Leading with the truth to debunk the smear

Daily Kos diarist mindgeek has a must-read diary on the neuroscience of swift-boating. (It's worth noting that mindgeek is Sam Wang, a neuroscientist at Princeton University and author of Welcome to Your Brain. In other words, he is no intellectual slouch.)

Professor Wang's diary, which first appeared as an op-ed in The New York Times, delivers a brief overview of the neurological foundations of false beliefs. In short, if a false claim is repeated with enough frequency, over time the brain tends to forget the context which exposed the claim's falsehood, while remembering the claim itself -- in the process, forming a false belief.

This process of forming false beliefs leads Professor Wang to make a crucial observation:

Journalists and campaign workers may think they are acting to counter misinformation by pointing out that it is false. But by repeating a false rumor, they may inadvertently make it stronger. In its concerted effort to "stop the smears," the Obama campaign may want to keep this in mind. Rather than emphasize that he is not a Muslim, for instance, it may be more effective to stress his discovery of Christianity in his twenties.

This seems like very good advice. Instead of leading with the smear, lead with the truth, and turn the tables on the smear merchant. For example, on the "whitey tape" the FightTheSmears.com site could say:

The truth: There is no tape of Michelle Obama using the word "whitey" from the pulpit of Trinity United, contrary to Rush Limbaugh's false claim.

The truth: Larry Johnson never posted "New and dramatic developments...by 0900 hours" despite his wild promises.

On the religion smear:

The truth: Barack Obama is a committed Christian and has never belonged to any other religion, despite anonymous e-mail smears claiming otherwise.

Instinctively, this approach makes a ton of sense to me; the fact that someone as brilliant as Sam Wang bases his argument for it on neurological foundations makes it all the stronger.

(As a side note, in early April Professor Wang co-authored another illuminating NYT op-ed on the way the mind works. It's definitely worth a read.)