Or, why reporting the news is important.

So there's been a minor flap this week, as news has trickled up the right-wing media's predictable path, from the Washington Times up to Fox News, that Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama attended a "madrassa" in Indonesia while he lived there as a child.

Now, predictably, everybody freaked out. Madrassas are terrorist incubators! On a Fox News discussion, a caller was motivated to point out that "maybe [Obama] doesn't consider terrorists the enemy." There was talk of wahabism, of Saudi financing, of any kind of smear imaginable.

So let's back the bus up. First of all, Barack is a practicing Christian and has been for years. Second, madrassa just means "school" in Arabic. In some parts of the world, mainly north-western Pakistan, they are used to recruit radical Islamists. But not all of them are financed by the Saudis, not all of them are radical. What would happen if we attacked every politician who went to, say, Catholic school as a kid? The only reason to attack someone for going to a madrassa is if you think that Islam is intrinsically bad. Which, one might add, it isn't.

Luckily for us, CNN's occasionally smug but often right Anderson Cooper took the novel step of sending a reporter to the school in Indonesia (thanks to the Hotline for catching this). The results?

Vause [The CNN reporter]: "I've been to madrassas in Pakistan, and this school is nothing like that."

"This school was established in 1934 by the Dutch. It has a very broad education. It doesn't focus on religion. It has very famous alumni. For example, the grandchildren of Indonesia's second president attended this school. The current CEO of Garuda Airlines in Indonesia's national carrier, was also a former student at Besuki Elementary. So this is just a normal elementary school, and there's a good deal of confusion here how it could be confused as being an Islamic madrassa" ("Situation Room," 1/22).

"Here, they're taught science and math and practice traditional Indonesian dance. Besuki Elementary follows a national curriculum, just like it did in the '60s and '70s. Take a close look at Obama's teachers, women and men, all in Western-style dress. There are religion classes once a week. Most of the 450 students are Muslim and are taught about Islam. The handful of Christians learn that Jesus is the son of God."

"In fact in almost every way, Besuki is a typical, Indonesian public school, except it's in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Jakarta and is probably better off than most."

CNN's Cooper: "Well, that's the difference between talking about news and reporting it. You send a reporter, checks the facts and you decide at home."

I suppose it's too much to hope that the facts will kill a silly story like this one. Or that the right will stop trying to imply that this was all a plan of Hillary Clinton's to smear Obama...

--Tim