Fight the Smears

Back in October 2007, one of the hottest e-mail forwards was a picture capturing Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama standing in front of a U.S. flag (at an Iowa political event) with his hands clasped in front of him during the playing of the U.S. national anthem. This photographic brouhaha soon mutated into a (false) claim that Barack Obama ‘refused to put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance’ and then into the (even more false) claim that ‘he refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at all.’

Obama said the photo was taken during the singing of the national anthem, not the pledge.

“My grandfather taught me how to say the Pledge of Allegiance when I was 2,” Obama said, his annoyance obvious. “During the Pledge of Allegiance you put your hand over your heart. During the national anthem you sing.

Throughout my life, I have always taken my deep and abiding love for this country as a given,” Obama said in the 29-minute address to about 1,150 people crowded into a gymnasium at the Truman Memorial Building, named for former president Harry S. Truman. “It was how I was raised. It was what propelled me into public service. It is why I am running for president. And yet at times over the last 16 months, my patriotism has been challenged — at times as a result of my own carelessness, more often as a result of the desire by some to score political points and raise fears about who I am and what I stand for.”