Posted on 06/03/2009 10:04:42 AM PDT by kellynla
Of all the silly claims that have been made about President Barack Obama, perhaps the silliest is that he is a "secret Muslim." The internet is full websites and viral e-mail that use doctored quotes from Obama's two books that purport to prove this assertion, and among his most ardent foes, the idea the Islam lurks in his heart like some sort of Trojan army has never really died away.
Witness the uproar that flared when Obama bowed to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah a few months ago. You see, purveyors of the "secret Muslim" theory bellowed, proof! For this hardy minority of American society, evidence of Obama's latent Islamist tendencies is not hard to find. He wants to talk to Iran. He's tough on Israel. He seems to be apologizing all the time. He's going back to the Middle East this week.
Well, adding fuel to this fire is a new piece by ABC's Jake Tapper and Sulen Miller that makes the case that, now that he's been elected, the president has suddenly become less secret about his Muslim heritage. Witness the recent statement made by Denis McDonough, deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications (now there's a mouthful):
"the president himself experienced Islam on three continents before he was able to--or before he's been able to visit, really, the heart of the Islamic world--you know, growing up in Indonesia, having a Muslim father--obviously Muslim Americans (are) a key part of Illinois and Chicago."
This is what passes for strategic communication these days? But seriously, the burning bit of news here, according to Tapper and Miller, is that, even though Obama wrote about his family ancestry and schooling in Dreams of My Father, we never heard Obama talk about his Muslim father during the campaign. Was it a concerted strategy to hide his roots from the public? Perhaps. Just as it was a similar strategy to paint Obama as a secret Muslim by those who didn't want him to be president.
The point is, of course Obama wanted people to focus on other issues besides his father's former religion (he became an agnostic by the time he met Obama's mother). Likewise, we might ask: Is emphasizing those ties now the wrong strategy when trying to foster greater cooperation with the Muslim world?
Yes, Obama has members of his extended family who are or were Muslim. Strategically shifting the emphasis of this fact doesn't make Obama any more or less of a Muslim himself. Nor does it make him dishonest. Rather, it shows that he's a smart politician.
Context is everything in political discourse, and while the ABC story does accurately note a shift in tone to a more open vocalization of Obama's Muslim ties, it doesn't really give much credit to the smear campaign launched against Obama in the '08 campaign.
Given widespread unease and prejudice against Muslims among Americans, especially in the wake of 9/11, the Obama campaign was perhaps understandably very sensitive during the primaries and general election to downplay the candidate's Muslim roots.
Gee, really? Yes, given the manner in which his opponents wielded Obama's middle name, the strategic releasing of a photograph showing Obama wearing Kenyan tribal garb, and all the scurrilous attempts made to paint him as a secret Muslim, I suppose it was perhaps understandable that he might be sensitive.
With its selective stringing together of quotes, along with its flashy title "The Emergence of President Obama's Muslim Roots", the ABC piece is already proving to be yet more fodder to those who cling to the belief that President will, at any moment, step forth from the White House wearing a turban and carrying a Koran.
Excellent post!
And don’t forget “Tolly-bahn” and “Pock-ee-stahn”.....
Silly idea. What possible reason could obama have for dressing in a manner that signals support for those who hate our country and work to kill Americans?
Nevermind.
FUBO was born in Hawaii as an American citizen like I was born on Mars
As far as Islamic law is concerned President Obama - by dint of his undisputed birth to a Muslim father - was born a Muslim and remains a Muslim until the day he dies, whether he professes Islamic belief or not.
If he professes Christian belief, then he’s simply an apostate Muslim, which is punishable under Islamic law by execution by beheading, according to prevailing modern Islamic legal scholarship.
Here’s a sad monument to the sleaziness of this presidential campaign: Almost one-third of voters “know” that Barack Obama is a Muslim or believe that he could be......A Pew Research Center survey released a few days ago found that only half of Americans correctly know that Mr. Obama is a Christian. Meanwhile, 13 percent of registered voters say that he is a Muslim, compared with 12 percent in June and 10 percent in March.
More ominously, a rising share — now 16 percent — say they aren’t sure about his religion because they’ve heard “different things” about it.
When I’ve traveled around the country, particularly to my childhood home in rural Oregon, I’ve been struck by the number of people who ask something like: That Obama — is he really a Christian? Isn’t he a Muslim or something?
...(Obama is) far more active in church than John McCain is.
...I’m writing in part out of a sense of personal responsibility. Those who suggest that Mr. Obama is a Muslim — as if that in itself were wrong — regularly cite my own columns, especially an interview last year in which I asked him about Islam and his boyhood in Indonesia. In that interview, Mr. Obama praised the Arabic call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset,” and he repeated the opening of it.
This should surprise no one: the call to prayer blasts from mosque loudspeakers five times a day, and Mr. Obama would have had to have been deaf not to learn the words as a child.
My message to Knowles is this: if Obama ever releases his real birth certificate and his college transcripts we’ll have some truth about this matter. Until then I’ll continue believing both are being witheld because they’ll prove he’s a Muslim.
Obama has spent a lot of money and time trying to make us believe he is not a Muslim
LOL that’s funny and sad
Obama has spent a lot of money and time trying to make us believe he is not a Muslim
And allot of money and time trying to make us believe he is a natural born citizen.
Oh, he’s already eaten pork chops during his campaign.
Still no word from Iman Obama on the Black Muslim killing an Army recruiter. And today, he lied about 2 1/2 million USA Muslims making this nation a large Muslim nation. Frankly ,if all 2 and 1/2 million disappeared it would not affect America. We better not be led down the path to France, Britain and Germany as those jihadists multiply to force out nation to kow tow to Allah.
Quick,
someone photoshop a huge “bling clock” on that chain!
taqiyya
It’s clear now that he no longer attends church on Sundays, his declaration that the U.S. is not a Christian nation, and from his Notre Dame speech urging graduates to abandon Catholic Christian moral teaching and open their hearts to moral relativism on abortion and embryonic stem cell research that his affilation with the Rev. Wright church in Chicago was political and one of convenience. Whatever his real faith, he does not represent Christian culture or civilization.
Quite true: where are the news reports of his going to church on Sunday with the family. Heck, even Clinton made a show of going to church.
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