WaPo After Free Republic Again, Now Over Barack-is-a-Muslim Email

The Washington Post published a June 28th piece geared to protect Barack Obama from the nagging rumors that he is a secret Muslim, rumors that have been circulating since 2004. The Post's Matthew Mosk penned an attack on Free Republic, based on an Obama flak who claims she has somehow discovered that Freepers are to blame, if not initially responsible, for floating the Barack-is-a-Muslim chain email that so many millions of Americans have found in their email boxes over the last four years. But, the Washington Post's article is so filled with assumptions and a singular desire not to really investigate the matter that it boggles the mind. Naturally, all the journalistic missteps serve to shield Barack Obama from any controversy and make all opposition seem nefarious or unhinged.

The Obama flak in question is one Danielle Allen of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton. Mosk wishes to assure us that she is one smart cookie, apparently. To settle any question to the contrary, we are treated to some earnest, if over-the-top, adulation for good Doctor Allen. Allen is called a "razor-sharp, 36-year-old political theorist," that she's "gained valuable insight into the way political information circulates," and that she works at the institute "most famous for having been the research home of Albert Einstein." Mosk tells us that Allen "boasts two doctorates, one in classics from Cambridge University and the other in government from Harvard University." The Post tells us that one winter morning Allen was "studying in her office at the Institute for Advanced Study, the renowned haven for some of the nation's most brilliant minds." Mosk also tells us that Allen "works alongside groundbreaking physicists, mathematicians and social scientists. They don't have to teach, and they face no quotas on what they publish. Their only mandate is to work in the tradition of Einstein, wrestling with the most vexing problems in the universe."

Jeeze, next Mosk will be telling us that Danielle Allen is the virtual reincarnation of Einstein himself!

Byron York saw how silly all this puffery was, too. Over at NRO's Corner Blog, York takes a jab at those vaunted “vexing problems in the universe” and succinctly sums up the big nothing that is the real underlying conclusion of the Washington Post's extensive four-page story.

The piece goes on and on in grave tones about the chain email that seems to have first surfaced sometime in 2004. Allen "obsessively" worries about such things as chain emails we come to discover. Allen tells the Post, "I started thinking, 'How does one stop it?'" She then informs Mosk that the whole mysterious, shadowy email has a nefarious and unidentified genesis. Mosk assures us that this email is the "modern version of a whisper campaign," and worries about the "secret identities" of the Freepers that Allen reveals to him.

We are dealt the conclusion that all this email and Freeper stuff is… well, dontcha know it's scary, kids? I wondered if Mosk wanted his Mommy to keep the nasty Freepers away from him by the end of this curious piece?

So, what about this email saying that Obama is a secret Muslim? Where did it come from? Matthew Mosk doesn't know and neither does his main source, the brilliant Doctor Allen. But they are both sure it has something to do with the website Free Republic. Or maybe a perennial candidate from Illinois named Andy Martin... or a guy in Philadelphia who operates a website and posts on Free Republic... or maybe not. But whatever the case, Matthew Mosk of the Washington Post just took the word of open Obama supporter Danielle Allen as gospel, assuming that her "research" was indisputable.

Allen began her "investigation" by using key phrases that appears in the email and Googling them to see where else they appear. As a result, she found Andy Martin of Illinois.

Back in 2004 in Obama's hometown, Chicago, a fellow named Andy Martin was attempting to launch his own attempt to become Obama's opponent for the Senate. Martin is a political gadfly and perpetual candidate in Illinois who has never been elected to much of anything, the sort of guy who has been hanging on the fringes for decades without ever getting much traction. To be sure, he was an actual candidate in the last primary to determine who will be the poor GOP sacrificial lamb to face Dick Durbin in the coming general election, so he did get on a ballot for a change. One thing is for sure, that Martin is tenacious and knows how to publicize himself is beyond doubt.

In the run up to the 2004 election, Martin admitted to the Post's Mosk that he had circulated the claim that since Obama was born to a Muslim Father, Barack himself would be considered a Muslim by birth to any other Muslim. Martin also pointed out that the Obama campaign then, as now, rejects any claims that Barack is now or ever has been a Muslim. Martin was quite upfront that he believes that Obama is not being truthful over the whole Muslim question.

But, it is also completely obvious that Martin did not write the original email nor that he is a member of a secret anti-Obama conspiracy. Martin’s activities are well known to many and are completely out in the open.

On top of all that, there is no indication that Doctor Allen ever contacted Andy Martin during her "investigation."

As is explored in detail on Daniel Pipes’s website, Obama was enrolled at his primary schools in Indonesia as a Muslim; he attended the mosque during that period; his friends from that time testify that he was a devout Muslim boy. A former teacher at one of these schools, Tine Hahiyary, remembers a young Obama who was quite religious and actively took part in ‘mengaji’ classes which teach how to read the Koran in Arabic. The blogger from Indonesia who reported this commented:

‘Mengagi’ is a word and a term that is accorded the highest value and status in the mindset of fundamentalist societies here in Southeast Asia. To put it quite simply, “mengaji classes” are not something that a non practicing or so-called moderate Muslim family would ever send their child to… The fact that Obama had attended mengaji classes is well known in Indonesia and has left many there wondering just when Obama is going to come out of the closet.

His father was a Muslim, as was his stepfather. His grandfather was a Muslim convert. His wider family appear to have been largely devout Muslims. Yes, we only know about Obama’s early years as a Muslim; and yes, twenty years ago he became a Christian. The issue, however, is why he has been less than candid about his early background and his family. Indeed, he appears to have actively deceived the public about it. That is why the blogosphere is so exercised about it.

Now here’s another curious thing. Much has been made of his membership of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago whose former pastor and his long-standing mentor, Jeremiah Wright, Obama was forced finally to renounce on account of his obnoxious views (although he has signally failed unequivocally to denounce those views themselves and the no less obnoxious philosophy of the Trinity United black power church). But according to a passing reference in a profile in The New Republic last year, Pastor Wright was himself a Muslim convert to Christianity. He seems to have moved from being a Muslim black power fanatic to a Christian black power fanatic – which might go some way to explaining his close affinity to the Muslim black power ideologue Louis Farrakhan.

Then there is also Obama’s troubling support for the Kenyan opposition leader — and his cousin — Raila Odinga, the leader of the violent uprising a few months ago against the newly elected Kenyan government and who signed a memorandum of understanding with Kenyan Muslims to turn Kenya into an Islamic state governed by sharia law. At the time, the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya released a statement in which church leaders said Odinga

comes across as a presumptive Muslim president bent on forcing Islamic law, religion and culture down the throats of the Kenyan people in total disregard of the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of freedom of worship and equal protection of the law for all Kenyans.

As the Atlas Shrugs site reported, Obama actually went to Kenya in 2006 and spoke at rallies in support of Odinga, causing the Kenyan government to denounce him as ‘Raila’s stooge’. Why was Obama supporting such a person? Why has no-one bothered to find out??

Daniel Pipes makes another highly significant point about Obama’s Muslim background. He points out that, in the eyes of the Muslim world, Obama remains a Muslim regardless of what religion he now professes because he was born to a Muslim father. By his own admission (of Christianity) therefore, he is a Muslim apostate – a status regarded by the Muslim world as a sin to be punished by death. Pipes thinks this would put his life in danger and undermine his initiatives towards the Muslim world. But surely the more significant point is that much of that Muslim world has actually embraced him. Indeed the Muslim Brothers of Hamas – who most certainly would regard any Muslim apostate as someone to be eliminated – actually came out publicly in support of him (until Obama blotted his copybook by professing undying support for Israel).

We are entitled therefore to ask whether the Muslim world supports him because it believes he is still a Muslim. We are entitled to ask precisely when he stopped being a Muslim, and why. Did Obama embrace Christianity as a tactical manoeuvre to get himself elected? Why indeed has he dissembled about his family background if not for that end?

These multiple known deceptions by someone who may become President of the United States are deeply alarming. The concealment is the issue. To dismiss such concerns and the related questions they provoke as a smear campaign is to attempt to browbeat into silence those who legitimately raise them and require urgent answers as a matter of the most acute public interest.

Perry Birman:

Guess they’re calling OSAMA Obama’s own brother a liar....

"Barack Obama's half brother Malik said Thursday that if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background. "

That's the evidence? Are you stoned out of your freak'n mind?

First, you just lied to exaggerate the relationship. A half brother is not a "brother". Did they grow up together? How many times has he even met this "brother"? Second, he did not say Obama was ever a Muslim. He said that Obama "has a Muslim background", and we know that already.

It's crap like this that makes promoting Obama's many corrupt relationships and leftist policies so ineffective. As soon as we open our mouths, people remember this crap. Not because it's so effective, but because the left sees an anti-Obama idiot, repeats his dumb-a~s charges a million times and paints that dumb-a~s face on the rest of Obama's opponents. Worse, it makes Obama a sympathetic figure!

I don't know if Obama was ever raised a Muslim, but leading with that as the evidence is a brain dead strategy.

I believe we will hear more...a lot more.

The point george 76 makes in his post about him attending those “mengaji classes” is telling.

The picture of him in the Muslim garb at age 24 is telling.

His support for Ordinga in Kenya and the results of that election and its aftermath are telling...and are something that ABSOLUTELY, since it occurred in the last 2 years...should be healine news across this nation.

We have a man in Obama leading in the polls to be president who supported whole heartedly a genocidal maniac, who lost the election in Kenya, and then through rape, torture, rioting and wholesale murder (in one instance they burned down a Christian church killing fifty inside), bullied his way into being Prime Minister!

Obama is more like the makings of our very own American Mugabe.

WHO IS THIS MAN?

THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA

I realize that 30 years separate the two...

However, both papers are printed on a form that says in the lower left corner OHSM 1.1 (Rev 11/01) LASER

Both of these papers were printed in the Hawaii Vital Records Office after November 2001 as the result of a request for a birth certificate. Neither was generated in 1930 or 1961.

The website for requesting Birth Certificates from Hawaii has a .pdf application form that has fields for requesting certified copies (ie, with the seal) and “other” - without the seal = copies. I bet the different color borders indicate whether is is a $12.00, with the seal, copy or a $4.00, uncertified copy.

Also, at the bottom of the application form is a section “for Office Use Only” which is used by the clerk who is searching the ACTUAL records of birth, made in the year of the birth.

This focus on these Hawaiia-generated papers is a waste of time.

http://genealogy.about.com/od/vital_records/p/hawaii.htm

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