Echoing right-wing smears, ABC's The Note falsely suggested a link between Obama and Colombian rebels

The July 3 edition of The Note, ABCNews.com's daily political newsletter, quoted Chicago Tribune reporter Frank James writing of Sen. John McCain's recent trip to Colombia: "If Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe were going to help one of the presidential candidates, it would likely be McCain more than Sen. Barack Obama since the all-but-official Republican presidential nominee supports the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement while Sen. Barack Obama doesn't." Immediately after quoting James, ABC added: "(And the RNC may want you to remember that it was Obama's name -- not McCain's -- that popped up on a seized FARC laptop.)" ABC offered no explanation for its reference -- in a compilation of reports about the release of the Colombian hostages and McCain's trip to Colombia -- to a report that Obama's name "popped up" in a computer seized from "FARC," the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Indeed, the Associated Press article ABC linked to simply reports that a letter written by FARC's spokesman said that unnamed "gringos" working with Ecuador's government "say the new president will be (Barack Obama)" and that Obama "rejects both the Bush administration's free trade agreement with Colombia and the current military aid program." As Media Matters for America has noted, neither the AP article nor the reported letter itself indicates any relationship between Obama and FARC.

Several right-wing groups and media outlets have used the letter to falsely allege "contacts" and other connections between FARC and Obama. A March 7 Investor's Business daily editorial claimed that "FARC seems to have an inside line to Obama's campaign," and that the letter "signals a disturbing pattern of contacts with rogue actors." A March 6 entry on Corruption Chronicles, "A Judicial Watch Blog," falsely claimed an "electronic mail[]"from FARC said that "associates of FARC were scheduling a sit down with" Sen. Barack Obama "to lobby him." Radio host Rush Limbaugh later read the Corruption Chronicles entry aloud on the March 12 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program.

The text of the purported letter, reprinted by El País (Spain), does not identify the "gringos" to whom the FARC spokesman, the reported author of the letter, referred. Translated to English, the relevant portion of the letter reads:

The gringos will ask for an appointment with the minister to request that he communicate to us his interest in discussing these topics. They say that the new president of their country will be Obama and that they are interested in your compatriots. Obama will not support Plan Colombia nor sign the TLC. We responded that we are interested in relations with all governments on equal terms, and that in the case of the United States this requires a public pronouncement expressing their interest in talking with FARC, given their continual war with us.

From the July 3 edition of The Note:

"McCain spends 24 hours on Colombia soil, hostages are rescued. (It sounds almost like a Chuck Norris Interweb fact ...)" per ABC's Karen Travers and Gregory Wallace.

One theory: "If Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe were going to help one of the presidential candidates, it would likely be McCain more than Sen, Barack Obama since the all-but-official Republican presidential nominee supports the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement while Sen. Barack Obama doesn't," Frank James writes for the Chicago Tribune.

(And the RNC may want you to remember that it was Obama's name -- not McCain's -- that popped up on a seized FARC laptop.)