Obama Comes Out of Muslim Closet
Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller note that Barack Obama is suddenly proud of his Muslim heritage:
During a conference call in preparation for President Obama’s trip to Cairo, Egypt, where he will address the Muslim world, deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Denis McDonough said “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.”
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. The candidate was even offended when referred to by his initials “BHO,” because he considered the use of his middle name, “Hussein,” an attempt to frighten voters.
With insane rumors suggesting he was some sort of Muslim Manchurian candidate, then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and his campaign did everything they could to emphasize his Christianity and de-emphasize the fact that his father, Barack Obama Sr., was born Muslim. The candidate’s comment at a Boca Raton, Florida, town hall meeting on May 22, 2008, was typical: “My father was basically agnostic, as far as I can tell, and I didn’t know him,” he said.
In September 2008, candidate Obama told a Pennsylvania crowd, “I know that I’m not your typical presidential candidate and I just want to be honest with you. I know that the temptation is to say, ‘You know what? The guy hasn’t been there that long in Washington. You know, he’s got a funny name. You know, we’re not sure about him.’ And that’s what the Republicans when they say this isn’t about issues, it’s about personalities, what they’re really saying is, ‘We’re going to try to scare people about Barack. So we’re going to say that, you know, maybe he’s got Muslim connections.’…Just making stuff up.”
Back then, the campaign’s “Fight the Smears” website addressed the candidate’s faith without mentioning his father’s religion: “Barack Obama is a committed Christian. He was sworn into the Senate on his family Bible. He has regularly attended church with his wife and daughters for years. But shameful, shadowy attackers have been lying about Barack’s religion, claiming he is a Muslim instead of a committed Christian. When people fabricate stories about someone’s faith to denigrate them politically, that’s an attack on people of all faiths. Make sure everyone you know is aware of this deception.” The website also provided quotes from the Boston Globe and Newsweek mentioning his father’s roots.
Since the election, however, with the threat of the rumors at least somewhat abated, the White House has been increasingly forthcoming about the president’s roots. Especially when reaching out to the
Muslim world. In his April 6 address to the Turkish Parliament, President Obama referenced how many “Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim majority country. I know, because I am one of them.”
He’s going so far as to proclaim the United States a Muslim country:
In an interview with Laura Haim on Canal Plus, a French television station, Mr. Obama noted that the United States also could be considered as “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.”
[…]
The president said the United States and other parts of the Western world “have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam.” “And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world,” Mr. Obama said. “And so there’s got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.”
Not suprisingly, all this is generating quite a bit of blogospheric discussion. Most obviously, as half a dozen or more people have pointed out by now, America’s Muslim population, while sizable, still ranks somewhere around 38th in the world. So, he’s fudging a wee bit on that one.
As to the Muslim heritage thing, it mostly speaks to the difficulty of speaking to one audience while being heard by others. Obama is not a Muslim. His father was by birth, although not by practice. He went to Muslim and Catholic schools in his early youth but, by all indications, neither his mother nor he were/are particularly religious.
During the campaign, it was important for obvious reasons to downplay his thin Muslim ties in order to shoot down outright lies about them being peddled by those who wanted to see him defeated. Now, of course, he’s traveling to the Middle East and wishes to improve our relations with the Muslim world. Naturally, he wants to use his personal ties to the Muslim world (his father, his middle name, his upbringing in Indonesia, and so forth) as a means of showing his own tolerance and worldliness. The problem, of course, is that he can’t do this without opening a can of worms domestically.
Photo: Getty Images
The only real can of worms that could be opened here is by those who are so cognitively challenged that they can’t understand why this is a good thing for the US.
No, the problem is that too many Americans are bigoted against Muslims.
That’s why he cleverly went for a night out in NYC, to fill the blog-channels!
Sounds like good diplomacy skills to me.
Just curious, but how many is that? Aside from the obvious answer of one, of course.
I guess I hadn’t realized that America is a Muslim country, which isn’t quite the same thing as saying America has a large Muslim population. What are the chances President Obama would ever say America is a Christian country? Or a Jewish country? Or a Scientologist country?
charles- Nowhere does he say that we are a Muslim country. His statement was a hypothetical – “IF you actually took …”
Ummm. No, I don’t think so. Is feeding Rushisims to guys like Charles is the best you have today?
“took” them where Gitmo? Regardless of the phraseology what was his point?
I don’t mind that he is a muslim so much, I just wish he weren’t a communist.
I think that’s high (it assumes about 4.5 million Muslims in the U.S.). Though the issue is controversial, I think it’s no more than half that number by reputable accounts. American Muslims could certainly make a decent size city.
He was pointing out that America is the home to a sizable Muslim population, who live free and without discrimination or persecution, with the full rights of other citizens (or residents if non-citizens).
The point he was making is that America isn’t antithetical to Islam.
Is that counting members of the Nation of Islam or American Society of Muslims?
Let me edit my previous comment and see if this multiple choice version helps.
I guess I hadn’t realized that America is a Muslim/Christian/Jewish/Scientologist country, which isn’t quite the same thing as saying America has a large Muslim/Christian/Jewish/Scientologist population. What are the chances President Obama would ever say America is a Christian/Jewish/Scientologist country?
Now, tell me again where I misunderstood. Language frequently gives away the game. Hypotheticals don’t change that.
Last time I checked, Christains gave up on taking over the world politically around 600 years ago, more or less. I don’t think Jews ever planned on taking over the world, conspiracy nuts who think otherwise notwithstanding. Scientologists are, well, just nuts. Sorry Xenu. Meanwhile, more than a few adherents of Islam on the other hand are quite clear about taking over the world politically, which is why you have language such as “Muslim countries” rather than “Muslim populations in those countries” being used. Communication is all about how the recipients receive and interpret your message and President Obama is trying to deliver a select message to a select audience. He seems to have momentarily forgotten that you just can’t get away with that anymore.
I’m not whacked out about this and don’t really care all that much about what President Obama says concerning his outreach to Muslims. He’s not a Muslim and I don’t lose any sleep thinking he wants to convert America to part of the Ummah. I do worry that his transnationalist progressiveness, blame America first foreign policy, and statist tendencies at home that are very, very bad, but that’s a whole ‘nother comment thread.
Ok, then why not say that, like, you know, President George Bush did over and over.
Last polling data I saw… last night, and I’m afraid I don’t have the link to hand, suggested that by a 5 to 1 margin, Americans have a negative view, overall, of the Muslim world.
Gee, I wonder why.
So the issue is semantics. Okay, fair enough, the word choice is the same as that used to imply that America should follow Christian values. It was probably intentionally used that way, so I won’t try and make excuses for it.
Really? You might want to check again. Stopping the “Godless commies” was a pretty big rallying cry not all that long ago, we even changed out flag pledge to reflect that. Many churches still advocate the spread of Christianity in world politics.
Because obviously the message wasn’t getting through when put that way.
Yes, due to a combination of ignorance about Islam by most Americans, and the fact that the only parts of the Muslim world that want to interact with us where we live are the ones that want to harm us, I’m surprised so many would have a positive view.
I’d help if Obama had ever stood up for America but so far on every trip outside her borders he has not been a paragon of support. So now he wants to use his Muslim heritage where he wanted to deny it when Americans were making a choice.
Thing is at some point, especially as a leader, you have to stand for something and be something. So far, Obama has been anti-free market capitalism and less than supportive of American values and history. Will the press in his pocket be able to cover for him as he raises the stakes on them?
Stood up to what? That’s like saying a body-builder didn’t stand up to a yapping dog because he didn’t kick it for barking at him.
Mr. Obama noted that the United States also could be considered as “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.â€
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
This after making the a previously declaration, on foreign soil, that the U.S. is not a Christian nation.
I guess his light is so dim that he need not seek the refuge of a bushel.
Hummn not familiar with Dominion Theology are you.
Yes. Generally, the surveys show about 1/3 of American Muslims are African-American converts and 2/3 are foreign-born.
The discrepancy tends to be that Islamic interest groups don’t trust surveys because they believe Muslims are afraid to self-identify themselves as such. Instead, they tend to look at immigration patterns from Muslim countries, which ignores the possibility that the immigrants still might have been non-Muslim or came to America to get away from Islam.
The burning questions of the day:
How long shall we cater to crazy bigots? If we placate them during elections, is it wrong to cease to do so after the election?
I’m guessing michellemalkin.com has the answers.
I ask because I’m pretty sure the NOI wouldn’t be considered Islam by any other sect of Islam.
No, but why would I be? I think it is safe to assume that it is just another lunatic fringe element that you like to pull out and generalize to everyone on the other side of the aisle. I admittedly don’t know, but I’ll bet there are more followers of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam or Scientology than there are of Dominion Theology.
Meanwhile, there really are Muslims killing people for trying to teach girls to read, killing people for daring to date someone their father didn’t approve of, killing people for being infidels, killing people for being gay, killing people for adultery, chopping off hands for theft, etc., etc., etc.
Once I start seeing some of you acknowledge all of this carnage done in the name of adherence to Islam or to spread Islam, then we can spend some time lamenting the handful of Christianists who want to take over the world. Last time I looked, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Catholics, to name but a few of the more significant sects you may have heard of, have explicitly rejected trying to take over the world politically. Proselytizing to get converts isn’t the same thing as killing people to bring on a New Jerusalem.
Stuff like this is well known. I think it’s equally well known that America is largely populated by Christians. Do presidents always have to state the obvious?
That America has millions of Muslims, on the other hand, may not be well known in the Muslim world. So he mentions it. BFD.
I can generally agree with JKB that Obama should defend the things we stand for, something that he has perhaps not done as well as he should have. But I also believe in admitting mistakes when they have been made. Obviously some of the “mistakes” are still under debate, but that’s a whole other discussion.
I finally got it, with JKB’s help (June 3, 2009 | 11:50 am):
Absolutely right (no pun intended)! American International Group, with international re-insurance reach, should have been flushed down the drain. Free market capitalism is much more important than our international financial commitments.
And all those Banks and Financial Institutions, down the drain with AIG. All those good and upstanding Americans whose retirement funds would go down this rat hole would stand up singing to the glory and wisdom of the self correcting market place and the wonder of trickle down economics.
And of course, JKB I agree that Obama should have stood up and said “We do not torture†and continued our off shore prisons and extraordinary rendition policies. He is after all a weak kneed ditz, neither protecting or promulgating American Values, as defined by, whom? Ah yes, JKB…
Please pray tell how these were “our” commitments? It seems to me that AIG and their counterparties made these deals then wanted the taxpayer to cover their bad bets. Government regulation permitted these bets to become large. So we funneled money through AIG to foreign banks and Wallstreet banks. Now that some banks who didn’t speculate want to return their bailout, the administration won’t let them so they can retain control over their decisions and subvert established law in the auto bankruptcies to reward favored constituencies.
And how is changing or not changing a policy standing up for America. As a leader, you always promote your organization while working to improve it internally. You don’t run around the world apologizing, unless of course your a defeated belligerent who must make amends to for acceptance in world. Funny, I don’t view America as defeated or needing to be the pardon of those who failed to act against the global terrorism threat.
The issue isn’t that it isn’t well known. Hell’s bells, they want it to be well known so as to intimidate people into silence or acquisence. The issue is that the Islamists think this stuff is ok, and the Muslims that aren’t Islamists seem to too often turn their eyes away from the egregious sins of their brethren while harping on orders of magnitude less important issues. Motes, eyes, enemy of my enemy and all that.
Given my druthers, yeah, I’d rather that presidents restate the obvious and let them know their behaviors are anathema to us, that they do not hold a moral high ground, and that we do not need to apologize to them or take lectures from them for unleashing the creative potential of the freeest and most diverse people on earth. I refuse to be held to a standard of perfection for our open and diverse society when our esrtwhile freinds can’t even begin to make it to good and decent for their largely closed societies with much more homogenous populations. We should not sacrifice our freedom and independence in any compromise with pre-medieval ideologies or postmodern statism just to get along.
Do we stand, and fight if necessary, for freedom and democracy or is there some greater good defined by the dictators and statists of, I don’t know, the UNCHR that we are supposed to give up our fortunes and freedoms for?
OK, so let’s say for the sake of argument that, without pre-judging any particular Muslim or Christian, that, on average, Christians have reached a higher state of civility than Muslims. Then the question becomes, how to proceed? Do we keep harping on everything that every Muslim does wrong? Or do we invite more civilized Muslims, of which there are BILLIONS, to engage in diplomacy? And before you say it, of COURSE we still have to defend ourselves (preferably in a legally and morally upstanding way) from the insane ones … that is, again, obvious.
Your whole spiel sounds to me like this: Their mistakes are worse than ours, so everybody should ignore ours. That’s kind of pedantic if I am reading your comment correctly. I’m still under the impression that while it is impossible to achieve perfection, we should still strive for it. Admitting mistakes is a first step in learning from them.
“Admitting mistakes is a first step in learning from them.”
Agreed. And as a country, few do self-reflection (and the concomitant self-flagellation) better than we do. While our political classes may not be as forthcoming, the press, by and large, has few qualms about airing our dirty laundry before a world-wide audience. We then apply our lessons learned better than most.
OTOH, and with the possible exception of “how do those Jews keep kicking our butts”, the Arab world doesn’t do self-reflection.
We read: Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib.
They read: Mein Kampf.
Wouldn’t George Mitchell actually have deeper ties to the Middle East? After all, while Obama’s father was a non-practicing muslim from Africa, Mitchell’s father was the adopted son of Lebanese Christian emigrants, and Mitchell himself was raised Maronite Catholic.
It seems as though we aren’t having the same conversation. Where did I say that? If anything, it seems we go out of our way to not talk about the things Islamists do wrong, including not mentioning the background of Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, and why he might have killed Pvt. William Long. Daren’t inflame them, but by all means let’s apologize for whatever drove him to it.
Whats wrong with this?
Now that is just plain silly…who is arguing for nonsense like that…
No the the problem is that too many Americans are bigoted against their Christian nation!
My God tells me the greatest thing that I can do is give my life for you.
The God of Islam says the greatest thing that you can do is to murder a Christian or a Jew.
Any more lessons on Christianity or Islam needed for today?
were number 52 according to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country#
Unless the person happens to be gay, pagan, homosexual, or shave in which case they obviously have to die. Oh yeah, abortion doctors too.
It’s not a coincidence that the biggest genocides all occurred with Christianity’s encouragement.
Actually Christians and Jews are specifically protected in the Quran.
Oh? Name one in the last century.
Well JKB (June 3, 2009 | 03:02 pm) it goes something like this logic tree.
Now then, within the above framework, the U.S. government had but two options, with very limited room in the middle. The options were at polar extremes, as follows:
But then, you know how it is, when faced with a choice, do not think of the future, stick with your ideology, and if things really go bad, you can always flip everybody the bird.
Why the arbitrary time frame?
The Nazis murdered 6 million jews. If you include all the rest of their victims the number is somewhere around 15 million. Christians wiped out twice that many Native Americans in Mexico alone. Then there’s all of North and South America which both suffered grievously to Jesus’ disciples.
The Nazis were rank amateurs by comparison, especially when you consider the crude tools missionaries used.
Add to that all the persecution of pagans worldwide, the crusades (the Children’s Crusade is a particular favorite of mine, nothing like convincing kids to peacefully march to the holy land only to turn around and sell them to slavers, go team!) et cetera ad nauseum.
Because letting to reference the conquest of the Americas and the Crusades would be too easy. Though obviously it didn’t stop you from going down that path.
The Nazis leadership were not Christian, nor did they promote Christianity, nor did any church encourage their genocide.
In comparison I’d cite the Armenian genocide by Muslim Turks, the persecution of Jews by atheist Russia, and the Rwandan genocide which was Christian on both sides.
I don’t suppose that you’d care to provide any proof to that statement…
Yeah it’s funny how you can prove any contention if you selectively ignore evidence to the contrary…
That’s not entirely true but I wasn’t blaming Christianity for the Nazis I was saying that the group usually considered the poster boys for genocide were rank amateurs compared to the Christians.
Armenian Genocide was around a million. Genocide of Jews in Russia was smaller. Rwanda was maybe another million.
Horrific in their own right but piffling by comparison. Again Christians slaughtered some 27 million Natives just in Mexico.
Tlaloc;
Where your head is, I’m surprised it doesn’t muffle your typing![lol]
Sorry…Just had to “Add Homonym”[get it?]
Plebeian Dictatorship!
But enough about Code Pink.
How exactly is Scientology more nuts than any of the mainstream religions?
LOL smoke another one abortionist.
M- That was when the Muslim movement had just started and they were the minority living amongst them.
The Muslims started the crusades.
Hot damn you did smoke another one.
I would give my life to protect you even that I think your stupid and high but I would rather you see the light.
I suggest you buy and read the Prophet of Doom by Craig Winn, you know with your open mind and all that.
Do any of you realize how long Christians and Jews lived in Jerusalem in peace together before this whole Muslim thing started.
.
Their god created many,many,many, works of fiction before he became their god, and your conclusion still is?
And what about your god or gods?
Don’t have ’em.
I think they view him more as prophet than god and I don’t think that he was particularly more creative than many of the other supposed prophets.
Or the Family Research Council, the Christian Coalition, or the Eagle Forum, among many, many others…
lol
Poopshay, lol.
re: G.A.Phillips June 4, 2009 19:28
Good to know that you find the truth to be humorous…