Conservative efforts to characterize Barack Obama as Scary Black Man 2008 have picked up considerably of late, but this Fox News piece, disseminated w
March 20, 2008

Conservative efforts to characterize Barack Obama as Scary Black Man 2008 have picked up considerably of late, but this Fox News piece, disseminated widely by far-right blogs, reflects a certain desperation.

Barack Obama’s campaign has rejected the support of the New Black Panther Party, after removing an endorsement by the group from its Web site Wednesday. [...]

The New Black Panthers, who inherited their name from the Black Panther Party of the 1960s, had the page on the Obama campaign’s public forums. The group’s message said it is backing Obama because he “represents ‘positive change’ for all of America. Obama will stir the ‘Melting Pot’ into a better ‘Molten America.’” [...]

The NBPP is identified as an extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a tolerance education organization.

Fox News’ “report” goes on and on (and on) explaining how awful the New Black Panther Party is, and why no one should want anything to do with the group.

Unhinged right-wing activists extrapolated from this that the Obama campaign had touted support from the NBPP and gave the group its own page. One conservative went so far as to say Obama’s site was “caught bragging” about the NBPP’s support.

Given how excited the right got over all of this, it’s probably worth taking a moment to debunk this nonsense.

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