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Obama website riles Muslims BY BETH REINHARD Vanessa Alikhan was at a
Democratic ''unity party'' when she overheard another guest indignantly refute
the rumor that Barack Obama is Muslim, as if it were a racial slur. She later
recounted the conversation to a friend. ''She told me that this is
politics and that I should just deal with it,'' said Alikhan, a Fort Lauderdale
graphic artist who converted to Islam about five years ago. ``To me this is the
same as telling an African American or a Jewish person they should deal with
discrimination because people aren't ready to embrace them as a group.'' She and other American Muslims
are speaking out, as the Obama campaign pushes back on widely e-mailed and
patently false claims that he is tied to Islamic terrorists. The rumor could be
particularly damaging in a must-win state like Florida, which has a large
Jewish population. Determined not to be
''swift-boated'' the way 2004 nominee John Kerry was buried by attacks on his
military record, the Obama campaign has set up the website www.fightthesmears.com.
While Muslim leaders understand the campaign's responsibility to counter
misinformation, they say the classification of being Muslim as a ''smear'' goes
too far. Their outrage peaked when the
Obama campaign asked two women wearing head scarves to move away from the
candidate -- and the television cameras -- at a rally last month in Detroit.
Obama personally apologized to the women, but the incident reflected the
difficulties of balancing hard-nosed political calculations with the campaign's
overall message of change and unity. ''The truth is Obama has both
set the record straight about his religious upbringing, background and faith --
and spoken out against efforts to marginalize Muslims,'' said Obama campaign
spokesman Josh Earnest. `I'M NOT A MUSLIM' He pointed to Obama's interview
with CBS' 60 Minutes, in which he said, ``I have never been a Muslim.
I'm not a Muslim. These e-mails are obviously not just offensive to me,
somebody who is a devout Christian, who's been going to the same church for the
last 20 years, but it's also offensive to Muslims, because it plays into,
obviously, a certain fear-mongering there.'' But some Muslim leaders said
Obama needs to do more to make it clear that he welcomes their support in his
campaign. Though he's spoken at many churches and synagogues -- including a
conservative congregation in Boca Raton -- he has never visited a mosque, said
Altaf Ali, executive director of the South Florida chapter of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations. There are between 200,000 and 400,000 Muslims in
Florida and about seven million nationwide. The Muslim community saw little
outreach from presidential candidates until 2000, when Republican George Bush
successfully enlisted Muslim donors and included mosques in his proposal for
government partnering with religious institutions. But since the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, many American Muslims say they are treated with suspicion. ''Since 9/11, our community has
been portrayed as inherently evil, and what Obama is doing is adding to the
negative stereotype,'' Ali said. ``His message is about change, and he has to
appeal to every minority group.'' That's a tall order for the
first African-American presidential nominee as he tries to broaden his appeal
for the general election. Ali said that Obama, who spent part of his childhood
in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, is uniquely suited ``to
be a bridge between America and the Muslim world.'' Saif Ishoof, president of the
Center for Voter Advocacy, a nonpartisan group that educates Muslims about the
political process, said Republican John McCain also needs to show more
sensitivity. Ishoof, a lifelong Republican,
said he bristles when McCain consistently refers to ``Islamic terrorists.'' ''By using that phraseology, he
is giving credence to a world view that 99 percent of Muslims do not consider
their own,'' said Ishoof, an attorney who runs a Miami engineering firm. Though the Muslim community
pales in comparison to other religious voting blocs in Florida, Ishoof noted
that it is concentrated in central Florida, the battleground region of the
state. CRITICAL VOTE Muslim voters could make the
difference in several states crucial to winning the White House, including
Michigan, Ohio and Virginia. ''Every vote is going to be
critical,'' Ishoof said. Alikhan said she will continue
to volunteer for the Obama campaign but vowed that she will also try to educate
voters about Islam. She described her recent experience with anti-Muslim bias
in an e-mail to about 1,500 friends and Democratic activists. The e-mail began ''Hello and
Salaams'' and ended with, ``The photos are of me and my husband so that you can
see what a Muslim American looks like.'' They are an attractive,
well-dressed couple in their 30s who look like they belong in a South Beach
club -- except that they heed their religion's prohibition on drinking. ''I am an American, and I felt
all of the pain that Americans felt for the 9/11 victims,'' Alikhan said. ``Yet
I've had fingers pointed at me and been asked the most ridiculous questions you
can imagine. . . . I'm not asking Obama to go to a mosque or call me on the
phone, but I'd like to see him show some more sensitivity.''
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