Posted on 06/13/2008 3:01:04 AM PDT by Izzy Dunne
My oh my, what a firestorm I appear to have started with my remarks two days ago on Obama’s background! It was wholly expected, of course, but nevertheless the posters’ comments are so revealing. They graphically illustrate the way in which Obamania has quite obviously destroyed the capacity for reason.
First, it is quite clear that any questioning at all of Obama’s background is entirely off-limits. Next, the posters fail totally to grasp that the real point isn’t what faith he professed or was brought up in as a child – it is the fact that he has not told the truth about his early background. Then, some even compare such questioning with the ‘truthers’ who allege that 9/11 was perpetrated by a conspiracy between America and Israel. They thus demonstrate that they cannot tell the difference between rationality and lunacy, evidence and fantasy, failing to grasp that the sole reason for the questions about Obama is the many discrepancies in the accounts of his early life -- including his own accounts -- plus his many questionable associations.
Ignoring all this substantive evidence and the legitimate questions to which it gives rise (can you imagine how they would be slavering about all this were Obama a Republican candidate??) they instead hurl insults at both me and my sources such as Daniel Pipes – a fine and authoritative scholar (and who has also exposed those who claim he has peddled falsehoods as themselves peddling falsehoods) whose own observations about Obama’s background are clearly and reliably sourced and are couched in Pipes’s characteristically cautious manner -- and then annouce that they have won the argument hands-down!
Oh dear. America really does have a problem here. Looks like what I wrote months ago, that the Obama phenomenon might mean the Americans too are succumbing to Princess Diana Derangement Syndrome, was a serious understatement.
To address a few specific points which have come up and which are not merely hysterical abuse. First, it’s been pointed out that Robert Spencer has said Islam does not mandate the death sentence for children who become apostates, a point subsequently acknowledged by Daniel Pipes. I don’t see, however, that this alters anything. The death sentence is mandated for adults who renounce Islam. The fact that all that is known about Obama’s Muslim roots relates – as I wrote -- to his early childhood is irrelevant. For as Spencer also notes, the real question is therefore when Obama converted to Christianity. By his own account, he did so when he was received by Pastor Wright into the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago some twenty years ago (although at other times he has also said he was ‘always a Christian’). In which case Pipes’s argument remains absolutely salient.
As for the ‘Islamic experts’ who poured cold water on a similar argument by Edward Luttwak in the New York Times -- who are hailed as Voices of Absolute Truth by my more excitable commenters despite the fact that they know zilch about them -- these prove nothing other than the existence of commentators who sanitise Islam.
Those who still insist that Obama was never brought up as a Muslim ignore the numerous reports of his Islamic education as a young child -- including his own statements, as in this deeply respectful article in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof:
He once got in trouble for making faces during Koran study classes in his elementary school, but a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics — and more likely to be aware of their nationalism — if he once studied the Koran with them. Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as ‘one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.’
Next, the assertion that Obama and Raila Odinga are not cousins – by a poster who says he is a Kenyan and therefore knows about such things. Well, one might think that Raila Odinga himself might have a rather better claim to know. This is what the Telegraph reported:
Kenya's defeated presidential challenger Raila Odinga has claimed to be a cousin of Barack Obama and said that they had discussed his country's post-election violence. Mr Odinga, 63, said that the US senator's father, from western Kenya's Luo tribe, was his maternal uncle... Mr Obama has not commented on the Kenyan opposition leader’s claim to be a relative.
As I have already said -- but let me repeat very slowly for those suffering from Princess Obama Derangement Syndrome – the concerns about Obama’s Muslim antecedents arise from the fact that a) he has tried to conceal them and b) that he has a puzzling number of indirect connections with radical Islamists or their supporters.
1) He has gone out of his way to support in Kenya Raila Odinga, head of the Luo tribe, who promised to introduce sharia law if elected. Obama interrupted his New Hampshire campaign to speak by phone with Odinga. As the Investor’s Business Daily has reported, his half-brother Abongo ‘Roy’ Obama is a Luo activist in Kenya and a militant Muslim who argues that the black man must ‘liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture’ and urges Barack to embrace his African Muslim heritage.
Barack Obama has said he disagrees with his brother. But as the IBD has also reported:
In 1991, when Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he pledged allegiance to something called the Black Value System, which is a code of non-Biblical ethics written by blacks, for blacks. It encourages blacks to group together and separate from the larger American society by pooling their money, patronizing black-only businesses and backing black leaders. Such racial separatism is strangely at odds with the media's portrayal of Obama as a uniter who reaches across races. The code also warns blacks to avoid the white ‘entrapment of black middle-classness,’ suggesting that settling for that kind of ‘competitive’ success will rob blacks of their African identity and keep them ‘captive’ to white culture.
2) His mentor, the black power-supporting Christian pastor Jeremiah Wright, is a close associate of Louis Farrakhan, the demagogue leader of the black power, Jew-hating militant organisation Nation of Islam. A number of Obama’s own staffers have been members of the Nation of Islam.
3) Tony Rezko, who was recently convicted of fraud, money laundering and bribery conspiracy, has been a major supporter of Obama and contributor to his cause – the full extent of which Obama tried to conceal. The Chicago Sun-Times reported:
During his 12 years in politics, Sen. Barack Obama has received nearly three times more campaign cash from indicted businessman Tony Rezko and his associates than he has publicly acknowledged, the Chicago Sun-Times has found. Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle. Obama also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.
He also did a land deal with Rezko in 2005, buying land from him to enlarge his own adjoining house at what has been reported to be a discount -- a transaction Obama has subsequently called ‘bone-headed’. In a further twist, as the Times reported earlier this year, a British-Iraqi billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi, who is said to have had connections with Saddam Hussein and who was convicted for corruption in France, lent millions of dollars to Rezko just weeks before that ‘bone-headed’ land deal.
But what has received far less attention is Rezko’s connections with the Nation of Islam. Reszko, born in Syria, was a business associate of Jabir Herbert Muhammad, the son of the founder of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, serving as a vice president and general manager of JHM’s firm Crucial Inc. And finally, Rezko was bailed from jail by Ali Baghdadi, the ‘Middle East adviser’ to the Nation of Islam.
Who know what all this adds up to? But isn’t it rather important that someone finds out before November?
To repeat once again for sufferers from PODS: the issue is NOT Obama’s religion, now or in the past. It is the many questions which need to be answered about a) why he has sought to conceal his early background; b) why he has so many indirect associations with radical Islamism; and c) whether these two questions are in some way related.
Anyone who doesn’t think all this cries out for proper investigation is either a fool or a knave.
“...but a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics — and more likely to be aware of their nationalism — if he once studied the Koran with them.”
And that would pretty much be the problem, since the Koran is a death screed authored by a blood drenched psychopath.
>>>If half the Democrats were able to resist the charms of The Empty Suit, I think most everyone else will too
Yeah, but...think about this:
We are going to have to work very hard, and we are going to have to rely heavily upon ex-Hillary supporters. . . to get John McCain elected: a man that none of us really wants, and whom from the very moment he takes the Oath of Office, we are going to have to FIGHT tooth and nail to control.
...excuse me while I go upchuck for the 100th time this election cycle...
Have the liberals ever possessed the capacity for reason? No need for the will to reason when the capacity is pre-empted by liberal doctrine.
“America can probably survive another corrupt, empty politician as President- “
I disagree. 30 years after Carter’s tragic legacy the Evil he let rise is grown stronger and more certain that they have a great destiny. Barring an utterly unseen turn at a convention, no one we put into office in November understands what is out there and how to deal with it.
The adult version...
His record speaks for itself...
BHO is a liberal
His promises and policy statements, which he is now trying to soften, include...
Higher Taxes
A Naive Foreign Policy concept
Naive Economic Policy including rejecting NAFTA and acceptance of Marxist “Liberation Theology” as a prescription for economic equality.
Pro Abortion Policies Including Support for Partial-Birth Abortions and “Execution by Neglect” to Abortion Survivors
Expanded Gay Rights Including Support for Same-Sex Marriages and Open Gays in the Military
Increased Gun Control Policies and Laws Including Banning Handguns and All Semi-Automatics
Reduced Support for Israel
Open Borders and Amnesty for Illegal Aliens
Socialized Health Care
More Spending on Social Programs as payoffs for Democrat Party Supporters
Conversion of Social Security to an Income Redistribution Program
Appointment of Liberal Judges Interpreting Laws IAW Their Political/Social Views
Under the category of FWIW, I present the following:
I received email last night from a lunatic Leftist schoolteacher I have written here about in the past. She actually thinks (I presume as much by the manner in which this is written) that I am as enthralled with Obama as she and her ilk.
This tells me just how these people think.
This person knows my politics, so much so she has written me multiple times over the years to not send her news articles I have already deemed as non offensive to her Leftist predilections, but she found offensive regardless.
I must further presume it was because they were truthful news articles.
Anyway here is the content of the email note the lost lunatic Grade School Teacher sent to me last night. This is full text of the email, not an excerpt. You can see why I presume her thinking.
“If you get any of the lovely e-mails that I’ve received about Obama that claim all sorts of things about him that make your eyes pop out....try going to fightthesmears.com and you’ll probably find the accusations debunked. Be sure to put an “s” after smear because otherwise you get a very weird website about boxing”
I wrote back “Thank you, but I don’t need the services of an Obama apologist website. I know BS when I read it.”
Admittedly I hadn’t gone to the website to see what it consisted of, but thought I knew what would be there simply by the stuff I’ve read thus far attributable to Leftist Obama disciples. I still haven’t gone to that website.
Thanks- I’ll “borrow” those graphics.
Borrow away and share widely!
It will happen when their slavish support of him become untenable in the light of an abundance of evidence showing the lack of qualifications and the seriously suspect back round of Hussein.
This is why the McCain people and the RNC and supporting 527’s must constantly flood the airwaves with information, the truth about the “Suit”. There is no need for anything else given this frauds back round and lack of experience.
The words from his own and Hillary’s mouths can be used to great advantage against him and this must be done in concert with McCain’s vows to protect this nation as well as secure us financially from the whimsical attacks of the M.E. oil producers.
bookmarked.
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