Scamming the faithful by Obama
Scamming the faithful
Innocent people have been passing around a web video launched by a political professional and career smear peddler that turns out to be a cynical and manipulative attack on Barack Obama’s reading of the Bible. The trickster’s claims about Barack’s faith are every bit as false as his claims that this amateurish video is really a TV ad.
The Truth About the Video
The video was launched on the scam artist’s website, PHforAmerica.com. He claimed that the ad “will air on TV immediately following the Democratic National Convention,” and he even asks for money to “help this ad air as often as possible in the key swing states.”
But real TV ads are most often produced in short, even lengths — usually 30 seconds or maybe as long as one minute. This supposed “ad” runs 2:09 and is so poorly made that it would never air on TV — and sure enough, it still hasn’t, even now that the Democratic convention has come and gone.
The Truth About Barack
With such a deceptive person behind this video, it’s not surprising that everything he says about Barack is deeply dishonest and wrong, too. The video takes 5 sentences out of a 4,500-word speech Barack gave in 2006 completely out of context to stoke division and hatred.
Far from mocking the Bible or people of faith, Barack’s speech actually celebrates the role of people of faith in public life and offers nuanced thoughts on the intersection of religion and politics. In his daily life, Barack reads his Bible regularly and respects people of all religious traditions and biblical interpretations.
UPDATE, 10/3: At the beginning of October, the scammer behind this deceptive home video announced that he finally got his “ad” on TV — but it turns out it only aired one time, at 2:00 a.m., on a single station in Pittsburgh.
Nothing has changed here. Barack Obama is still celebrating the role of faith in public life, the lies and deception in the video are still insulting and wrong, and the scammer is still untrustworthy. The amateurish clips on his website still feature the same low-quality video and audio that real 527s wouldn’t use — and the ads are also still missing the required legal disclaimer at the end saying who funded them.
The scammer’s announcement sounds realistic at first, but making scams seem plausible is what tricksters like him are known for. In the end, he’s even less credible now than he was when he first started taking people’s money.
