The generally despicable Think Progress once again shows how one can take the truth and with a little subtraction here and a little addition there, a dash of distortion and a dollop of ill will, create a nasty little bit of false propaganda about one's political opponents. In this case it is the meme that when some conservative Christians have prayed for President Obama's tenure in office to come to an end, what they are really praying for is Obama's death. Here's how they do it.
Apparently an email has been circulating since around the beginning of 2009 that tells people that it's okay to pray for Obama and it specifically cites Psalm 109, verse 8:
Let his days be few;
and let another take his office.
There's certainly a degree of ambiguity to exactly what that means, but to turn that into something nefarious instead of a general wish for Obama to leave office requires attributing a level of malice to your average dedicated bible-thumper that doesn't pass the sniff test. They may not like Obama, but that's hardly evidence that they would violate the very first of the 10 Commandments they so earnestly try to follow and doom their mortal soul to Hell. No, to sell that to the general public is going to take a little more.
Enter the number one tool of our Wormtongues these days, Left and Right, which is to muddy the waters a bit.
You see, what they need to do here is get the rest of Psalm 109 into the picture, because it really is a bit of a heavy duty call for God's wrath. Think Progress and others accomplish that in this case by simply dropping that little bitty ":8" and turning it into this:
Nick Sementelli at Faith in Public Life notes that Psalm 109, which is a prayer for the death of a leader, became a popular conservative meme after Obama’s election. The “tongue-in-cheek” prayer for the president was seen on bumper stickers. The relevant part of the psalm reads:
Let his days be few;
and let another take his office
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.
And viola! The "relevant part", as far as any consistently duped reader of Think Progress knows, is whatever they choose from the entire Psalm 109 and not just what was originally cited, the very specific Verse 8.
There you have it. After all, there's not much ambiguity to "May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow." Now some Think Progress writer can feel free to write a headline such as:
Kansas GOP House Speaker ‘Prays’ That Obama’s ‘Children Be Fatherless And His Wife A Widow’
...and progressives of the simpleton persuasion can eat it up and regurgitate it until it becomes another false and stupid brick in our political divide.
At the end of the Think Progress post there is a mealy-mouthed attempt to tie verses 8 and 9 together, but the simple fact is the email in question did not cite Psalm 109, or Psalm 109:8,9. It specifically cited Psalm 109:8, and to say otherwise, no matter the contortions and distortions required to get there, is simply false.
Demonizing one's political opponent is not exactly new, nor does any one part of the political spectrum hold a monopoly on that as a tactic. I see it becoming more mainstream though, as this little calumny did in getting some MSM play. I'm afraid that we'll be seeing more and more of it as this election year rolls along.
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