Posted on 06/28/2008 9:35:21 AM PDT by Beckwith
Beckwith responds to The Washington Post.
The first thing I have to say about "An Attack That Came Out of the Ether," published by The Washington Post on June 28th, is that at NO time was I ever contacted by this woman, Danielle Allen. I spoke to two male Post reporters, who spoke to me over the phone for a period of months. The first contact was in the fall of 2007. They told me they were trying to track down the source of emails they considered negative to the Obamamessiah.
Allen obsesses about the "Muslim" Obama stories, but steers clear of Obama's relationships with communists, Marxists, socialists, terrorists and convicted swindlers. The trick she attempts to use is to knock down one or two or three items and the other four thousand don't count.
The following notice appears on my website's "About" page: "I don't write this stuff -- I cherry-pick it and publish it here -- every attempt is made to provide attribution and/or links to the original source -- if you don't like the writer's viewpoint -- send them an email -- not me. If the reader finds content that is incorrect, I will correct or delete it upon the submission of two links to an independent source with more accurate information."
And I mean just that and I do just that. I want The Obama File to be able to withstand the type of attack that Allen attempts in this article.
When Allen quotes me: "If 20 percent of what's on my Web site is true, this guy is a clear and present danger," she left out the whole quote. I told her reporters that I believed that The Obama File content was better than 95% accurate, but that If 20 percent of what's on my Web site is true, this guy is a clear and present danger. I still believe that.
Allen writes, "There was 'Beckwith,' whom she pegged as a veteran from Boston, old enough to vote for John F. Kennedy, in uniform by 1964, and host of a Web site that devotes considerable space to an 'Obama file' that says the senator is 'by birth, blood and training, a Muslim.'"
That statement is true. Just ask Obama's sister Maya. In an interview with the New York Times, published on April 30th, 2007, Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama’s younger half sister, told the Times, "My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim."
I assume Maya thinks of her brother, Obama, as a member of her family?
Even if Maya didn't make such a statement. Islam is patrilinear. The son of a Muslim is a Muslim (birth, blood) and Obama did study Islam, the Quran and the Hadith at the Besuki Primary School in Jakarta, Indonesia for two years (training). Further, he attended mengaji classes where he studied the Quran in its native Arabic.
In his autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," Obama mentions studying the Quran and describes the public school as "a Muslim school." He wrote, "In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell mother I made faces during Koranic studies."
According to Tine Hahiyary, one of Obama's teachers and the principal from 1971 through 1989, Barry actively took part in the Islamic religious lessons during his time at the school. His teacher was named Maimunah and she lived in the Puncak area, the Cianjur Regency.
"I remembered that he had studied "mengaji" (recitation of the Quran)" Tine said.
These facts can account for the startling statement Obama made on February 27th, 2007, when he said the Muslim call to prayer was "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth."
In an interview with Nicholas Kristof, published in The New York Times, Obama recited the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan, "with a first-class [Arabic] accent."
The opening lines of the Adhan (Azaan) is the Shahada:
Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet...
According to Islamic scholars, reciting the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, makes one a Muslim. This simple yet profound statement expresses a Muslim's complete acceptance of, and total commitment to, the message of Islam.
Obama knows this from his Quranic studies -- and he knows the New York Times will publish this fact and it will be seen throughout the Islamic world.
Regardless of Obama's religion, what message is he sending the world's 1.2 billion Muslims?
I suppose it's easy for Obama to remember the Shahada for the 35 years since he left Indonesia -- and in 'first-class' Arabic -- especially since he believes the Muslim call to prayer is "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth." -- no matter what religion he belongs to, or not, those Muslim prayers run through his head, and often -- what does that really make him?
And although I do have a Boston accent, of which I'm proud (you can hear it on the webcast at the link on the main page), Allen gets in a little ethnic stereotyping by calling my accent a "... thick Boston brogue" -- Bostonians don't have brogues -- my antecedents from Ireland do -- it's a good thing I don't have a chip on my shoulder and charge "racism" at such obvious stereotyping -- like some folks might do.
And there is no "unnamed 'colleague' in Europe" -- that's probably my friend and fellow FReeper, ExpatGuy, who operates the "An American Expat in Southeast Asia" blog (a truly great resource). But, what the heck, Europe, Southeast Asia, they're all foreign places.
Allen is also incorrect when she writes, "His initial goal was to take swats at the liberal left. 'Then this new guy comes along called Obama,' he said." -- All one has to do is to read the "About" page on my website to get it right -- "The Obama File is a spinoff of www.FreedomsEnemies.com where it started out as a single page. Freedom's Enemies documents the relationship between the political left and Islamofascism. Along comes Obama -- with a foot in each camp -- and The Obama File just evolved.
The reason I spun off The Obama File is that I did not want the Freedoms Enemies website a pejorative to the information I was compiling on Obama.
This sentence is also false -- "Beckwith said he built a Web site that features hundreds of pages of material intended to undermine Obama." -- There are 18 pages on my website. Because I take pains to document and provide attribution for everything, those 18 pages link to thousands of source articles, primarily from mainstream media sources (including The Washington Post), and my intention is not to "undermine" poor Barry -- it is to "oppose the most liberal (read "left-wing") member of the U. S. Senate sitting in the Oval Office" -- just like it says on my "About" page.
I suppose it could have been more of a hatchet job, but what amazes me is Allen's obsession with the Muslim thing -- that rumor is a year old and has been fed more by Obama and his family more than anyone else.
Why hasn't Allen attempted to knock down Obama's relationship with communists, Marxists, socialists, terrorists, convicted swindlers, and, dare I say it, DHIMMICRATS!
Could it be that those long-term relationships are just too easy to document?
I’m thinking of Bob Barr’s campaign. If you think they’d recoil from McCain, watch them howl at supporting a conservative candidate!
LOL!
At least the WaPo put “genius” in quotes. :-)
Neary a chance Gondring, or is that “O)rc Biter”?
Not wild amount Mad Jon, we are in a war, the other Candidate wants to Surrender.
Not on my Watch Sir, not now, not ever, the Obamao is out of bounds, to be blunt Sir, Not a chance in hell I’d sell out my Brothers and Sisters by running away from Jon McCain..
Not on my watch Sir.
Am not aware of his role in the Maryland MD4Bush affair.
######
This is what I wrote on another thread today. The lib operative who enshared MD4Bush on FR, made it public with the cooperation of Matthew Mosk.
Matthew Mosk is the same reporter who wrote the “Md4Bush” expose’ that got Maryland politics in such an uproar a few years ago. It was a story, based on chicanery by dem operatives, connected to Martin O’Malley, and used to silence anyone who had been discussing rumors of his infidelity, before his race for governor.
It worked. Everyone in Maryland was intimidated, shall we say, into admitting “it was just a rumor” and so it was never used againgst him in the election, but instead used against people who worked for his opponent, the then Republican governor.
Slick, and effective.
This is a REPLAY - intended to take ‘Obama + muslim’ off of the discussion board from now til November.
Just like so many sequels not living up to the first show, I don’t thisk this effort will have the desired effect.
I think his mother was an atheist and socialist, who harbored grievances against America. It seems a sure bet that Barry O was never baptized as a child, and his mother was just being expedient when she enrolled him in the various Jakarta schools.
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Taking a broad-minded view of Keyes
Chicago Tribune (IL) - August 13, 2004
Author: Danielle Allen , dean of humanities at the University of Chicago and author of the upcoming book “Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship Since Brown vs. Board of Education.”
The charitable interpretation of the Illinois Republican Party’s decision to invite Alan Keyes to move to Illinois and run for the U.S. Senate against Democratic nominee Barack Obama is that Republicans are eager, too, to get behind the idea of sending an African-American to the U.S. Senate for only the third time in recent history.
But I don’t have as much confidence in my fellow man as I should. A doubting, mistrustful voice keeps welling within me. This voice tells me the invitation to Keyes—and the fact that both of the finalists chosen by the Illinois GOP were African-American—may have been terribly cynical.
The voice explains that ever since Jack Ryan resigned as the Republican nominee for the Senate, the GOP has had to ask, “What does Barack Obama stand for, and what Republican can trump that?”
Keyes is a provocative answer to these questions. The GOP’s invitation to him seems to make the statement that not all African-Americans are Democrats; that African-Americans can have diverse opinions too.
But this would mean Obama stands for the idea that all African-Americans think the same way, or that his political prominence depends on cornering the market on black voters.
In other words, the choice of Keyes as the GOP’s senatorial candidate is a reasonable response to a candidate who has played race-baiting politics and who has based his candidacy on the idea that there’s only one reasonable way for a person of color to vote.
But Obama ‘s success grows from his rejection of such race-baiting politics. He has built his political base not on the African-American vote, but by appealing to as many thinking people, regardless of the color of their skin, as he is able to persuade. He knows better than anyone that not all African-Americans think alike. He, after all, ran unsuccessfully in the 2000 Democratic primary against four-term incumbent Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther, for the 1st Congressional District House seat. The cynical voice inside me sees the GOP’s invitation to Keyes as an effort to cast Obama as serving up traditional racial politics based on the notion that all black people vote the same way.
The dynamics in this Senate race would be important in any year but they take on added significance in this year of the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision ending segregation in schools. What was segregation but a technique of raising two groups, one on each side of the color line, each with its own rituals, forms of the American language and codes of manners?
Not that there were no cultural traits shared across the color line. There were, and one can trace an American cultural weave that, then and now, draws in all citizens of whatever race or ethnicity. Hence Elvis’ original shock value: a white kid singing “black.”
The transformation of our world from segregated to integrated requires that we all learn each other’s languages.
We often tell our children, “Don’t talk to strangers.” This, sadly, enforces the idea that they should not learn strangers’ languages. Yes, we need to protect our children, but we also need lessons in why and how to talk to strangers.
So which is it, the charitable or cynical interpretation of the invitation to Keyes?
This hope that I have for all of our citizens to speak the full range of American vernaculars gives me the strength to squelch the cynic within. I am glad that Republicans are ready to help erect another milestone on the road to racial equality. I am glad that they now have provided a guarantee that Illinois will send an African-American to the Senate in November. With that issue of integration behind us for the moment, we can get on to other political issues.
Welcome to the party.
I wonder what kind words she wrote when Michael Steele ran for the Senate in 2006?
The Ombudsman serves as the reader’s advocate. She attends to questions, comments and complaints regarding The Post’s content.
The current Post Ombudsman is Deborah Howell
http://www.washpost.com/news_ed/ombudsman/ombudsman_bio.shtml . You can reach her by e-mail at ombudsman@washpost.com or by phone at 202-334-7582.
Is Muammar Gaddafi a Freeper? (with video)
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/06/is-libyan-leader-muammar-gaddafi.html
The Washington Post published a thorough piece of investigative work today.
(That should be your first clue that it has something to do with conservatives.)
The article “An Attack That Came Out of the Ether” looks into those “Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim” emails that have been circulating the internet the last couple of years. Danielle Allen, a brilliant mind at the Institute for Advanced Study (and Obama supporter?), delves into the origins of the anonymous chain e-mails that make “the false claim that Obama is concealing an Islamic background”.
Allen’s investigation led her to the Free Republic website— although, she found no proof that any of the Freepers had started one of the Obama-Muslim emails. Allen also found that a former rival of Obama’s, Andy Martin, was sending out emails about his Muslim roots.
But, Allen left out an essential piece in the “Obama-is-Muslim” puzzle.
Danielle Allen did not interview Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Not everyone agrees with the Washington Post that Obama is not a Muslim. Libyan dictator Mu’ammar Al-Qadhafi this month threw his support behind Obama saying that—
Obama should be proud of his Muslim heritage:
Gaddafi said the whole Arab world is ready to throw their financial support behind this Muslim candidate. MEMRI and LiveLeak have the video of Gaddafi’s Obama endorsement.
Maybe, Allen should interview Gaddafi and ask him if he sent out the email?
She may also want to talk with Obama’s own brother in Kenya Malik Obama who says that Obama is a Muslim. This may help the scholar with her important research project.
* * * * *
Related—
More Questions... “THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH - OBAMA’S UPBRINGING”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2037873/posts
Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship Since Brown V. Board of Education
By Danielle S. Allen
//
Archbishop urges battle with racism - Tutu also praises St. Sabina pastor
Chicago Tribune - February 18, 2002
Author: Sabrina L. Miller, Tribune staff reporter.
Just as Archbishop Desmond Tutu inspired others to fight oppression in South Africa, he brought an equally strong message Sunday to St. Sabina, urging “people of faith” to confront racism and injustice in America.
Tutu’s appeal for reconciliation set the stage for the announcement of a partnership between St. Sabina and the University of Chicago that will establish an annual forum on racism and human rights.
The forum, which will bear Tutu’s name, is scheduled to take place this fall at the university , officials said.
Danielle Allen , an assistant director of the university ‘s Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, said she hoped the gathering would facilitate collaboration between the “faith community” and the “academic community.”
“Think of how greatly enriched this country can be, will be, when all its people have the opportunity to develop at the fullest possible extent,” said Tutu.
“People of faith can never be neutral in the face of racism. People of faith cannot stand on the sidelines.”
As an overflow crowd snaked down 78th Street near Racine Avenue, some waiting up to two hours to hear the Nobel Prize winner, there was scarcely any talk of the controversy that surrounded Rev. Michael Pfleger.
Cardinal Francis George announced last week that Pfleger would be allowed to stay a few more years as parish priest at St. Sabina after already serving three six-year terms, one more than church policy permits.
Parishioners in the predominantly African-American parish on the South Side were angered by the prospect that Pfleger might be removed.
The only time Pfleger mentioned the issue during the three-hour service was when he joked that as happy as he was to hear Tutu, he was happier “that I was still pastor when I woke up this morning.”
Tutu, 70, made a point of praising Pfleger for the very thing he has sometimes been criticized for: taking a vocal stance against racism.
“I have heard of your courageous witness ... I have heard,” Tutu said. “Now I know from personal experience.”
Tutu, who is making a handful of U.S. speaking appearances, said he agreed to appear at St. Sabina because of the persistence of church leaders.
(snip)
“Danielle Allen , an assistant director of the university ‘s Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture”
Wait a sec... Danielle Allen’s another U of Chicago Hyde park liberal *and* a black, and is in the same article that talked about Rev Pfleger, working with him on a ‘forum on racism’ ... in 2002!?!
Small world indeed.
“They’ve been working on this “expose” for 7 months and this is all they have. Pretty lame, if you ask me.”
It’s a Mary Mapes-level performance.
I think you must be referring to the sword Orcrist...translated as "orc-cleaver," also having the nickname "Biter"...?
Not wild amount Mad Jon, we are in a war, the other Candidate wants to Surrender.
Citation please. (Not sure I understand your syntax, either.
Great going, Beckwith! You’ve got the enemy on the run!
Obama IS a Muslim.
An old Irish proverb says: “What is bred in the bone will out”.
Hussein Obama’s Muslim heritage is bred in his bones. It will come out after (God forbid!!!) he becomes President.
Since Ms. Allen reads here faithfully, I have some beauty advice for her:
SHAVE YOUR MOUSTACHE, DARLIN’!!!
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