on Democracy Now! to discuss the Plame affair. He told interviewer Amy Goodman that Valerie Wilson's cover should have been respected whether she was an "analyst" or a "cleaning lady": "if she's undercover she's undercover, period. If the media allows themselves to get distracted with those kinds of curve balls, they ignore the issue." 2008 to present Michelle Obama hoax Beginning in 2007, Johnson emerged as a strident opponent of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. His rapid swing from the left to the right earned him the enmity of former allies. According to The New York Times, Johnson is "best known for spreading a hoax... in 2008 that Michelle Obama had been videotaped using a slur against Caucasians". His blog, NoQuarterUSA, often criticized Obama's qualifications to be president. On May 16, 2008, Johnson posted an item entitled, "Will Barack Throw Mama From the Train?" which alleged that a tape existed of Michelle Obama "railing against 'whitey' at Jeremiah Wright's church." Johnson claimed that Republicans were in possession of the tape and it "is being held for the fall to drop at the appropriate time." In a subsequent post, Johnson claimed that Obama's appearance had occurred when she was on a panel with Louis Farrakhan. He also explained that he himself had not seen the tape, but had spoken with "five separate sources who have spoken directly with people who have seen the tape." The Obama campaign's "Fight the Smears" website denied the rumor, saying, "No such tape exists. Michelle Obama has not spoken from the pulpit at Trinity and has not used that word." No tape was ever released, nor has any other evidence emerged of Obama using the word "whitey". On October 21, 2008, Johnson said that, according to one of his sources, the McCain campaign "intervened and requested the tape not be used." War crime accusations against John Kerry In 2013, Johnson falsely accused John Kerry of war crimes in Vietnam, alleging that Kerry had "raped some poor Vietnamese woman." To support his claim, Johnson used a YouTube video that contained audio clips from a 1971 debate on The Dick Cavett Show between John Kerry and John O'Neill. The original interview audio was altered to piece together words that Kerry spoke at different times during the debate, falsely making it sound as if he said, "I personally raped for pleasure." When the falsehood was exposed by a reader