Did presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign plant a fake story accusing itself of campaign finance irregularities, in order to portray itself as victims of right-wing allegations about the campaign’s successful Internet fund-raising?
In a July 8 2008-article "Bogus Dowd Column spreads quickly" PolitiFact, a project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, reported that blogs and chain e-mails were spreading a Maureen Dowd New York Times column that claims the Obama campaign got suspicious contributions from Iran, Saudi Arabia and China. "But the column is a fake," reports PolitiFact. The New York Times also disowned the Dowd column as a fake.
According to PolitiFact, "It's not clear who wrote the column. One of the early appearances of the column was when it was posted June 29 on a blog on AZCentral, the Arizona Republic newspaper site, by someone identified as Thomas Moore." The post appeared Sunday, June 29, 2008 at 07:38 P.M.. The blog biography depicts Moore as "a retired journalist/technical writer/illustrator" and an avowed Barry Goldwater fan.
PolitiFact then reports that another blogger, David Lane, a self-proclaimed Obama supporter, got into the fray challenging the authenticity of Moore’s blog entry. Lane’s comments appear on an Obama website sponsored "Community Blog." In fact, PolitiFact reported that on the morning of Monday, July 7, 2008, it found the fake Dowd column posted on only a few blogs, one being Obama’s own campaign blog, "Fight the Smears," under the headline "Maureen Dowd spoof spreads." The Obama campaign website naturally discredited the column. However, on the evening of July 7, 2008 the Dowd spoof column appeared on eight blogs, but by the following morning, it "had grown to at least 30 blogs."
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/PeterJWirs/2008/07/17/did_obama_plant_bogus_dowd_column_to_victimize_himself
