Up until today, I knew very little about Barack Obama except that he is Democrat Senator who has very recently announced that he is going to run for President in 2008.
Today, I still know very little about Mr. Obama but I now know a little more than I did yesterday. Specifically, I now know that, although he is now a Christian, he was raised as a Muslim. If that is the case then does that not mean that he has (at some point in his past) left Islam and converted to Christianity? And does that not mean that he is, according to the Islamic faith, an apostate? And is not the penalty for apostacy (again, according to Islam) death? And, if all that is correct, is it not reasonable to speculate that there are, at least, some rather excitable Islamists who regard themselves as being under a religious obligation to separate Mr. Obama’s head from his shoulders?
I have no idea as to what his chances are but in the event that Mr. Obama achieves his goal, then I humbly recommend that his very first executive action should be to order a generous salary increase for the staff of the secret service because, oh boy, are they going to be earning it.
A quick jump to wikipedia leads to this citation (#110)
http://obama.senate.gov/press/070123-debunked_insight_magazine_and_fox_news_smear_campaign/index.html
Why does the ‘Manchurian Candidate’ keep coming to mind?
What about the possibility that Mr Obama will rediscover his roots once in office?
What roots?
What roots?
That sounds like an allegation
You might find this interesting. Apparently there is a possible way out for him.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/015222.php
Since the Secret Service operates on the assumption that every nutter in the world wants to kill the President of the United States, for every nutter’s reasons, I sincerely doubt that the personal history – whether true or unreliably rumoured in shoddy partisan reporting – of any candidate makes much difference to them.
I’d bet that there are loonies out there who think George Bush has to be stopped because he is (a) a Muslim apostate; (b) the Antichrist; (c) the man who ordered Elvis Presley’s murder while he was in hiding 15 years after his staged “death” because he knew too much. Tens of thousands have verifiably paid for books and lectures explaining that while the present incumbent may appear to be a wiry, middle-aged, middle-height, hybrid of Connecticut Yankee and folksy Texan, he’s actually an ancient ten-foot tall, blood-drinking space-lizard…
Before the settlement, I was briefly shallowly acquainted with a Northern Ireland Minister. He came with an official car, and one Range-Rover, sometimes two, full of ‘detectives’. He could still make extempore moves. In the succeeding fifteen years even the formerly modest British state has been steadily fortified, massively so under the imperial Blair. But government “security ” has been out of all proportion in the US since Kennedy.
POTUS is followed around, and preceded by, a small town: the resources of the richest country on earth entirely focussed on guarding its figurehead under conditions of spiralling paranoia. Remember they wanted to rebuild Buckingham Palace for a three-day visit? The camera angles (so that no security personnel or installations are in sight, when he’s photographed doing ranch work at home in Crawford, say) are a miracle of staging.
But having the muzzies after you would mean a whole new level of nutter. Suicide bombers et al. I am wondering if it would mean he would not have much like chatting to Muslim states.
Personally if he gets the nod I doubt he would make it to the elections certainly no to the inauguration. I would look carefully at who the Dems are going to pick as number two.
I hope you’re ashamed of yourself Thaddeus, or at least suitably embarrassed. I expect better from Samizdata than the propagation of what is obviously a smear campaign. I have no views one way or the other regarding specific candidates for the US presidency, but this kind of thing is simply lazy politics. Have a go at the man for his policies and leave the rumour-mongering to those whose political savvy couldn’t debate them out of a wet paper bag.
Consider your wrist slapped.
I imagine these would be the same rather excitable Islamists who would already like to kill the POTUS because he’s leader of the Great Satan. Would he be more at risk for having been raised Muslim as a child but now being a Christian? Dunno, would his proposed withdrawing from Iraq make him less at-risk, or moreso for having appeared weak? Homicidal Islamic terrorists don’t need any more reason to do what they plan to do. Rather, any action or tidbit of information like this will just be spun as an additional reason to keep fighting.
I’m with mandrill on this. Personally I’m more interested in what Obama is than what he may or may not have been raised as. He’s “United Church of Christ”? Never heard of that, what do they believe and isn’t that rather more relevant?
The idea that Obama being an Islamic apostate makes him a more likely target for a take-down is just as nuts as the last guy who took a pop at POTUS. Remember Hinkley? Remember he did it because he was obsessed with Jodie Foster?
Excitable Islamists, Thaddeus, are there any other kind?
I’m more interested in why Senator Obama, as a former resident of Indonesia, is so intent on pissing off our staunch allies in Australia.
I am very surprised that the made up stuff about an Islamic upbringing could impress even the generally incredulous Samizdatistas. Having confessed to ignorance regarding Mr. Obama, the starting point ought to be two texts. Dreams From My Father (Link)and The Audacity of Hope(Link).
The latter exposes the writer’s extreme caution in committing to any discussion on the critical issues of the day such as immigration, drugs control policy and Walmart and the minimum wage. The older text is very real and has warts and all and is more believable because it was written before the unknown Obama contemplated political office. In fairness to the man, he will need reorientation on economics and policy substance and this is where one would find real fault but to dwell on lies about his life in Indonesia is perhaps a low blow.
… even the generally incredulous Samizdatistas…
Huh?
I think, as in everything else we vary, but that just don’t make sense, Mabel.
Do you mean “credulous”? In that case I utterly repudiate the charge for myself, and would suggest that even my most excitable colleagues are less given to believing unsuibstantiated bad things about people they don’t like than the average political blogger.
Andrew, I think C has it right. Murderous nutters are murderous nutters first and adduce their ‘reasons’ wherever they can find them.
If going to a religious school means you are forever beholden to that religion’s beliefs, then I’m not an atheist libertarian but instead a Lutheran hitman of the future!
After all, I did go to a Lutheran daycare center for a summer or two in 1970s Minnesota. I’m a ticking time bomb of Garrison Keilloresque Middle-of-the-Road, radical Walter Mondalite insanity! I better be on some government watchlist, since any minute now my contacts will give me the code word (“lutefisk” or “Guy Lertzima” or “crappie“) and I’ll start a bake sale to fund that guy from Saturday Night Live’s quest to become a Senator.
Pa: thanks for the Jihadwatch link – interesting thoughts there.
I agree that this may have been blown out of proportion, but it is still unwise to think that how and where a person was raised as a child is irrelevant to who he is today.
Wickipedia seems to be dominated by people who hate Fox (indeed hate the nonleft generally – there was even a rant against there being not enough government spending “reinvestment in the broken health and education systems” in Alberta, the last time I looked at wickipedia).
One only has to look at the articles on Bill O’Reilly (where wickiedia follows the tactic of pretending that the man was brought up in a different areas from where he was really brought up, and pretends that his family were well off, when they were not) or Neil Cavuto (words taken wildly out of context and so on) to see where wickipedia is comming from.
There was even a long defence of Sandy Burger – it did not actually deny that he stole and destroyed government documents, but it pretended that there was nothing important in this, that the idea that he wanted to get rid of things (hand written notes on the documents) about terrorism that might be a problem fo the Clintons was an “urban myth”, and used the standard “it is a all a Fox smear campaign” tactic that the left always does.
“Wickipedia can be edited by anyone” – O.K. let us see how long corrections stay up there
Actually I watched the edition of “Fox and Friends” where the story of Senator Obama’s origins was covered. It was not a “smear campaign” it was treated in a light hearted fashion (as Fox and Friends normally treats stories) and Mr Obama actually came out looking good.
There is no need to “smear” Senator Obama – all one needs to do is tell the truth about him.
The truth being that he pretends to be a man of the centre who can bring people together – but actually had a radical statist voting record when he was in the State legislature in Illinois and has contined like this in his couple of years in the United States Senate. For example, Senator Obama says nice things about the Senators (14 of them) who tried to end the partisan blocking of President Bush’s nominees for the courts – however, it turns out, that Senator Obama did not join in with these efforts.
You see some conservative Judges might wind up on the bench – and that would be unacceptable.
Of course a person has a right to be statist (I almost typed “right to be a leftist”), but then they should not pretend to be someone who is beyond partisan politics, who can bring people together, who has a new vision……… and all the other nonsense.
Senator Obama is a phony.
Obama was a nobody three years ago. He is a junior Senator from the State of Illinois (next to mine and I listen to Chicago radio). He is basically being manufactured our of whole-cloth at this point. A radio station I listen to has pointed out that he has little public record, either as a “public servant” or his stances. He is a relative blank slate.
So by all means, let’s hand him the keys to the largest, most serpantine entity in the history of the world because he is a (supposedly) photogenic black man (isn’t that so chic!).
I guess in a world of American Idol and Eat Your Own Feces On National Television For A Dollar , Obama is what passes for depth, deep enough to be qualified to Captain the leviathan…..
The church he attends is a far left wing radical organization that places so-called Black Values ahead of biblical values.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1776246/posts
Barack Obama may be a loathsome statist, but he was never a muslim. If we are to do a credible job of opposing him, we should be able to do better than making up and propagating stupid shit about his past. I expect better of Samizdata.
I agree that Obama may be a manufactured product, but I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t like decisions made according to the beliefs of a charismatic individual – not even one I personally like. I’d much rather decisions were made according to a constructed, reasoned, plan. Some bland incarnation of that plan in human form will be an adequate figurehead. It is mainly regrettable that our political systems seem to require such a figurehead at all.
I’ve never really understood why we need a prime minister (much less a president). If parliament cannot agree on new legislation amongst themselves as equals, then they needn’t make any, and we’d all be better off.
‘Why does the ‘Manchurian Candidate’ keep coming to mind?’
No idea Perry. Mind too small to entertain anything other than someone else’s poor joke?
Something I find eternally odd about politics is the idea of what passes for “good-looking” in political terms. Obama isn’t bad looking but he is hardly the pin-up he is built-up/accused to be. Obviously he is better looking than John “Hermann Munster” Kerry and less embarrassing than Al “Gestalt of the gigabit” Gore but who isn’t? There is a certain movement within the UK Labour Party for “Anyone but Gordon”. Are the Dems doing a similar thing, “Anyone but Hillary”? Is that why Obama is being talked up so much?
I could understand that. Why throw off the colonial yoke to go Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Clinton, potentially ad infinitum?
I’m not being smugly European about this. I know, as a Brit, that our next couple of PMs are going to be category A wankers and that we don’t even have to have a quasi-dynastic system to ensure that.
Why do people think that a claim that someone is (or might be) a Muslim apostate is an insult or smear? It is, if anything, a point in his favour. And indeed, the original post was arguably sympathetic, in that it was being critical of the possible attacks made by devout and pious Muslims upon him.
I’m sure we have reason to be dubious about his policies vis a vis the Middle East, but I think this is more to do with him being a Democrat than any sort of religious atavism. The only sort of person I can think of who would consider an accusation of apostasy insulting would be a Muslim.
Guy
I object. Dubya, is not an ancient ten-foot tall, blood drinking space-lizard. He is a middle aged, ten-foot tall, blood drinking space- lizard.
Everyone knows he was born in a flying saucer in Roswell New Mexico in 1947.
He says that he was of “no faith” when he was attending his Indonesian Islamic school. It may have been a moderate school, but I’d bet that not having strong views meant that he passed for Muslim. He doesn’t deny this.
What he says is: “During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school [for 2 years] and then to a predominantly Muslim school [for 3 years]; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin’s call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables.”
If you don’t care about religion, you’re unlikely to make a stink about it. You don’t need to be baptised to be a Muslim, just have to have the five articles of faith, which most Muslim schools (even moderate ones) profess on a regular basis. The suggestions of a slur here are incredible. You’re linking to a site that suggests that he was a bad Muslim to make the claim that he wasn’t a Muslim.
The site *does* make the claim that he wasn’t a radical Muslim. If Thaddeus’ claim had been Perry’s claim, that would totally be important. Thaddeus wasn’t saying that the Secret Service would be required to pray five times a day, or that the US would nuke Israel, though.
He was saying that for Islamic definitions, the dude is an apostate. He even made it clear that this was a plus in his eyes. Another commenter questioned whether or not it would make relations with some Muslim countries more difficult, which also seems like a reasonable hypothesis. I’m saddened to see people shrieking so fast that they are in full anti-FOX mode before they’ve digested what the question is.
What matters about Obama is that he got a 100% score on voting from the “liberal” (leftie) think tank ADA
As to religion – if he were urdu I couldn’t care less.
Nick, I think Paul said the things that make the most sense to me. Obama seems to be one of those ‘all things to all people’ candidates.
I think when people start pinning him down on either/or questions, and matching his answers against his record, written or voting, he will come unravelled. He’s on his canidacy honeymoon.
Also, I’m guessing that he is probably what would be considered an apostate muslim by most interpretations of Islamic theology. His campaign has for whatever reason moved quickly to shut down that perception. Politics aside, that seems like a wise move to me.
Why would you expect better of Samizdata? You do realise that a number of people write for this blog? Also, the Samizdatistas frequently disagree with each other. I have never seen the editors make anything more than stylistic alterations to posts. Do you think Samizdata would be a better blog if Perry started pulling articles?
As for this piece, I see a number of individuals in comments getting up on their high horses about Thaddeus supposedly playing the man. How? He specifically said that he knows very little about Obama. All he said was that Obama, as a high-profile former Muslim, would be a target for extreme Islamists who take a rather dim view of apostacy. Where’s the personal attack? Obama’s apostacy – such as it is – is an interesting, if inconsequential tidbit. I don’t think it’s going to change the way anyone votes. Is it worth a brief, light-hearted blog post? Sure.
The bores should call off the dogs, if they know how to.
Nick here. What will matter most are Osama’s policies. When our P.M. Howard was asked a question about the war on one of our T.V. channels, he then made a comment about how announcing a date for withdrawal, which the Democrazies want to do in March of next year, was the worst thing you could do, as it would inspire your opponents to try to oust you sooner, so they could claim the credit.
Barak took exception to this, and started talking about troop numbers, but he never answered the main point Howard raised.
On this point I agree with Howard. Given that we are in the war, we should not be giving hope and inspiration to the mujihadeen, and we should only leave when the Iraqi government asks us to. As for the war, australia should not have gone in, knowing what we now know about their lack of weapons of mass destruction. If only Western spy services did have super-competent assassins like James Bond, we could have sent one of those in to ‘take out’ Saddam!!!
I’m not up in arms about whether Mr. Obama is/was/will be a muslim. What I’m up in arms about is that Thaddeus presented the allegations that Mr. Obama was “…raised as a muslim.” as fact. He recounted that “Specifically, I now know that, although he is now a Christian, he was raised as a Muslim.” The word of an entirely unreliable source was taken as gospel. The fact of the matter is that it doesn’t matter a jot how Mr. Obama was raised, as long as his policies are good (which I expect they aren’t).
It doesn’t even matter that the original piece showed Mr. Obama in a good light. Any association with Islam in the the eyes of the voting public is enough to damage his chances of election. It may have been subtle but the smear was there.
The school he attended was not an islamist madrassas, by all accounts it was just a normal school, it just happened to be that most of the pupils were muslim. In Indonesia thats only to be expected. Surely a child can be forgiven for trying to fit in, and keep a low profile. I know I did when I was at school, it’s a natural reaction.
Just as associating with communists doesn’t make me one, going to school in the company of muslims doesn’t make Mr. Obama one. If I had gone to a school where most of the pupils were black, would that make me black? I think not.
As to having a go at Fox, I’m sorry but they make themselves such an easy target.
First of all kudos to Perry for his Manchurian Candidate mention. Much the same thing crossed my mind and I’m certain the minds of others. My objections to the hype about this chappie is that he is as charismatic as a mud flap and in spite of being describred by the MSM as so-o-o-o grippingly attractive looks like a geek. But none of that is important. What is important is that this man has done nothing at all in his life and must have an ego as big as a universe to believe that he can put himself forward for the job he aspires to
If I were a Yank I might well prefer Baghdad Osama to Little Madam Cattle Futures. Neither has any experience of executive office, neither has been in the Senate for more than five minutes, but he was at least right on Iraq.
Actually, dearieme, it’s the stopped clock thing.
He votes a 100% hard left agenda (see Jacob’s link(PDF)), so he’s right as often as they are.
OK, Midwesterner, but then who can the Dems go for? Surley not slimy Edwards?
OK, Midwesterner, but then who can the Dems go for? Surely not slimy Edwards?
I very much doubt that either the demicans or the republicrats will tolerate any national candidate that doesn’t espouse the ‘family’ business of more government ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’ that goverment is singularly qualified profit from.
We occasionally see candidates that are willing to cut taxes, but never any that will cut programs. Programs = currency to buy votes.
I think we are getting closer to a nation ready to add a new party. And it’s not Green. The last time Libertarians put a candidate on the ballot in a Wisconsin governor’s race, he received 11% and the winner only received 45%. Considering the number of (little ‘L’) libertarians that voted Republican as a blocking move, that is a serious statement of where voters are at in my home state.
Mandrill,
Yup. Thaddeus does appear to have taken the assertion that Obama was raised a Muslim purely on the word of the Associated Press, who we all know have problems with the truth. We now have, on the other hand, Obama’s assertion that he wasn’t, and who better to go to for the truth than a Democrat politician? You do have a point there.
What we were querying was the idea that some politician having been raised a Muslim was so shocking that we would be inclined to suspect a political smear and feel the need to factcheck AP further. It’s not as if he’s being accused of being a former member and still active supporter of the Nation of Islam, or anything. Nobody can help how they were raised. The sort of people who would hold that against him would probably already be against him and his policies anyway.
And as far as we’re concerned, being an apostate would have been a positive plus. It would be a bit like someone claiming we had “smeared” someone by saying they were opposed to the welfare state, even though they had grown up in one. It would be as well to report it accurately if in fact they hadn’t, but even we would not blame someone for simply having been raised in one. (That is right, isn’t it?)
So thanks for the correction, but we don’t know what you’re on about with all the ‘shame’ and ‘credulousness’ stuff. If we could only check the rest of the AP’s output with the same thoroughness…
Midwesterner makes an important point.
Republicans say “vote for us because at least we do not support any new government programs”, but President Bush violated even that (no-child-left-behind and the Medicare extention).
Republicans also say “vote for us all you will let the Democrat it”.
But if there are vast increases in existing programs (such as farming subsidies) and even new programs (such as the ones already mentioned) what is the point of keeping the Democrat out?
After all President Bush has the worst record on controlling government spending (and I mean nondefence spending) of any President since Richard Nixon (and he was not a Democrat either). There have also been a lot of new regulations (although not as many as there were under President Nixon).
Certainly President Bush has done some good things (such as cut some tax rates – although he may undermine all that by agreeing to a rise in the Social Security tax threshold).
To be fair to him (whatever bad positions he has taken – remember the First Amendment violating “campaign finance reform”) Senator McCain has denounced by the Whitehouse and Congress for years about soft on spending.
But whether Senator McCain or someone else is the candidate they will have to be convince people that they will control government spending – and they best way to be convince people is to say “here are the specific programs I am going to get rid of”.
“What do you know – you are British anyway”. I know enough to know that unless free market minded voters are convinced they will not vote Republican – they will either vote libertarian or STAY HOME (as so many of them did last November).
As for voters who love government spending – they will vote Democrat whatever the Republicans do.
After all the media have convinced such voters that even President Bush is a flint hearted spending cutter.
That is the fallacy behind the “we will buy their votes” tactic. It only works for Democrats – as Republicans will always be believed (by big spending minded voters) to be “cutting” spending even when they are increasing it.
So they might as well really support cutting spending – and get the anti big government voters out to support them.
Well the above was messed up – even by my standards.
What I meant to write was that Senator McCain has, for years, denounced both the White House and Congress for being soft on controlling govenment spending. Although, of course, that does not prove that he would do any better.
By “threshold” I meant the limit on the amount of income that is covered by Social Security tax – raise or abolish the limit and taxes go up a lot.
“But it is only tax on the rich” – “hitting the rich” hits everyone else as well. But if people do not understand that by now, it is a bit late to try and explain it to them.