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Commentary: Who's the Real
Threat – A 'Muslim' Obama or the Fools Who Believe and Spread Untrue Claims?
Date: Thursday,
January 24, 2008 http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/sayitloud/kane124 Anybody still doubting Sen. Barack Obama's bona fides as a black person should consider this: He's the only presidential candidate who's had people badmouthing his mama, his daddy and his step daddy. Since "The Dozens" is an all-but-official African-American tradition, if that doesn't make Obama authentically black, I don't know what does. I mean, have you seen some of the nonsense about Obama floating around cyberspace lately? Americans of all races need to seriously consider how we can keep computers out of the hands of the lunatic fringe. I've received scurrilous e-mails about Obama before, but they seem to have increased in the past week. The Web site The Politico has even run a story about those e-mails. "Untraceable e-mails spread Obama rumor," the headline of the story reads. It continues: "When Fox News aired a report in January claiming that Sen. Barack Obama had been educated at a radical Muslim madrassa, his campaign beat the story back -- hard -- with the candidate himself going on television to call it 'ludicrous' and a 'smear.' But rather than vanish, the whispered smear campaign appears to have gone underground, and in its purest form: Obama himself, according to a pair of widely circulated anonymous e-mails, is a Muslim." I've seen those e-mails. They not only "accuse" Obama of being a Muslim, but they start in on his mama: she gets it for being an atheist. Then they bring up his daddy, who was a Muslim born in Kenya, so you know that makes him a wacko. Then there's his step daddy, who was a Muslim born in Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population. One of the e-mails charges that Obama's stepfather indoctrinated him with Wahabism, a radical form of Islam practiced by terrorist Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Using this "logic," all non-Catholics who enroll in a parochial school -- and there are many -- automatically become Catholic. And Obama's membership in the United Church of Christ? A front, according to the e-mail, designed to lull us into sleep and put this Muslim fifth columnist in the White House, where he can implement the great Islamic plot to overthrow America. "Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background," reads the e-mail, which is entitled "Who Is Barack Obama?" That's followed by this bit of craziness: "The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out; what better way to start than at the highest level?" The second e-mail is entitled "Can A Muslim Become A Good American?" It gives about a dozen reasons why the answer is no, then concludes, "And Barack Hussein Obama, a Muslim, wants to be our president!!!" The lunatic fringe has had a field day by pointing out that Obama has the same middle name as Osama bin Laden, and feel there's something sinister in the fact that the names Obama and Osama rhyme. Lord, where do we get these people? Some observers say this foolishness started with a column written by a white woman named Debbie Schlussel called "Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always a Muslim --- Is Obama a Muslim Manchurian Candidate?" "While Obama may not identify as a Muslim," Schlussel harrumphed, "that's not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it. In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he's a Christian, but they do not." There's more genuine, down-home lunacy in Schlussel's piece, including her taking Obama to task for his "born-again affinity" for Kenya and his Kenyan sister. Apparently some on the right don't cherish all family values. Schlussel doesn't even want Obama as a vice president. "Is (Obama) even the man we'd want to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, if Hillary Clinton offers him the Vice Presidential candidacy on her ticket (which he certainly wouldn't turn down)? NO WAY, JOSE. Or, is that, Hussein?" Schlussel, no doubt, thought she was being clever with that
last line. There is indeed an internal threat to America, but it doesn't come from Muslims. It comes from right-wing Christians who would like nothing better than to bring back the Inquisition.
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