The Caucus, a politics blog witten by the staff of the New York Times, calls James Johnson, the fellow who just resigned from Obama's VP search committee, "a leading member of the vice-presidential search team." And the headline of this piece is, "Obama's Top Vetter Resigns." They're implying that he is a vital, highly placed member of the Obama team. No wonder McCain's side wants to skewer him. The problem is that Johnson is not the vital cog the Times, McCain, the Washington Post, and many other media imply that he is.

John Kerry explains,

Jim Johnson is a very experienced, very discreet, very capable individual who is performing a voluntary function without pay, without any interest. He's not seeking a job, and, you know, he is acting completely independently to gather information about those somebody. And that's it. That is the full measure of this.... (http://the caucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/obamas-top-vetter-resigns/)

The author, Kate Phillips, by quoting Kerry, creates the impression of objectivity. But she's already taken her attack position in the headline and opening statements. She continues the attack by outlining all of Johnson's sins, which is a standard technique in guilt by association ploys. You spend a few sentences characterizing the relationship between the two parties and much more verbiage on the sins of the person with whom the candidate is associated.

The sins fulminate in the mind, and the nature of the relationship...well, it really doesn't matter. All that's needed to make the charge stick in the minds of non-politics-junkie swing voters is some relationship, any relationship. Of course, as I've pointed out, the Times characterizes the relationship as intimate and important by using the words, "top" and "leading." So this guilt by association attack is especially compelling.

It's time to start calling these subtle, implied fabrications what they are--lies. Hit piece authors of prominent news organizations hide behind a labyrinth of subtle defenses, like the argument that Ms. Kate included Kerry's demurrer, but the lies neutralize any so-called attempts at balance. The net effect is that Obama is impugned, which is what the author seems to have intended.

Maybe she only wanted to create the appearance of balance and would be surprised to discover that readers thought she was attacking. I've seen that conception of what passes for balanced journalism and suspect that, even if such pieces aren't intended as attacks, they have that effect under the guise of treating both sides equally.

Obama's new website, fightthesmears.com promises to put to rest negative rumors and false allegations. I've read all of the website's "Truth" responses to all of the allegations listed, and I'm not impressed. When I put myself in the shoes of the swing voters on whom we should be focussing, I feel slimed a bit. For this and other reasons listed below, I recommend that Obama do what I've suggested in my TPM post, "An Exhaustive Expert Questioning of Obama."

The source of the truthiness on his new weibsite is itself a major problem. Who can trust a polititician, much less his staff? Nevermind that a video shows the gradeschool in Indonesia he attended, interviews a teacher from that school and a former classmate. Nevermind that Obama's filmaker convincingly portrays the school as secular, involving kids of various faiths. How do we know that Obama wasn't sneaking off by himself to a radical wing of the school's population? Maybe the interviewees are paid actors. More importantly, how can we get answers to the questions that the website begs? So far, there's no way. The website doesn't provide the opportunity for questions and comments. It's a typical political diatribe against critics.

Another problem with Fightthesmears.com is that it's unlikely that swing voters will visit it. I'm a politics junkie, as was the TPM blogger who recommended the site. We dive in. But the sort of swing voters I have in mind are deluded by rumors and false allegations precisely because they don't have the inclination to explore the web in search of the truth. They get their information from TV and, perhaps, newspapers.

For all of these reasons, I think Obama should pursue the much more effective strategy I recommend in "An Exhaustive Expert Questioning of Obama." In that post, I recommend that he should do as he has done twice before. He should submit to an open-ended, public interrogation, nay a trial, by a large group of journalists and other high-profile community representatives. Their verdict has been and will be much more compelling than his own staff's responses to criticisms. And such public trials can attract the interest of broadcasters.

Some voters worry that Obama is a radical. Other folks think he is too naive to be Commander In Chief. Some people think he's dishonest. These caricatures threaten to undermine his candidacy, and his strategy of making more and more convincing speeches is weak, especially when compared to a little-known but effective process for changing voters' minds. I'm speaking of an exaustive expert questioning of Obama.

This technique was used effectively by John Kerry at a point when the Left was threatening to ignore him. On December 8, 2003, he met informally with a group of writers of some note. The group included Rick Hertzberg, senior editor for the New Yorker, Jim Kelley, managing editor for Time Magazine, Howard Fineman, chief politcal corresponden for Newsweek, and 12 additional similar kinds of writers and editors, including Calvin Trillin and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The event was a trial. No questions were off limits. The most significant charge concerned Kerry's vote to give Bush the authority to go to war. Kerry's anaswers eventually satisfied this group, and this meeting significantly helepd reversed the negative trend against Kerry. (See http://weblog.theviewfromthecore.com/2004_03/day_24.html

Obama too took advantage of this method for changing opinions. To head off charges against him regarding his dealings with the politically involved realtor, Rezko. There was no time limit, and three dozen reporters were allowed to ask any questions about Obama's dealings. Again, the questioners were satisfied enough that they pronounced the issue dead, and again the candidate was rescued from a damaging rumor. (Google the following: Obama Answers Extensive Questions About Rezko, Home and Adjacent Lot, posted by Steve Crickmore, Mar 15, 08.)

Of course, the composition of the group of questioners can make all the difference in terms of how widely acceptable their conclusion is. And I would add to the process provisions for follow up questions and submission of documents, much like what happens in an actual trial. And I would make the trial public. But it does seem that this open-ended process could change a significant number of voters' minds concerning an important set of controversies surrounding Obama.

Update: David Remnick's name has been removed from the list of attendees after it became clear he was not there.