What’s Wrong with Islam?
Posted in Politics, Religion by George
If you’ve paid attention to the news recently, you’ll have noticed that Insight Magazine (owned by Washington Times) attempted to smear Barack Obama by claiming he spent time in an Islamic Madrassa school as a child, and thus was taught extremist Islam thought. This story was debunked recently, but before it was, Fox News repeated all of the allegations and claimed them as truth, without doing any fact checking.
Barack Obama’s office responded by sending out a memo, which can be found over at “The Horse’s Mouth.” A quote from that excerpt follows:
To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa.
I think it’s completely ridiculous that any major news source would publish a front-page story without fact checking. That’s wrong, and it shouldn’t be done. However, why can’t we have an Muslim president? Why does Obama have to emphasize that he is not and was not a Muslim? I understand that many terrorists happen to be Muslim, but most Muslims are not terrorists. Why does Obama have to say that he is “a committed Christian?” I understand that Obama is trying to set the facts straight, but I kind of feel that what he did is a slight insult to Islam in general.
But then again, politically, in the US, being portrayed as anything but a Christian is suicide to a presidential campaign. Unfortunately.
January 27th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Joe Lieberman has had a successful political career and is Jewish. I’m pretty sure there are Muslim congressman right now, so I wouldn’t say that not being Christian as an American politician is political suicide, but I’m sure that it does make it harder. I doubt that Obama’s office meant their comments to be an attack on Islam, but I think it probably would have been smart to say that no, Obama is not Muslim, but he wouldn’t be any less qualified for office if he were.
January 27th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
No, it’s not political suicide in terms of any sort of political career, but when it comes to a presidential race, we haven’t seen a non-Christian yet.
January 28th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
We haven’t seen a non-Christian in the presidential bid for 2008 because voters look for well-roundedness and a recurrent stereotype of this well-roundedness is being a Christian. Anyways, why would you want a senator with only four years experience to take command of the United States? In my opinion, Barack Obama is a very weak candidate for presidential office. Hillary may even be a better candidate than him (that’s a scary thought).
January 31st, 2007 at 12:04 am
What I find really funny is that I have heard two right wing talk show hosts say that H. Clinton is the one who was going to try to smear Barak Obama (and they always make sure they use his middle name too) as going to a radical madrasa. So they smear both Hillary and Obama in one swipe. Of course, it is not true. Obama’s dad was an atheist but that would be about as bad as a Muslim to some. But he didn’t spend much time with his dad anyway.
Obama’s got an impressive resume.
Political science degree from Columbia with an emphasis on international relations.
President of the Harvard Law Review.
Graudate magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.
Taught constitutional law at University of Chicago Law School.
That is a lot more impressive resume than our current presdient.
Problems he will face: In the primaries Hillary will probably get the black vote. He smokes and that might be a factor for some. He has admitted to that he has used drugs in the past.
Factors that are positives for him - he is a great speaker. He has shown he can get along and work with others who he disagrees with on other topics. For example, social conservatives put a lot of pressure on Rick Warren to un-invite Obama to speak at his church. To both Warren’s and Obama’s credit both put their differences aside and Warren allowed Obamay to discuss AIDS at his church. Obama doesn’t come across as angry as Hillary sometimes does. Hollywood seems to back him more than they are going to back Hillary.
January 31st, 2007 at 12:30 am
Thanks for the comment, Bill. Thanks for calling attention to his resume, it is very impressive.