost two …

Could Bush ‘beget’ Obama?
Ocala.com - Ocala,FL,USA
Could George Bush in 2008 "beget" Barack Obama? The Illinois senator, unlike the incumbent, is not the child of privilege or power. …

Madison Shockley: Barack’s Racial Balancing Act
Truthdig - Los Angeles,CA,USA
Now that Barack Obama has taken his first formal step toward the White House, America is downright giddy with the possibility of electing its first black …

Media treatment of Obama shows ignorance
LSU The Reveille - Baton Rouge,LA,USA
When I first heard "Barack Obama," I immediately went to my computer and tried to do a little research on his background. The name Barack is very similar to …

Hillary Clinton Staffers Denies Hit Job on Barack Obama
MetroPost - New York,NY,USA
Reports that Hillary Clinton’s staffers were behind recently surfaced evidence that Barack Obama attended a Muslim “madrass” are being vehemently denied by …

Obama: The Democratic Messiah?
TPMCafe - New York,NY,USA
… opined that “the Democrats are looking for a political messiah, and many of them think they’ve found one in Illinois’s junior senator, Barack Obama. …

Draft Obama! Why Bother?
The Nation. - New York,NY,USA
Barack Obama has filed papers to explore a presidential bid, and several political operatives are already building him a national campaign. …

(h/t to commenter Nat at Obamarama)

Michelle Obama: Ground Support
Newsweek
Michelle Obama has seemed ambivalent about Barack’s ‘08 run. But she’s provided the entree for him to give it a go …

One spring break, she and her two roommates tagged along with a Jewish student group on a ski trip to Vermont. "We were three black women on a trip with all of these white Jewish kids," one roommate, Angela Acree, recalls. "We stuck out like sore thumbs. But we had a great time."

The woman behind Obama
Chicago Sun-Times - Chicago,IL,USA
Barack Obama’s credentials have become familiar to millions: first African American president of the Harvard Law Review; University of Chicago law professor …

Crazies doing best to smear Obama
Chicago Sun-Times - Chicago,IL,USA
I was wondering what slur the lunatic fringe was going to try to nail onto Barack Obama, and with his quasi-official presidential bid only a few days old, …

The Swiftboating Begins - The Right Smears Obama
Huffington Post - New York,NY,USA
The minute Senator Barack Obama had traction, the right starting emphasizing his middle name. "Barack Hussein Obama", they sneered. …

Smearing Barack Obama
Yahoo! News - USA
The Nation — Today a friend forwarded me an e-mail that a friend of his had received with the subject "Let Us Remain Alert!" the contents of which are …

Is Barack Obama the new father of our country?
Town Hall - Washington,DC,USA
Senator Barack Obama has said that too many fathers "engage in childish things. (They) are more concerned about what they want than what’s good for other …

America’s baggage is Obama’s burden
Miami Herald - FL,USA
Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, to move toward that goal seems clear with this week’s news that he is forming an exploratory committee to raise money …

Obama may be just what the nation needs
Toledo Blade - Toledo,OH,USA
Barack Obama’s long-shot race for the presidency could be an exciting shot in the arm for the nation, boosting the political adrenaline of Republicans, …

Joshua Levy at Personal Democracy Forum asks some very reasonable questions about the trajectory of Barack Obama’s Web presence…

In the announcement video, Obama discusses hearing Americans express their frustration with politics as usual: “As I’ve spoken to many of you in my travels across the states these past months, as I’ve read your emails and read your letters, I’ve been struck by how hungry we all are for a different kind of politics.” He puts a particular stress on having had conversations with real Americans and says that running for President isn’t an exercise in vanity but a necessary act on behalf of the country and its citizens. But if we were to judge him solely by his web presence thus far, he wouldn’t seem too eager have an honest conversation with the American people.

But, Levy notes that there are sites out there who are trying to fill the void…

However, there are several unofficial sites that are trying to generate enthusiasm for an Obama run, and to convince the senator himself to jump in the ring. Perhaps the most popular of these is Draft Obama, which has a grassroots feel and, accordingly, features a discussion forum, blogs, and petitions, all developed and contributed by pro-Obama volunteers. Other sites (some with humorously creative takes on his last name), including RunObama.com, Obamarama, Independents for Obama, Students for Barack Obama, Barack Oblagga, and Vermonters for Obama are helping to fill in the gap left by Obama’s official online presence and give him the kind of grassroots credibility he hasn’t cultivated on his own.

He recognizes, though, that perhaps it’s too early to tell where Obama’s netroots strategy will go…

Although it may be too early for Obama to fully embrace the web, he just may be interested in the kind of decentralized power that asks people to organize on their own and rely less on top-down campaign structures. I’ve been told that the Obama campaign hasn’t gotten in the way of Draft Obama at all, suggesting that he may be serious about opening up traditional power structures.

Ultimately we’ll have to wait until Obama officially runs to see how he intends to approach the web. Will he conduct an Edwards-style web campaign and use all of the cool user-participation tools himself, or will he take a cue from decentralized campaign models like Meetup.com and give the power of online campaigning and participation to the people?

Disclosure: I worked briefly with Jim Brayton — now the Webmaster for Barack Obama — during the Dean campaign. As did Zephyr Teachout, who has helped organize Vermonters for Obama. In turn, Zephyr Teachout is a writer on Personal Democracy, where Joshua Levy is Associate Editor. Transparency is all.

Is money all that matters?

According to Patrick Healy and Jeff Zeleny, yes, it most certainly is…

Her entrance into the race followed Mr. Obama’s by less than a week, and highlighted the urgency for her of not falling behind in the competition for money, especially in New York, her home turf, where the battle has already reached a fever pitch. It also set off rounds of e-mail messages and conference calls among both her allies and opponents.
George Soros, the billionaire New York philanthropist, has made maximum donations in the past to both candidates, for instance, and last week he faced a choice: support Mr. Obama, who created his committee on Tuesday, or stay neutral and see what Mrs. Clinton and others had to say. In this case, Mr. Obama won.

Mr. Soros sent the maximum contribution, $2,100, to Mr. Obama, the first-term senator from Illinois, just hours after he declared his plans to run.

“Soros believes that Senator Obama brings a new energy to the political system and has the potential to be a transformational leader,” said Michael Vachon, a spokesman for Mr. Soros.

Mrs. Clinton’s presidential operation is only one day old, but she already finds herself in a breakneck competition against Mr. Obama for fund-raising supremacy in two towns that she and her husband have mined heavily for political gold: New York and Hollywood. Mr. Obama’s entrance into the race has also put up for grabs other groups that are primary targets for Mrs. Clinton, including African-Americans and women.

At this early stage in the nomination fight, securing donations and signing up fund-raisers are among the best ways of showing political strength in a crowded field (seven Democrats and counting). And Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton are looking to raise at least $75 million this year alone.

Advisers said yesterday that they had begun corralling donors to build quickly on the formidable $14 million that Mrs. Clinton already had in the bank. They predicted that they would outpace Mr. Obama, though they acknowledged that he is moving impressively to try to match Mrs. Clinton’s national fund-raising network, which has been in the making far longer than his.

Bob Kerrey thinks so too…

Yet hedging bets with a spread of donations could prove perilous with the Clinton camp, said Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska senator who is president of the New School University.

“The Clintons value loyalty, and I don’t think they are going to risk offending her,” Mr. Kerrey said of Mrs. Clinton’s traditional supporters, noting that he spoke to several undecided Democrats last week. Referring to Mr. Obama, he added: “He’s got to reach out to Hillary’s supporters and hope he can persuade some of them. If he doesn’t, she’s the nominee.”

But, does it all come down to this?

“I just got off the phone with someone who said, ‘It’s between Edwards and Obama,’ and with a little nudging I pushed him over to the Obama camp,” said Jeh Johnson, a partner at the Paul, Weiss law firm in New York who has been making fund-raising calls on behalf of Mr. Obama.

Mr. Johnson, who was general counsel for the Air Force in the Clinton administration, said younger Democrats and women — crucial parts of Mrs. Clinton’s base — were excited about Mr. Obama. “I haven’t encountered many New Yorkers who say, ‘No, I’m not interested, I’m a Hillary supporter,’ ” he said.

Steve Benen of the Carpetbagger Report writes about the depths to which certain (and to be fair, not all, by any means) elements of the right-wing media establishment will descend in trying to paint Barack Obama as the Muslim Manchurian Candidate.

Sad, really…

About a month ago, some unhinged right-wing bloggers started a dangerous meme: Barack Obama’s “loyalties” may lie with Islam, instead of the United States. It was malicious and disgusting. And now right-wing news outlets are running with it.

Insight magazine, a project of Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times, published an item in its new issue, asking, “Are the American people ready for an elected president who was educated in a Madrassa as a young boy and has not been forthcoming about his Muslim heritage?” Insight quoted unnamed sources who said Obama “was a Muslim, but he concealed it.” The magazine went on to suggest that the school Obama attended as a small child may have been financed by Saudis and taught students “a Wahhabi doctrine that denies the rights of non-Muslims.”

As if this weren’t moronic enough, Fox News, picked up the Insight article this morning and ran with it.

Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy pointed out that madrassas are “financed by Saudis” and “teach this Wahhabism which pretty much hates us,” then declared, “The big question is: was that on the curriculum back then?” Later, a caller to the show questioned whether Obama’s schooling means that “maybe he doesn’t consider terrorists the enemy.” Fox anchor Brian Kilmeade responded, “Well, we’ll see about that.”

The Fox hosts failed to correct the false claim that Obama is Muslim. One caller, referring to Obama, said, “I think a Muslim would be fine in the presidency, better than Hillary. At least you know what the Muslims are up to.” Anchor Gretchen Carlson responded, “We want to be clear, too, that this isn’t all Muslims, of course, we would only be concerned about the kind that want to blow us up.”

…

Keep in mind, the right’s smear may backfire. For one thing, it suggests they apparently consider Obama a serious contender for 2008. For another, fabricating obviously-false claims about Obama’s faith tends to disgust the more sensible among us. I’m reminded of a fascinating post from last month written by conservative Republican Juliette Ochieng.

I’m tired of it all. I’m tired of the insinuations about Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) because his dead father was a Muslim. I’m tired of the insinuations about his middle name — Hussein — and the racist/bigoted insinuations that I’ve seen on the Right that flow from there. […]

Is that how the Right wants to portray itself? … Vote for the person who stands for what you believe in — and leave the bigotry at home.

I doubt the right will take it, but that’s good advice.

UPDATE: Here’s the video. This segment is filled with misinformation. Much worse than the text conveys — if such a thing is possible.