Posted on 07/15/2008 5:23:01 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I was watching Morning Joe today, and someone (I don't recall if it was Mika or Joe, or whom ...) was lamenting the fact that polling shows us that 39 percent of Americans (read yokels) mistakenly believe Obama attended a Muslim school in Indonesia, etc.
Jonathan Alter of Newsweek similarly mocks the notion, writing:
His stepfather sent him to a Muslim school. False. When Obama lived in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, his mother and stepfather sent him for a time to a Catholic school, and for a time to an Indonesian public elementary school, where he had a class in Islamic studies (as required by the state). When CNN and other news organizations investigated whether this was a "madrassa" (religious school), the answer was a clear "no." Girls did not have to cover their heads, prayers were not required, students came from many different religious backgrounds and the school was recognizably "public."
The only problem is that this contradicts Obama's own words ...
On page 154 of "Dreams From My Father," Obama writes:
"In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school, two years at a Catholic school. In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made faces during the Koranic studies."
And on page 204 of "The Audacity of Hope," Obama has a slightly different recollection, writing:
"During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school."
(Okay, so this time he refers to the school with the qualifier "predominantly" ... but the words "Muslim school" are Obama's -- not mine. And if the quote from "Dreams From My Father" is correct, this "predominantly" Muslim school required "Koranic studies" -- a notion that Jonathan Alter acknowledges was part of the law).
HERE'S MY POINT: If there is confusion about whether or not Obama attended a Muslim school, it does not come from ignorant people ... rather, it comes from people who actually took the time to read his books -- and believe him...
As such, you could argue that the biggest source of the Muslim rumors is Obama himself. He's the one who wrote and published the rumors -- not some right-wing cabal.
Why is this important? The liberals who are vigorously trying to "set the record straight" act as if conservatives are the ones who pulled this out of thin air in order to fool a bunch of rednecks living in places where one must cling to guns and religion.
But Obama's own book says he attended the Muslim school. So if there is confusion, I pretty much have to think that he is to blame. And along those same lines, let me also point out it was a liberal magazine -- not a conservative one -- who published the controversial cartoon cover that has been derided as offensive.
Note: It really doesn't matter whether or not Obama attended a Muslim school. What does matter is whether or not he is telling the truth. And I think it is also important to note that this rumor was not started by conservative skullduggery, but by Obama's own writings ...
I wonder how your experience with Liberal Mind Fog disorder compares with my own. Care to offer any insights?
The import of the piece is ot whether he, in fact, attended a madrassa, it is that he, himself, said “Muslim school” in his books and now the left is gasping in horror when people say he went to a “Muslim school.” It is regarded as impermissible to take O’Bama’s words as being true.
To someone not infected with Liberal Mind Fog disorder, that should set of major alarm bells. But LMF is amazingly effective at blinding people to what should be obvious.
These little gems were also in his books:
From ‘Dreams of My Father’,
“I CEASED TO ADVERISE MY MOTHER’S RACE AT THE AGE OF12 OR 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites”
From Dreams of My Father, “ I FOUND A SOLACE IN NURSING A PERVASIVE SENSE OF GRIEVANCE AND ANIMOSITY AGAINST MY MOTHER’S RACE”.
From ‘Dreams of my Father’, “The emotion between the races could never be pure..... the THE OTHER RACE (WHITE) WOULD ALWAYS REMAIN JUST THAT: MENACING, ALIEN AND APART”
From Dreams Of My Father, “never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. IT WAS INTO MY FATHER’S IMAGE , THE BLACK MAN, THE SON OF AFRICA, THAT I’D PACKED ALL THE ATTRIBUTES I SOUGHT IN MYSELF.
From Dreams Of My Father:
“THAT HATE HADN’T GONE AWAY,” he wrote, BLAMING WHITE PEOPLE,- SOME CRUEL, SOME IGNORANT, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.”
From Dreams Of My Father;
“There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he wrote. “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, TO SHOW YOUR LOYALTY TO THE BLACK MASSES, TO STRIKE OUT, and name names”
From Dreams Of My Father, “I had grown accustomed, everywhere, to SUSPICIONS BETWEEN THE RACES..”
“Malcolm X’s autobiography seemed to offer something different,” Obama wrote. “His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me; the blunt poetry of his words, his unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new and uncompromising order, martial in its discipline, forged through sheer force of will.”
Quote from Barack Obama’s book, Dreams Of My Father:
“THE PERSON WHO MADE ME PROUDEST OF ALL, though, WAS HALF BROTHER (roy).. HE CONVERTED TO ISLAM.”
From ‘Dreams of my Father’, “In Indonesia, I SPENT TWO YEARS IN A MUSLIM SCHOOL, ..I STUDIED THE KORAN”.
From ‘Audacity of Hope: “LOLO (Obama’s step father) FOLLOWED..ISLAM....” “I LOOKED TO LOLO FOR GUIDANCE.
From ‘The Audacity Of Hope, “I WILL STAND WITH THEM (MUSLIMS) should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
From The Audacity Of Hope, “WE ARE NO LONGER A CHRISTIAN NATION”. We are also a Jewish nation, a MUSLIM NATION, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”
http://www.examiner.com/a-534540~Can_a_past_of_Islam_change_the_path_to__president_.html
http://www.examiner.com/a-536474~_Trapped_between_two_worlds_.html
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Wonder WHY he is so proud of his brother, Roy, who converted to Islam? Anybody ASK him??
Stepfather practiced Islam he said. He looke to him for GUIDANCE, he said. Doesn’t this peak anybody’s interest??
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So he took his new name of his own accord, as an adult and chose a Muslim name. Why has no one asked him why he decided to take a Muslim name and why, if he chose this name, it is off limits for discussion? Ignore what your eyes are telling you folks, these are the “facts”.
What’s amazing is that in the culture of whining victims, the Obama campaign and the lapdog media think that if they present Obama as a victim, people will vote for him. Have they done focus groups on this? Are people more likely to vote for him because he is the victim of us yokels?
Very good points. One would think the muslim plant would be better prepared.
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