Dem Endorses Obama Based on Internet Rumor

Democrat Ed Koch, who broke from his party and supported George Bush in 2004, is endorsing Barack Obama and basing his endorsement on an internet rumor:

Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who endorsed and worked for George W. Bush in 2004, is endorsing Obama today, NY1 first reported.

I asked Koch just now what prompted the move.

"The designation of Palin to be vice president," he said. "She's scary."

He said he was alarmed by the report that she'd triggered a conflict with the local librarian in Wasilla, Alaska by inquiring about the possibility of banning books.

"Any time someone goes to the library and says, 'I want to ban books,' and the librarian says 'no,' and she threatens to fire them -- that's scary," he said.

That's also completely untrue. There was an email going around this weekend claiming that Palin was trying to ban books in Wasilla, and the email even included a list of the books to be banned. The list included books that hadn't been published at the time this incident reportedly took place, including the Harry Potter series.

Snopes has the details on the rumor. A quick internet check by Koch would have cleared this up for him.

Another great source for debunking Palin rumors can be found here.