OK, flashback.

In February the Obama campaign released Michelle Obama’s senior-year thesis from Princeton University after speculation in the right-wing blogosphere. The thesis, written when Ms. Obama was 21, is titled “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community.” It contains observations that are unremarkable for 1985, such as that Princeton’s black students were often socially isolated, and that more needed to be done to include them in campus discourse. The political press covered the story for about a week, and then it drifted away. Right?

Wrong, according to an article in today’s Salon. In the piece, Salon‘s Washington correspondent, Mike Madden, writes about chain e-mail messages now circulating that bend the truth about Barack Obama’s candidacy. One of the current e-mail messages, which Mr. Madden debunks point by point, says that Ms. Obama’s college thesis provides evidence of the possible First Lady’s black-separatist agenda. The message claims that in the thesis Ms. Obama vows to use all her power “to benefit the black community first and foremost.”

Salon points out that Ms. Obama says nothing of the kind in her thesis. The article also criticizes a recent e-mail message that claims that Barack Obama, who is a Christian, in fact gives his allegiance to Islam. In the Salon piece Mr. Madden notes that he expects increased emphasis on the Obamas’ life stories at the convention next week to counter the impression created by the e-mail message. “Many people have sent it on,” the article concludes.