ANOTHER VIRAL E-MAIL ATTACKING OBAMA

This time it's supposedly rehashing an op-ed by the NYT's Maureen Dowd. I found it on an AOL message board:

Obama's internet funding-from overseas?
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#1 - Posted on 8/07/08 at 05:18 PM

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\OK- this is a NYT editorial board , right?
Lets look at an "oped" by MAUREEN DOWD-a Pulitzer Prize winning writer.( Not a rant by a clerk-typist.) Condensed for brevity.

"Obama's campaign to raise money by using existing lists to raise money over the internet. Suddenly huge amounts started to appear. about $200 milllion so far. One of the web site security monitors began to notice the bulk of the contributions were clearly coming in from OVERSEAS Internet Service Providers and at the rate and frequency of transmission it was clear that these donations were "programmmed" by a very sophisticated user.

While the security people were not able to track most of these sources due to firewalls and other blocking devices put on these contributions, they were able to collate the number of contributions thatwere coming in from individuals but the funds were from only a few credit card accounts and bank fund transfers.

The internet service providers ( ISP) they were able to trace were from SAUDI ARABIA. IRAN, and other Middle eastern countries. One of the banks used for the fund transfers was also located in SAUDI ARABIA. Another concentrated group of donations was traced to a CHINESE ISP with a similar pattern of limited credit card charges.
It became clear that these donations were very likely coming from sources OTHER than American voters. this was discussed at length within the campaign and the decision wss made that these donations did not violate campaign financing laws.

It was decided that it was not the responsibility of the campaign to audit these millions of contributions to the ACTUAL source( specific credit card numbers or bank account numbers) to insure that none of these internet contributions exceeded the the legal MAXIMUM donation on a cumulative basis of many small donations. They also found the record keeping was not complete enough to do it anyway. THIS IS A SHOCKING REVELATION.

I guess we should have been suspicious when the numbers started to come out. We were told (no proof offered) that the Obama internet contributions were from $10 to $25 or so. If the $200 ,000,000 received is correct and the average cointribution is $15 then THAT WOULD MEAN THAT !3 MILLION INDIVIDUALS MADE CONTRIBUTIONS! That would mean that 13 million contributions would need to be processsed. How did all that happen? I believe the Obama Internet fund raising raises a SERIOUS , IN DEPTH investigation and audit." Unquote.

Again, the author has integrity and unquestioned competence for her to win the Pulitzer Prize!

Obama will turn out to be the biggest phony in history. His receiving millions from CHINA,SAUDI ARABIA , and IRAN bode ill for the USA.

In The Record (San Joaquin)we have the debunking:

Shadow of a Dowd
Piece attributed to N.Y. Times columnist not what it seems to be
By The Record
July 11, 2008 6:00 AM
Maureen Dowd, whose stiletto-like wit about Bill Clinton and his dalliances with a White House intern won her a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1999, has turned her keyboard on Barack Obama.

Or has she?

In an e-mail circulated this week, an Obama attack piece was sent out under Dowd's name and the New York Times logo. It was published, the e-mail said, June 29. Except it wasn't.

That day, Dowd's column in the Times was about Obama, but it was about Hillary Clinton supporters who refuse to give up.

Anyone familiar with Dowd's writing should have been quickly suspicious of the e-mailed fake. Beyond that, a quick look at Dowd's most recent work at nytimes.com would show what's she's been writing. And failing all that, pasting the first paragraph of the suspect e-mail into Google would have linked it immediately, among other places, to a right wing blog.

Clearly, anyone who wanted to know could easily have found that Dowd did not write the column e-mailed to who knows how many.

But beyond that, the fake Dowd column should serve as a warning: Just because it's on the Internet - wonderful source of information and communication that it is - does not mean it's real. Or true. Or hasn't been altered to suit the sender's purpose.

And just because something pops up on more than one Internet site does not increase its validity. Material that gets on the Internet can quickly take on a life of its own.

The Internet is often a powerful tool. Too often, though, it is little more than a rumor mill and a playground for those whose purposes are their own.