Meet Andy Martin - Originator of the vile "Obama is a Muslim" smear.

[jefferson_dem]

The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama
By JIM RUTENBERG



The most persistent falsehood about Senator Barack Obama’s background first hit in 2004 just two weeks after the Democratic convention speech that helped set him on the path to his presidential candidacy: “Obama is a Muslim who has concealed his religion.”

That statement, contained in a press release, spun a complex tale about the ancestry of Mr. Obama, who is Christian.

The press release was picked up by a conservative Web site, FreeRepublic.com, and spread steadily as others elaborated on its claims over the years in e-mail messages, Web sites and books. It continues to drive other false rumors about Mr. Obama’s background.

Just last Friday, a woman told Senator John McCain at a town-hall-style meeting, “I have read about him,” and “he’s an Arab.” Mr. McCain corrected her.

Until this month, the man who is widely credited with starting the cyberwhisper campaign that still dogs Mr. Obama was a secondary character in news reports, with deep explorations of his background largely confined to liberal blogs.

But an appearance in a documentary-style program on the Fox News Channel watched by three million people last week thrust the man, Andy Martin, and his past into the foreground. The program allowed Mr. Martin to assert falsely and without challenge that Mr. Obama had once trained to overthrow the government.

An examination of legal documents and election filings, along with interviews with his acquaintances, revealed Mr. Martin, 62, to be a man with a history of scintillating if not always factual claims. He has left a trail of animosity — some of it provoked by anti-Jewish comments — among political leaders, lawyers and judges in three states over more than 30 years.

He is a law school graduate, but his admission to the Illinois bar was blocked in the 1970s after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.”

Though he is not a lawyer, Mr. Martin went on to become a prodigious filer of lawsuits, and he made unsuccessful attempts to win public office for both parties in three states, as well as for president at least twice, in 1988 and 2000. Based in Chicago, he now identifies himself as a writer who focuses on his anti-Obama Web site and press releases.

<SNIP>

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/us/politics/13martin.html?hp

[SpiralHawk]

1. "moderately severe character defect." How perfectly republicon

This dude fits the republicon homelander profile to a T.

Too bad for America and Americans that pathological fear-mongering republicon liars like this walk the streets -- and are embraced by the republicon-owned corporate media.

[hobbit709]

3. Isn't that just the perfect description

after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.”

"paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.” fits just about every repuke too.

[LynnTheDem]

2. No wonder Sean hannity loves this person!

psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect"...

Fits in very well with Faux News and their viewers.

[zanne]

4. Thanks for posting this.

It's always good to know the root of the rot.

[seabeyond]

5. andy martin like little boys and has cocaine parties on weekends.

why not.

[Raster]

8. that is also in line with the typical rethuglican high command mindset.

[seabeyond]

9. yes. n/t

[valerief]

13. I've heard that, too. It's because of his character defects. nt

[berni_mccoy]

6. Typical Repuke. He ran for office to "exterminate Jew power"

[Danmel]

7. Why does Muslim = Smear ?

There was a time when calling someone a homosexual in print was libel per se. You didn't even have to make out any elements- just calling someone gay was considered libelous.

It appears that calling someone a Muslim is the new libel per se. I find that very offensive and I am Jewish. I know quite a few Muslims- we live in a very diverse community ( and that diversity is one of the reasons we chose to live here and have our children attend the public schools here)and their families all seem to be prety much like my family- And honestly as a Jew, Christians have done a whole lot to hurt us too, certainly as much if not more than Muslims- the Inquisition, the pogroms of Eastern Europe, the expulsion from Spain and Portugal and of course the Holocaust.



Everything coming out of the McCain came is hateful and divisive. All that is missing are the hoods and burning crosses.

[L. Coyote]

10. Because this is why the Rs started their Crusade in the Mideast?

You know, God's favorite Christian Nation and all that hookum!!

[SaveAmerica]

11. "Trail of animosity" "Anti-Jewish comments" if anyone is schlepping to FL here's what you tell Nana.

It's what they do, stir up hate against a minority to achieve their goals.

[Starry Messenger]

12. Whoa. He's certainly a busy little bee.

http://www.blogger.com/profile/01072959101686433668

I wonder who feeds this horseshit to Free Republic. They seen to revel in their status as launchers of astroturf. One FR link was from here:
http://www.pr-inside.com/obama-author-andy-martin-says-barack-r813324.htm

which looks like some paid anonymous press release service.

[seasat]

14. He is a rabid anti-semite. Y'all need to read his court filings.

The NY Times article on him is too kind to this idiot. Hilzoy. over at the Political Animal blog, posted excerpts with links to some of court documents Martin has filed. Here's a taste of some of the bile he's thrown out.

16. Whatever they may say publically, in private Jews hate Christians, and have paranoid delusions about themselves and Christians. Jews think of themselves as a master race, or "chosen people," and hate Christians for worshiping a man whom Jews assassinated and regard as a poseur.
...
"2. It is obvious that since September, 1980, my property has been subjected to a massive, continuing Holocaust by Jew judges and Jew lawyers. One cannot ram a never-ending stream of Jews down a man's throat for years, and expect a person to take it. Just as the Jews claim they have a right to "fight" to avoid a Holocaust, so too a Christian has a right to "fight" (in this case through invocation of the judicial power) to protect himself from a Jewish inspired and Jewish engineered Holocaust which has sought to steal my property and to have me killed by agents of Jewish thieve squads.
...
4. Jews killed the son of God, and seek to deny the fact, and seek to murder and loot and steal from anyone who opposes their efforts at world domination and efforts at overcoming the curse flowing from the assassination of the Son of Yahweh. There is no question that, in biblical times, Jews were the "chosen people," chosen by Yahweh to fulfill the coming of his son, the Messiah, and that Jews blew it, and killed the son of their God, and are suffering for it. They continue to delude themselves that they are "chosen people," even though that role ended 2,000 years ago in assassination, and they continue to sin, steal and blaspheme in the same way that brought about the destruction of the kingdom, and the First Holocaust. As part of their greedy, unsavory efforts, Jews have been conducting a war against me and my property for over two, and nearly three years.

5. In the war against me generated by Jew greed, Jew judges have played a leading role. They act supine in favor of Jew lawyers, enter fictitious findings of fact, seize my property and purport to permit its liquidation, jail me illegally, and seek to harass me and prevent me from exercising my constitutional right of access to the courts.

There is much more at the link. He is a disgusting and vile creature. The fact that Fox treats someone who spews this bile as credible is even a low by their standards.