Great read from the AP today on the number of different demonstrably false stories which some conservatives are pushing about Barack Obama, hoping that something sticks by the fall.  Apparently, they don’t believe that running against him on the issues or on his record will be good enough.  And for the record, I agree with them.

John McCain is already contrasting himself against Obama as the more experienced candidate, who has been in Washington long enough to know exactly how it works.  He has also put himself on record this week defending the multitude of lobbyists surrounding him and working as close advisors in his campaign, calling them ”honorable people.”  In other words, McCain is taking the failed “experienced, establishment candidate” strategy of Hillary Clinton and, for good measure, adding to it a vastly unpopular pro-Iraq War position.  He cannot, and will not, win that way.  So while the efforts of some conservatives to drum up false issues to defeat Barack Obama may be dishonest and despicable, it is– for them– absolutely necessary.

Here are the two main memes they are developing against Obama, and how effective I think each will end up being:

1) Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim - Not only will this rumor not work– as it hasn’t thus far, despite being circulated in e-mails for months throughout the early voting states– but its clearly bigoted undertones means that it has a good chance of backfiring.

First, because it is so easily disproved (as CNN last year disproved the rumor that Obama had attended a madrassa by actually sending a reporter to Indonesia to interview Obama’s teachers and classmates) and so obviously sleazy, it’s not the type of thing an independent 527 group can put in television ads.  It can only be circulated through Internet and word of mouth, and those means of communication don’t have nearly the reach or credibility of television.

Second, for every one person who hears this rumor and believes it, you’ll have a hundred people who hear this rumor and instead sympathize with Obama.  They’ll think, rightfully, that it is a shame in the United States of America that anyone would have to put up with such obvious prejudice because of an unconventional name or background.

2) Barack Obama is unpatriotic - Of the two, this has the best chance of sticking.  Anyone who believes the flag pin or pledge of allegiance nonsense wasn’t going to vote Democratic anyway.  But Michelle Obama did make a genuine gaffe earlier this week, when she said, “For the first time in my adult life, I’m really proud of our country.”

She has since clarified and said she was talking about our politics, and that fact is fairly clear within the context of her speech.  But it’s so easy to take that quote out of context, as conservative talk radio has been doing ad nauseum this week, that it shouldn’t have taken the Obama campaign 48 hours to properly address the comment.  Add Michelle Obama’s comment to the “circumstantial evidence” of the flag pin and pledge of allegience, and you have a (still false but) more effective case.

I suspect that these conservatives will spend the next nine months fishing for comments, actions, and genuine mistakes by Obama or anyone in his campaign, so that by November they can build a case supported by one-sentence quotes and incidents that are, on their own, obviously out-of-context and meaningless, but together will look like a pattern of behavior.

There’s a good chance that the higher politics of Barack Obama will shed a harsh, unflattering light on these tactics, and they will backfire badly– the way Clinton’s plagiarism and teenage drug use attacks have thus far.  But there is also a chance that they will stick, as they did with John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads.  And because the miniscule chances of these false charges sticking are better than the even more miniscule chances of a 70+ year-old, pro-war, pro-lobbyist, pro-Bush, establishment candidate like John McCain defeating Barack Obama in a change election, conservatives have no choice but to give Obama their worst.  It will be up to America in November to decide if we will continue to be a country that rewards this type of politics.

UPDATE: Commenter Lao takes issue with my aside that “CNN last year disproved the rumor that Obama had attended a madrassa by actually sending a reporter to Indonesia to interview Obama’s teachers and classmates…”:

What exactly did CNN debunk or disprove?

And please don’t quote from CNN or Obama’s self-serving books.

Not sure why quoting from CNN isn’t allowed, but I’ll do it anyway.  Here’s a link to the story on the CNN Web site titled “CNN debunks false report about Obama.”  And since you don’t trust CNN or “Obama’s self-serving books,” here’s links to the Snopes entry on the subject (which also debunks the pledge of allegience smear) and an Associated Press report titled “Obama debunks claim about Islamic school.”