This is just a rejoinder to this email copied and pasted by John from Show Low.

The wise one said “you don’t know how little you know, until you know how much you need to know before you know how little you know.”

The woman who told John McCain she heard that Barack Obama was Arab was not a smart woman. To think that the son of a Kenyan father and a Kansas mother is Arab is preposterous. She was ignorant – and mischievous, too.

Yes, I know it is not politically correct. But that is what she is.

But that’s OK. The ignoramuses are forgiven when they ask questions. Even if in the question they regurgitate smears or mere nutcase hallucinations, their desire to ask questions earns them forgiveness.

What does not deserve forgiveness is when an ignorant fellow state their ignorance as a fact. As we saw in the last debate, John McCain’s question about Obama’s relationship with William Ayers which right wing activists have been magnifying, when answered by Obama became silly.

The last purveyor of right wing smears here on instablogs, John, has just created his own phantom Joe the plumber. He called her “Smart Woman.”

The woman claims to be watching MSNBC, CNN and FOX News, but she seemed incapable of interpreting what she is seeing. She has so many “concerns” about Obama. I will take on few of her concerns.

1.) Where did the money Obama used to travel come from? Obama as an Occidental College student traveled on a world wide trip to Indonesia to see his mother, to Karachi to visit his roommate and to Africa to visit his father. The answer is that I don’t know. But for this so called smart woman, it was far-fetched because she has four daughters and could not afford to send them on a trip round the world. If she couldn’t, that does not mean that people around Obama could not. Obama’s father and step-father were not ordinary middle-class men -the same with Obama’s friends in college. Those from foreign countries who come to school in America are not from your average middle class family who pinch pennies. So money for such a trip would not have been a big deal. Anyone with links family links around the world is more likely to travel abroad than those without. I have traveled round the world more than a typical Americans in my economic bracket. If I meet an American in my economic bracket and tell him or her places I have been, the American will ask, “where did you get the money?” Sometimes, such travel is a matter of necessity and not just for pleasure.

2.) Changing his name from Barry back to Barack? Anyone who has ever bothered to study the lives of immigrants and their children would have understood the identity crisis they have always faced. Be they Jews, Arabs, Africans, or Eastern Europeans, the story is the same for the first and second generations. Many parents give their kids names from the old country. Some kids try to change or modify their names to fit into the new country. Sometimes it is the American society that does the changing and the modification for the kids. When they come of age, many of these kids reverse their names to the original name given to them. I have a daughter that I named Ijeamaka. Her teachers and classmates have changed her name to IJ. I insist they call her Ijeamaka. There is no guarantee that when she gets to be 16, she would not choose to be called IJ, if only to belong. And if she does that, I have no way of stopping her. But I know that when she gets to college and reads my “Children of A Retired God” she will revert and insist she be called Ijeamaka. So there is no surprise there.

3.) Why did he go to Chicago to work as a Community Organizer after Harvard? Again I do not know. I believe the answer should be in his book which I have not read. Surprised? I am not into him like that, contrary to what many readers may think. But I know he did not go there to meet Tony Rezko. What if he went to Chicago because of Michele? I am not saying he did. I am just suggesting a possibility that rational people may come up with and not the kinds of connections conspiracy nut cases choose to make.

4.) Where did the money for Colombia University and Harvard tuition come from? This should not be hard to confirm. But conspiracy theorists rather trust their dark minds than look at verifiable facts. This was how John McCain embarrassed himself when he brought up William Ayers who sat on the same education board with Obama and many prominent Republicans in Chicago. Conveniently, this so called smart woman forgot to mention that Obama and Michelle just finished paying their student loans. Couldn’t any of loans be for Colombia and Harvard education?

5.) Rezko, a recently convicted felon, was Obama’s financial contributor and connected with Obama’s purchase of a new home in Kenwood District? Well, as long as politicians continue to need money for campaigns, they will stretch their hands to anyone who will provide the money. Some of these financiers will be of questionable character. If something illegal happened between Rezko and Obama it will eventually come out. Didn’t I read that Rezko is talking to the Feds?

6.) With all those student loans, where did Obama get the money to buy a house? I thought Obama had a job? Or maybe two jobs – lawmaker in Chicago and College professor. And the wife had a good job. And his book contract was in thousands. Smart lady, Obama has left your middle class status long ago.

7.) Obama’s adviser, Valerie Jarrett, is from Iran. There is a pattern of befriending people from other parts of the world. Well, if you come from an “exotic” background, and attended top colleges where there are other “exotic” people, you are going to meet and know a variety of people. If you come from a rural area, like Show Low, and you are just comfortable in your own skin with your own kind, you are not going to know more than your local people.

You know there are things that are hard to believe – that a young skinny man with a funny name is at the verge of becoming the President of the United States. For those who are not sophisticated to understand strategies and fate and destiny and talent and personality, there must be something sinister happening. Their mind goes to work. They look into the abyss. And after a while, as the wise one said, they become the abyss.

What really surprises me in all these is that some Americans, people I used to think were sophisticated, confident in the American system, and fully aware that there are so many checks and balances in place (that stopped presidents like Richard Nixon from ruining America), had so little faith in their country. It baffles me.

Ignorance is a terrible disease.