The Barack Obama campaign could be writing the book for future campaigns, both political and corporate. It has been victim to scurrilous attacks by anonymous opponents. Let's face it, the mud is only ankle deep at the moment, its only July and by October this nation is going to be awash in racial hatred.

Despite the fact that the blogs and even the news networks and radio hosts associated with this mis-information campaign have been attacked and challenged (where is the video of Michelle Obama saying "whitey" Mr. Limbaugh? Mr. Johnson?), the rumors have continued.

So, kudos to the Obama campaign for creating fightthesmears.com.

Because of our position as the home of Obama, the journalists of this city will necessarily need to step up in this campaign. Local journalists should take the lead, running down the accusations, discussing the results on line and in print. It is disappointing to read articles that say "divisive comments allegedly made by Michelle Obama." Let's rephrase this to put the onus on the attacker. There is a high hurdle to healing the racial divide in this country. Let's assume Barack and Michelle are innocent until proven otherwise, or this campaign could cause race relations to deteriorate.