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?
“It’s more than that. She (Danielle Allen) subscribes to the notion that the congregation of folks on the Internet who adhere to one political philosophy (almost always conservative) is dangerous and should be opposed”.
Her attitude has just been echoed by Islamic Iran’s President, Ahmadi-Nejad the Turd. He said that “ if the proliferation of computers in the country continues as it is now, it will destroy the country (meaning the regime) within THREE years”!
Obviously bloggers, Emails etc., despite the Mullahs having reduced the speed to as close to a crawl as they can, still allows for quick communication nationawide.
The Mullahs snatched the Soviet/(Khomeini) 1979 revolution from the Marxist-Islamist Mojaheddin and Fedayeen Soviet representatives because after strikes and social disobedience had shut down the organized government, the MOSQUES were the only national network (via phone in those days) that remained and gave the power to the Mullahs.
Now, the Internet may end up being the downfall of the Mullahs by providing a national network to help run the country when they lose power. Double edged sword but a notable one.
For instance, when Abas Palizdar, the whistle blower who outed some 51 clerics and senior adminisration officials with a detailed list of their corruption (eleven have been arrested - unavoidably, as their transgression was impossible to deny) - when Palizdar was arrested, there were immediate demonstrations in several cities as a reaction to his arrest.
Sidebar: the Abbas Palizbar who was first arrested (based on a single, private party complaint) turned out to be a wrong one! Same names. After the antimullah demonstrations in a handful of cities protesting the arrest, they released the ‘wrong’ Palizdar, who was accused in retaliation for corruption in the dairy industry.
A couple of days later they “re-arrested” the one they had originally targeted.
I have not had time to check the date and whether it refers to a prior but recent edict that owners of luxury cars would no longer be allowed to buy fuel for their vehicles at the subsidized prices nor receive ration cards.....
The price of gasoline was apparently suddenly upped from the equivalent of about under a $1 per gallon to reportedly four times that. When people woke up to this change, there were immediately protests that once other cities heard about it (Internet) they also held their own demonstrations.
The reason for my lack of clarity till I get a couple of calls back, is that this coincides with Western efforts to impose sanctions to prevent the sale of gasoline and diesel fuel to Islamic Iran. Which, unable to refine enough inside the country, imports nearly half or it’s gasoline requirement from outside.
Double whammy if it works. Blocks movement for the populace (not for the regime) and incites riots by people.
This would potentially more clearly identify/separate military and civilian movement/traffic for our satellites. Just as the sudden movement to reposition missiles by the Mullahs, has hopefully pinpointed where the missiles now are, even if we were not sure before they were moved.
Good email exchange. I hope it continues and if Dr Allen is a logical and fair person she will see you have truth on your side
Bumpitttt.
I would assume an Einstein genius would be logical.
But, by not identifying her financial contributions to the Obama campaign, she's hardly a fair investigator.
Hey, Jeff, aren’t you offended that Danielle Allen and WaPo are not after you yet? (or maybe they are and I missed it)
As one of the best opp researchers on Obama’s lies and frauds I think you deserve to be taken seriously by the ‘genius’ (sic) Danielle Allen and her buds at WaPo.
IMO that's more the burden of the two reporters who glorified her. Like Deep Throat said to Woodward & Bernstein -- "Follow the money". A simple internet check would have uncovered that. I see freepers do that in real time on a busy thread so how hard is that?
The reporters are to blame or perhaps their editor who excised that part
Good points - the Demagogues love to bleat and whine about the supposed “Republican playbook” but what we are witnessing here is very similar to what the Demagogues did in the “MD4Bush” matter — they are trying to pre-empt a whole line of criticism (and then by association many other sorts of criticism) of their candidate by smearing the critics. For all the whining about ‘smears’ these vicious depraved Demagogues do an awful lot of smearing themselves.
Mengaji is key!
My next move with Dr Allen would be — Do you know what a “mengaji” class is? Will you use your superior research abilities and status as a MacArthur Scholar to find out whether Obama went to these Koran recitation classes?
Which expat says only dedicated Muslims sent their children to in the Indonesia of 1967
If she is serious and logical she investigates Obama and his mengaji classes. If she is an ideologue she doesn’t
WaPo should ask Danielle Allen the ‘genius’ (sic) what she knew and when she knew it about charlatans like Wright and Pfleger. Clearly she was there in the midst of the morass of racist preachers on the south side of Chicago — maybe she knew and noticed a bit more than Obama managed to notice in 20 years of listening to Wright?
Since Danielle Allen is a confirmed dishonest flack and campaign contributor for Obama she should be required by the media to explain her links to his campaign and her knowledge of the blatant racism and depravity that have forced Obama to distance himself so dramatically from the likes of Wright and Pfleger.
Heheheh :)
We’ll say it as often as we like and as loud as we like.
Barack Hussein Obama is anti-American.
He might as well be a Muslim.
Even professionals make this mistake. These reporters can be very good at what they do...even the best editor who ever worked for me (15 years ago) called me last year, appalled that she had allowed herself to be lulled into talking with an NYT reporter.
Let that be a lesson to ya.
And to all who are unfamiliar with the workings of the Press.
I believe we will defeat Obama and win this thing in that fashion.
Another BUMP for Beckwith!
It is really hair-curlingly scary to see how many scenarios that have worked for Md dems are then used nationally. We are such a one party state that it is a safe lab for schemers to try out nasty tricks.
Good post FARS. The WWW is spreading it’s Web. Now Google is trying to muffle it.
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Bumperooooo......
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