Let truth be our guide

Depending on who you believe, Barack Obama is either the best thing to happen to American politics since John F. Kennedy, an alleged racist, Muslim sympathizer, an attention-hungry candidate who doesn't give a rip about our troops and - at the broadest extreme - the Antichrist.
Somewhere between these extremes presented to us about Obama lies the truth.
I hope in a few days to begin my own comparisons of factual information about the major presidential candidates - Obama and Republican John McCain. Therefore, I am not advocating or lobbying for either candidate.
What I do advocate is that our voting public make wise, informed decisions at the polls, not selections based strictly on fear and gross misinformation or outright falsehood.
I've taken a few minutes to look up a few Web sites which address all these assumptions about Obama.
The first is this answer about him being the next JFK. Doesn't sound exactly like our 35th president, does he?
The second is about an e-mail I received at home about Obama being an alleged black racist whose true allegiances lie with Muslims. The statements this e-mail is based upon are - at minimum - taken wildly out of context. Here is an analysis from snopes.com. Please take the time to read through it.
The next one is about an e-mail I got at work purportedly from a captain in Afghanistan who says Obama blew off troops lined up to meet him to get to a photo-op. Snopes.com has detailed information - even photos - to show the contrary and says that the original sender has asked people to delete his original e-mail because it contained what he now knows to be false information.
Now, for the last one - another snopes.com post about Obama and whether he could be the Antichrist. There is no information available to suggest this is even remotely true.
When we go to the polls in November, let's let truth and (as much as possible) geninue conviction guide us - not fear. And let's all check to make sure e-mails we forward to people are - as much as possible - truthful and accurate.