The Comfort of Rumors

Tonight on CBS's 60 Minutes, a white blue collar worker in southern Ohio says he's leaning toward voting for Barack Obama in next Tuesday's primary but has reservations because he heard Obama does not know the words to the Star Spangled Banner, did not place his hand on the Christian Bible when taking the oath of office, and is a Muslim. When told by interviewer Steve Kroft that all those statements were false, the gentleman responded that he was only going by what he heard. In a nation that proudly refers to itself as the information society, apparently there is no bar to vicious rumor and wilful ignorance.