Thanks for the comments!

Graceful Parenting — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:21:31 -0500

Thanks for the comments! I'm glad y'all thought it was funny!

I checked into the footnotes. Reference 9 is from 2003 and reference 10 is from 2007, but it is an encyclopedia that referenced previous events in 2003.

Some of the references aren't real, like for Mother Teresa's childhood friends who were interviewed about her drug use, but the others are real, although maybe used in an odd context.

Carol Marie Ramsey
Finding balance and peace in parenting at Graceful Parenting

I can't stop laughing at

Dana J. Tuszke — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:05:33 -0500

I can't stop laughing at references (9) and (10). Pope JPII died in 2005. He couldn't have beautified MT in 2007. Unless my Catholic knowledge is out of whack. :) Sadly, so many people don't check into "facts" (and I learned that lesson the hard way).

Yes, the information that's

malinski — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:41:28 -0500

Yes, the information that's out there isn't usually reliable. One change I'd love to see would be to have our federal election monies used to support *real* voter education, on concrete, in-depth differences, NOT more hype and surface-level differences.

Great post!

This is hilarious

cowgrrrl — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:41:40 -0500

Good job!

You (and your sister) might also be interested in the official word on Corsi's book from the Obama campaign: http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/corsi

The PDF link contains some really interesting stuff. Corsi is a creep.

A Drivel Runs Through It

Mother Teresa - A Long Time Drug User?

Graceful Parenting — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 14:07:39 -0500

My sister called me the other day and told me about a new book she read, Obama Nation by Jerome R. Corsi. She said it is well researched with lots of footnotes and it filled in a lot of the blanks for her, it confirmed doubts she had about Barack Obama. She knew I was a Barack Obama supporter and she wanted to know what I thought.

I love my sister for asking me this way. She genuinely wanted to know my opinion and was willing to listen instead of just telling me I'm an idiot, which is how political debate goes with the pundits and on blogs these days. I looked into it and my sister and I emailed about it back and forth. I told my sister I think this book is a classic smear campaign book. I pointed out a few smear campaign tactics used by Corsi...

1. Claim to be an objective investigative journalist at the same time you say there is a specific political purpose for the book, like keeping Barack Obama from becoming president.

2. Use footnotes and references to add credibility and objectivity, even if you are referencing sources that aren't objective like right-wing blogs and interviews with a selected sub-set of the people involved.

3. Start with the truth, a fragment of something that happened that can be verified, then add your own interpretations, like Barack Obama attending a public Muslim school in Indonesia as a boy means he is a closet Muslim now.

3. Present suggestive questions. These are easy because you don't have to prove anything, since you are only asking a question, like "Did Barack Obama do drugs in the Senate?"

This kind of list got me to thinking that using these tactics, no one is safe. You could make a pretty good case that I am a a schizophrenic, a wanna-be-polygomist, a bad parent and a baby-killer from reading my blog posts alone. So, what would it look like if Corsi took his tactics and applied them to someone we think is untouchable? What if he wrote about Mother Teresa? I think it would look something like this...

Let me begin by saying that I am an objective investigative journalist who is presenting the facts, with many references and footnotes, which is proof in itself of this story’s deep and lasting truth(1). I don’t need to defend each individual claim, because I am merely stating the facts as suggestions and possibilities for the American people to make up their own mind. Yes, I have said that the purpose of this book is to keep Mother Teresa from ever gaining Sainthood, a calamity of monstrous proportions that would destroy America, but let me reassure the reader that this in no way affected my objective investigative journalism.

Let’s begin with Mother Teresa’s supposed Christianity. Mother Teresa expert and extensive researcher Tayna Rice, author of "The Life and Times of Mother Teresa", writes that as a sister, Sister Teresa requested secularization not once, but twice, first from Mother General of Lorento in Dublin (2) and a second time from Rome (3). Why would a woman who claims to be Christian ask in formal documents to religious leaders to become secularized, when secular means to be a person with no religious or spiritual basis (4)? She could claim to be Christian (5), which would help with her own personal agenda of helping the poor (6), but this claim can hardly be trusted.

A second key component of Mother Teresa’s own personal agenda is her liberal and radical activism focused on perusing awards for herself as evidenced by her Bharat Ratna (India's highest civilian honor) in 1980, (7), her Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 (8) and her Beautification by Pope John Paul II in 2007(9)(10). She continually fought for redistribution of wealth, taking money from people who had earned it to give to people who didn’t work or even get out of bed on a regular basis (11). This type of “community organizing” is a direct affront to capitalism and a serious threat to democracy.

In addition to her lack of faith and her relentless pursuit of her own agenda, Mother Teresa can’t be trusted. What is most interesting in the books about Mother Teresa is what has been left out. For example, she never stated whether or not she did drugs, either as a young girl, as a nun or even as a leader of the Missionaries of Charity. I have interviewed many people in the Serbian town where Mother Teresa grew up and they all remembered her specifically even after so much time has passed and they remember her as a young girl who could have done drugs(11)(12)(13)(14)(15). If she omitted information such as this, what else was she willing to omit? What other details about her childhood, adolescence or young adult life did she keep secret? If she was willing to hide her drug use, she was willing to hide anything.

These are my objective findings of many days of research unbiased by my strong opinion that if Mother Teresa should never gain Sainthood, America would be in great danger. Now America can decide what they believe.

1 Mother Teresa: The Real Story, By Joseph Corsi, 2008

2 The Life and Times of Mother Teresa, by Tayna Rice, 1998, page 17

3 The Life and Times of Mother Teresa, by Tayna Rice, 1998, page 17

4 Mac's Desktop Dictionary, 2008

5 Mac's Desktop Dictionary, 2008

6 The Life and Times of Mother Teresa, by Tayna Rice, 1998, page 45

7 Wikipedia, "Mother Teresa," 2008, paragraph 2

8 The Life and Times of Mother Teresa, by Tayna Rice, 1998, page 45

9 Associate Press, "Full house for Mother Teresa ceremony," October 14, 2003

10 "Blessed Mother Teresa," Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007

11 Interview, Boris Kumanudi, 2008

12 Interview, Dushan Kumanudi, 2008

14 Interview, Mira Kumanudi, 2008

13 Interview, Niko Kumanudi, 2008

15 Interview, Tomka Kumanudi, 2008

My sister and I had some good discussions and after a while, she agreed that Corsi wasn't objective. She is going to focus on voting records and use that to guide her decision.

I hope, hope, hope for our country that our decisions are based on the candidate's voting records and the policies they have presented and what they say themselves and the values they stand for. I hope that liberals and conservatives alike stand up to cheap and dirty smear campaigns as say

"No, not in our country, This is America. We have honor and integrity and this is NOT a valid part of our election year decision making process."

For everyone who votes for McCain or Obama, I hope we can at least agree on that.

BlogHer - Mother Teresa - A Long Time Drug User? - Comments

Thanks for the comments!

I can't stop laughing at

Yes, the information that's

This is hilarious

Mother Teresa - A Long Time Drug User?