One American in five now believes that President Obama is a Muslim. This is apparently regarded as a big story and some sort of commentary on Obama.
It’s worth noting that in a survey a couple of years ago, thirty-two percent of respondents believed that Vin Diesel was the inventor of the diesel engine.
To me, the real story is that a disturbingly large percentage of Americans are stupid. Then again…not exactly news.
PAD
• 
Man, if Vin Diesel DID invent the diesel engine, i bet it would kick some serious ášš!
The original diesel engine, let’s call it the Pitch Black model, would probably kick ášš but be a bit derivative. The second, bigger budgeted one, would probably be a bit of a mess with a smattering cool features here and there.
In contrast, the prototype “Iron Giant” model would be great, but nobody would know about it.
true, true. And let us know forget that the later, “Tooth Fairy” model would be a big overblown, pathetic dissapointment.
.
I thought that was The Rock in the ads for the Tooth Fairy.
To which I point to the seminal “The Crazification Factor”.
.
Heck, if only 20% believe that Obama is a Muslim, that’s actually progress.
I have to hand it to the Republicans, the whole mosque distraction has worked wonderfully; almost no one is reporting about them voting down the 9/11 responders health bill. Stay classy, politicians!
Even better: 9/11 responders are mad at OBAMA, demanding to know why he’s defending the rights of Muslims while “not doing anything” for them.
.
It’s a masterful bit of misdirection. And even more stunning, Democrats are now running scared, backing away from Obama and doing the whole “We believe in equality, but not in our neighborhood” argument. So who’s calling bûllšhìŧ on the GOP? Former members of the Bush White House, who are castigating them for turning a question of religious freedom into a political football. Even Karl Rove, for God’s sake, says he doesn’t like the turn this has taken (although naturally he slammed Obama for speaking out about it…whereas if Obama simply kept refusing to comment, he’d be slammed for refusing to be a leader and speak out on an important issue.
.
Even so, say what you want about Bush–and I’ve said plenty–he was a nut about religious freedom, even mentioning the Muslim faith in a positive manner in his second inauguration. I assume his current silence stems from his not wanting to torpedo the GOP’s desire to use this as a wedge issue to regain power. His fealty is to God and his party, but not necessarily in that order.
.
PAD
a world where Karl Rove is considered a voice of reason is positively shudder-inducing. It would be nice if religion could actually be left out of this whole discussion, but that would require some sort of document that talks about separating Church and State. i have no idea where we might find one of those laying around.
Actually, Chris, I’m pretty sure that the constitution doesn’t actually use the words “separation of church and state.” It was a viewpoint espoused by Thomas Jefferson (for instance) but never specifically enumerated in the Constitution. The First Amendment says that the state doesn’t have the right to curtail it, but that’s about it.
.
On the other hand, here’s another scary statistic: 25% of those surveyed believe the Muslims have NO RIGHT to build a place of worship there. In other words, one people in four believe that the right to religious freedom is not guaranteed in this country.
.
I wonder how much of an overlap there is between the people who believe that and those who think Obama is a Muslim.
.
PAD
In other words, one people in four believe that the right to religious freedom is not guaranteed in this country.
.
Actually, I’d expect if you ask those same folks that they WOULD state that religious freedom is guaranteed in the US. They just wouldn’t see whether Muslim’s can build mosques as a religious freedom issue.
.
In other words, it isn’t so much that they’re ignorant as they’re stupid.
Given fact that some of the same people now insisting that Bush has some duty to bail out Obama on this are the same people who claimed to believe that he was a war criminal who went to war for oil and poisoned our status in the yes of the world…why would he NOT be disinclined to help them out?
.
That said, if Obama picked up the phone and called him and asked him to make a statement affirming the rights of Muslims to practice their religion freely I would be surprised if he would not do so. But I’d also be surprised if Obama took that step.
And hey, if we are calling out people on their silence…what is Hillary’s position on this? Where are the pearls of wisdom from Joe Biden?
Any day where Biden keeps his mouth shut is a good day, and I don’t see where it’s under the Secretary of State’s purview. Furthermore, the boss has already spoken. Not sure what the purpose of dragging his cabinet into it would be.
.
PAD
Well, right now Obama is being left to twist in the wind by a lot of Democrats. The impression that is being left is that he is alone in his opinion. Hillary and, to a lesser extent, Biden, are leaders in the party, seems like they might mitigate the damage done by reid’s opposition and Pelosi’s inept support.
.
Yeah, I was facetious about Biden but we’ll miss him when he’s gone.
.
“Where are the pearls of wisdom from Joe Biden?”
.
Bit too busy with prep for the weekend to watch the news I take it. Biden’s pearls of wisdom are that they have the right to build it but that they should build it somewhere else.
Many years ago while walking through the history department at my undergrad university there were a couple of students studying for an exam. I couldn’t help but listen to their confusion, but they were frustrated because they couldn’t find the Nation of Islam on a map. I kid you not people are just that stupid. It is frightening how easy people can be manipulated into believing anything with very little required stimulus.
“hey were frustrated because they couldn’t find the Nation of Islam on a map. I kid you not people are just that stupid.”
Actually, that’s an understandable mistake. If you don’t know what ‘Nation of Islam’ is and you heard the term, it might be quite confusing, especially if you know little about Islam.
The average person in my country also knows very little of history and geography. Even people who are quite intelligent. It’s just that it’s knowledge that has no direct application in everyday life, so it’s easy to forget everything you (barely) studied in school. People who read newspapers to follow the international news are rarer than we’d like to believe.
“I assume his current silence stems from his not wanting to torpedo the GOP’s desire to use this as a wedge issue to regain power. His fealty is to God and his party, but not necessarily in that order.”
.
Honestly, when have you seen W. or his father weigh in on anything. They both seem to regard as unseemly commenting on current affairs after they retired. Other than working with Bill Clinton for relief of the disaster of the month, they stay out of the public light.
I have to assume that people who thought Vin Diesel invented the diesel engine are just people who didn’t know who Vin Diesel is, and just assumed that Vin was the first name of the guy who did invent it. So maybe they’re not stupid, they just have good taste in movies and don’t see Vin Diesel movies.
Well, obviously I don’t know the manner in which the question was framed, but I would think that at minimum it was something along the lines of “Did Vin Diesel invent the Diesel engine” and the options were Yes, No, and I Don’t Know since most polls have some sort of “no opinion” option. So at minimum, it means 32% of those polled couldn’t admit to being ignorant, which is pretty stupid.
.
PAD
Just from reading the response, I guessed that the question was “Who invented the Disel engine” with a number of names as possible answers, and that when in doubt, those who didn’t know picked the guy named “Disel”.
If the question was “Did Vin Diesel invent the diesel engine?” and you didn’t know who Vin Diesel was, then wouldn’t general test-taking skills take over? We were always taught that an educated guess is better than no answer or “don’t know”. And since an educated person would know that lots of things are named for their inventor, “Yes” seems like a reasonable educated guess (again, assuming ignorance of Vin’s identity).
.
On the other hand, if it was a multiple choice, presumably they also included Rudolf Diesel which provides a pretty strong clue that one of the Messrs Diesel is correct. At that point, if you are unfamiliar with both it’s pretty much a toss-up. (Perhaps one might argue that Rudolf was a more common name than Vin in the Industrial Age, but still…)
Have you seen “The Iron Giant”? Diesel did the Giant’s voice.
Arrgh – that was supposed to be a reply to Mary Warner.
I have seen the Iron Giant. I didn’t know it was his voice, though.
Oh, come now – Iron Giant was an excellent movie. 🙂
Given that his films include such Oscar-worthy classics as … xXx … I’m thinking these people should count their blessing that they don’t know who he is.
To be fair, Vin Diesel’s Oscar-worthy classics include ‘Saving Private Ryan’. Which is the only Vin Diesel film I’ve ever seen, by the way, so I can’t say whether the rest of his movies are as awful as they sound.
.
Watch Pitch Black. Then you can go back to skipping his films.
I don’t care if he’s Muslim. (Which I know he’s not.) What I find odd is that half the people complaining about his being Muslim are the same people who were complaining about his church — the Christian one — just before the elections. If he’s Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or Pastafarian, I don’t CARE… can we please actually concentrate on issues that matter.
Because Mimiheart, as far as the Beltway is concerned, the issues that matter don’t matter, it’s the issues that they think matter but actually don’t matter are the ones that matter.
wait… Obama isn’t a muslim? I read it on the internet that he was.
Just to clairify, is it the 80% or the 20% that are stupid?
Considering how Vin Diesel’s career has been going lately, creator of the diesel engine would be a step up. And an honest mistake.
On the positive side, at least they don’t think he’s a Jedi.
After two Sith Lords in the US Office for 8 years, a Jedi Master could only be better. Of course, I’m not quite sure if Biden can cut it as a Padawan.
Only one Sith Lord was in office… Dubya was more Jar Jar being string-pulled to Emperorize Palpatine.
.
The other Sith Lord was too busy running the Catholic Church, anyway. (You can’t convince me that Pope Whassisface isn’t a dead ringer for Palpatine!)
The fact that the American people are
a) ignorant
b) stupid
C) both
in such numbers isn’t the scary part. What is scary is that they still feel they should be able to tell their betters how to run their lives all over the planet.
Assumes facts not in evidence. Are non-Americans our “betters”. I think I could find some evidence that in at least some parts of the world the general public believes in things that make ignorance of the inventor of the diesel engine or the religious affiliation of the president seem like small potatoes indeed. Stoning gays, lopping off parts of the genitalia of girls, disbelief in western medicine (0k, that one was Bill Maher), I don’t know if I would put my faith in the wisdom of non-American humanity if you don’t mind.
For serious? A disscussion about religious freedoms and you two turn it into “America isn’t/is better than everyone else”?
Blimey.
Of course. It’s all about us (US), you know.
I’m not arguing we are better. I’m simply saying it is not self evident that we are worse. There’s a difference.
The United Arab Emirates has sentenced a countrywoman of mine (a 14-year old teen, by the way) to 6 months in prison for having sex with an older man.
.
So don’t tell me Americans are worse than other people, in this crazy world of ours there is far more cruelty in the Third World than people want to account for. And I don’t buy the Marxist-derived idea that all evil stems from economic factors, and so the US is indirectly responsible for all evil.
Bill, I can see what you were trying to say. I was just pointing out that perhaps it wasn’t the most proper path to take given the context of the discussion.
Personally, I have no feelings that are of much importance either way on your issue.
The problem, Bill, is the people who use backwards or inappropriate behavior in other countries to excuse our shortcomings. “Why should we get rid of capital punishment when other countries are even more brutal?” “Why should we believe in religious tolerance for Muslims when there are Muslim countries that wouldn’t support the building of a church?”
.
How do we expect other countries to follow our example if we consistently fall short ourselves?
.
PAD
‘In other words, one people in four believe that the right to religious freedom is not guaranteed in this country.’
.
Yes they do, Peter; they just don’t believe the religious freedom of people that are not like them is guaranteed. These are the same people who squeal like stuck pigs if anybody complains about school prayer, their right to plop a religious-themed statue in the lobby of their state government building or any of a dozen other stories I could probably dig up if I had the time or patience.
.
Frankly I’m not all that surprised that so many people believe that Obama is a Muslim; after all, this wonderful bit of misinformation was happily being circulated by the Republicans during the presidential campaign. Which is sort of ironic, because at the same time, they were kicking him for the Reverend Wright nonsense. You would think at some point some of these loons would think, ‘I can’t believe his pastor is such a hate-monger; gosh… (smell of wood burning).. Does that mean… Obama isn’t a Muslim?’
Yes they do, Peter; they just don’t believe the religious freedom of people that are not like them is guaranteed.
.
A fair point. It’s the same mindset that firmly believes in protecting speech they like, without grasping that speech they like doesn’t need protecting. There’s an excellent book on the subject: “Free Speech for Me, But Not For Thee.”
.
PAD
Same ones who believe the ACLU is a dangerous anti-American organisation.
I think more people than care to admit it fall under the “believes in protecting speech they like, without grasping that speech they like doesn’t need protecting” crowd. And this is folks of all political/religious/ethnic background. It’s instinctual and human nature. Of course, greatness requires folks to rise above human nature. But it’s always a struggle.
I think more people than care to admit it fall under the “believes in protecting speech they like, without grasping that speech they like doesn’t need protecting” crowd.
.
Those are the people that I tend to refer to as “First Amendment but-heads.” Their line typically goes like this: “I firmly believe in free expression, but…” And then they go on to explain why, in this particular instance, they think that free expression should be curtailed. The Muslim center is simply the latest incarnation of this insincere support for a fundamental freedom.
.
PAD
‘In other words, one people in four believe that the right to religious freedom is not guaranteed in this country.’
.
Sometimes it feels that freedom of religion allows to choose only between christian denominations. You are free to be Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, etc.
Yes.
.
You have religious freedom as long as you’re a Christian. You have sexual freedom as long as you’re in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship (and you better be married). You have freedom of speech as long as everything you say and write is non-controversial, tasteful, wholesome, and patriotic.
.
It’s like Orwell’s doublethink, the way they can reconcile social Conservatism with living in a free society.
It reminds me of the scene in The Blues Brothers when the band hijacks the gig at the hick bar. The boys ask a waitress what kind of music they play there and she says, “Both kinds! Country AND Western!”
“The scariest thing about the world, Chris, is that 49% of the population is of below-average intelligence.” – My Dad when i was about 15.
Even worse, much of that 49% believes they are actually ABOVE average — usually well above.
True. I think the Dunning-Kruger effect explains part of that phenomena: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Nothing is scarier than stupid people who THINK they’re smart!
**Neil C. says:
**August 20, 2010 at 2:22 am
**Nothing is scarier than stupid people who THINK they’re smart!
. Shortly after 6th sense came out, I saw a T-shirt that said. “I see dumb people. Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re dumb.”
.
That’s about right.
Stephen Colbert’s character on “The Colbert Report” captures this mindset deftly when he talks about not wanting to clutter issues with facts because he has his gut to guide him. He basically articulates perfectly the exact mindset being described, and the audience always laughs. Except it’s sort of not funny because there are talking heads and millions of voters who really DO have that mindset; they’re just incapable of acknowledging it.
.
PAD
I’ve read on a couple of occasions that Eisenhower was actually shocked when he was told that half of American schoolkids were below average, and that he wanted to launch a big education programme to fix the problem. I don’t know if this is verified or not. I know stories like that get repeated all the time, and often end up in history books without anything to back them up.
Tony Blair is credited with saying he wanted everyone to be above average. I tried to see if I could actually find footage of that on Youtube, but instead stumbled on this gem, very pertinent to the overall discussion. Why do other countries consider Americans to be stupid…?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
Why doesn’t Obama fight back against this stuff? I get the argument that he doesn’t want to turn people off, or give credence to the accusations, but can anyone really respect someone who won’t stand up when lies are constantly being told about them?
Because those who know perfectly well he’s Christian don’t have to be told. Those of who don’t give a dámņ what someone’s religion is will continue not to care. And those who firmly believe he’s Muslim will just see the denial as the latest in a series of presidential denials, right up there with “I am not a crook” and “I did not have sex with that woman.”
.
PAD
Well, the polling shows it’s not immutable; the number of people who believe that stuff has actually increased. There are a lot of people out there who are swayed when only presented with one message, over and over, no matter how ludicrous that message is. It’s necessary to fight back against it (not just by saying “It’s not true” but by going after the critics themselves for attempting to smear you) in order to prevent their message from taking hold in people’s minds. Plus, your base is rallied if they see you leading the charge, and demoralized if they see you taking hit after hit without fighting back.
And now a White House representative has weighed in:
.
http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-politics/20100819/US.Poll.Obama_s.Religion/
.
“Caldwell, who said he has known Obama for years, said the president is a Christian who prays every day. He said he was not sure where the public confusion about the president’s religion came from, but he called false media reports about it ‘a 24-hour noise box committed to presenting the president in a false light.'”
.
Perhaps he’s less public about it than Bush or Clinton because Obama actually read Matthew 6:5-6? (“When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most assuredly, I tell you, they have received their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your inner chamber, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”)
It’s necessary to fight back against it … in order to prevent their message from taking hold in people’s minds
.
It’s likely a bit late for that.
.
In the end, this is what the GOP political propaganda machine has excelled at for a long time now: the ability to say the worst kinds of things about Democrats, and the Democrats pretty much unable/unwilling to hit back.
.
But then, I’m not sure how you hit back against some of this stuff when you’ve a population that is lined up to accept pretty much any lie and insinuation (“mosque at Ground Zero”, “Saddam was behind 9/11”, etc, etc).
Well, the polling shows it’s not immutable; the number of people who believe that stuff has actually increased.
.
I don’t think it’s actually increased all that much. I think it’s always been divided three ways: People who stated they believed he’s Christian; people who stated they believed he’s a Muslim; and people who stated they didn’t know or were undecided. Two years pass and during that time you don’t see weekly coverage of Obama going to church, so they remain undecided, and suddenly this hits the news and the undecideds go, “Oh! He must be Muslim! That would explain it!” In other words, the people who never were going to readily accept he’s Christian anyway and were waiting for an excuse have now been presented with one.
.
PAD
Why are they “accusations”? Why would it be a Bad Thing if Obama were a Muslim? (I mean, aside from the fact that he’s not a very good Muslim – he eats pork and doesn’t fast during Ramadan!)
.
After all, in the wise words of Article VI of the Constitution, “…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
.
It’s perfectly legal for the President to be Islamic, or Catholic, or Wiccan, or atheist, or Pastafarian for all I could care.
The accusation isn’t that he’s a Muslim; it’s that he’s a “secret Muslim”, with Manchurian candidate insinuations underlying those claims (ie; he’s hiding it because he’s part of an Al Qaeda fifth column, and sought the presidency in order to destroy America).
They are “accusations” because the same people who are likely to believe that he’s a secret Muslim are the same ones (by and large) who believe that Islam is a monolithic terrorist plot bent on World Domination.
Personally I would love to see Obama say, “The rumors are true. I am in fact a secret devotee to the muslin faith. I just cannot get enough of muslin. I’m having all the couches in the residence reupholstered in muslin. I hope that my coming clean about my adoration of everything muslin will clear up the confusion.”
.
PAD
I wonder if the 20% who think Obama is a Muslim are the same 20% who thought Bush was doing a great job two years back.
The now standard fall back of comparing everything to Bush is getting old. It’s like your wife burning your food for eight years and suddenly its only burnt a little less, the food still tastes bad.
It could be a more apt comparison if you threw in the fact that yes: the food is only a little less burnt, but she is now working out of a kitchen in a horrible state of disrepair as opposed to the shiny, new kitchen she started out with years ago(like when we had a surplus rather than deficit).
I am not a fan of any politician, but Obama did walk into a very, very messy kitchen.
Sorry, but payback’s a b*tch, n’est-ce pas? The right-wing spent virtually the full 8 years under Dubya putting the blame (for virtually every little problem that befell the Shrub) on Bill Clinton.
The American gene pool is so full of people who should not breed.
The number of stupid people never ceases to amaze me.
Exactly. When i was watching “Idiocracy”, i had to remind myself that it was only fiction.
A common philosphy about this is that American’s spend a lot of time protecting the the stupid and the weak — which allows the so-called “weaker genes” into the gener pool.
These purported experts will say that with all the laws and warnign labels, etc that litigation has scared sellers into including in their products has the effect of stopping dumb people from offing themselves in an “darwin award” fashion.
The confusion about Vin Diesel is understandable. Yes, Rudolf Diesel invented the engine. But it was the formers FIRST name that’s significant in the history of the Automobile. See, he invented the numbers we use to identify individual cars. That’s why it’s called the VIN number. It’s an easy thing to confuse the two.
I like this. Well done =)
Obama is getting off easy. remember the poll that said that 22% of the public (and 35% of Democrats) believed that Bush knew of the 9/11 attacks ahead of time?
.
I mean, which lie would you rather have believed by 20% of the public–you are by birth or choice a member of one of the world’s great religions or that you knowingly allowed 3000 Americans to die in an attack that plunged the country into economic and social upheaval. One is No Big Deal to anyone who matters, the other is just Evil with a big E. But we all managed to muddle on even with such a huge number of paranoid kooks who would believe the worst of Bush, I’m sure we’ll do ok witha like number believing something a far more benign lie about Obama.
Are these the same people who believe he was born in Kenya?
One thing to keep in mind about the polls that show so many people believe that Obama was born outside of the United States–another poll showed that 6% of those polled were under the impression that Hawaii was not part of the USA. Another 4% were unsure.
.
While that helps mitigate the numbers for Obama’s place of birth it sure doesn’t make me feel any great sense of pride in the public education system of which I am a part! Oh well, you can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.
“To me, the real story is that a disturbingly large percentage of Americans are stupid. Then again…not exactly news.”
.
Hmm. A disturbingly large percentage of Americans voted for Obama. Wonder how that fits in…
.
Concerning his being Muslim, I would be curious for a serious survey to be done to find out why. While I don’t think he is Muslim, I would say his actions demonstrate him to be far more sympathetic and tolerant of Muslims than Christians, so it not necessarily the “right wing machine” portraying him as Muslim that led to this conclusion. Some just simply have paid attention to his actions and come to their own conclusions.
.
And to be clear, I am sure he is not a Muslim. But he is undoubtedly sympathetic to Islam. (One example: his statement to a reporter a few years back that the Muslim call to prayer was the most beautiful sound in the world.)
.
Iowa Jim
A disturbingly large percentage of Americans voted for Obama.
.
A disturbingly large percentage of Americans voted for Bush in 2004, AFTER he took us into Iraq, and AFTER “Mission Accomplished”.
.
I would say his actions demonstrate him to be far more sympathetic and tolerant of Muslims than Christians
.
Well, a part of that just might be that a good number of Christians haven’t acted very Christian-like toward him since he he started his run for president.
.
“so it not necessarily the “right wing machine” portraying him as Muslim that led to this conclusion”
.
Saw this bit on the Pew research actually…
.
Pew went on to state: “The view that Obama is a Muslim is more widespread among his political opponents than among his backers.”
.
When asked how they learned about Obama’s religion in an open-ended question, 60% of those who say Obama is a Muslim cite the media. Among specific media sources, television (at 16%) is mentioned most frequently. About one-in-ten (11%) of those who say Obama is a Muslim say they learned of this through Obama’s own words and behavior.
.
…
.
And what has the Right Wing Media said in the last few years?
.
…
.
Right Wing bloggers started and then Fox News reported the fake news story that the Obama Administration had changed the Missile Defense Agency logo to have “a crescent and star design, evoking a common symbol for Islam.”
.
Michael Savage: “Look who we inherited in this country, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barack Hussein Obama, in one generation. A war hero to — a war hero who commanded the Allied operations against Nazi Germany was running for the presidency then. Now we have an unknown stealth candidate who went to a madrassas in Indonesia and, in fact, was a Muslim.”
.
Rush Limbaugh: “If it was OK, and even laudatory, to call Bill Clinton America’s first black president, why can’t we call Imam Obama America’s first Muslim president?”
.
Rush also calls Obama “Imam Obama.”
.
Frank Gaffney of the Washington Times: “President Obama on Friday reiterated for the umpteenth time his determination to develop a ‘new relationship’ with the Muslim world. On this occasion, the audience were the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Unfortunately, it increasingly appears that, in so doing, he will be embracing the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood — an organization dedicated to promoting the theo-political-legal program authoritative Islam calls Shariah and that has the self-described mission of ‘destroying Western civilization from within.”
.
Pamela Geller in her blog post “President Jihad: Obama Encouraged Violent Palestinian Muslim protests against Israel.”
Geller claimed Obama “is agitating Muslims against Jews” and stated, “The President of the United States is advancing jihad against the oath of office that he took.”
.
She also later wrote, “President Sarkozy called [Obama] ‘a madman,’ ‘a lunatic.’ Perhaps, I don’t know — but one thing is for sure: Hussein is a muhammadan. He’s not insane ………..he wants jihad to win. That’s what he is doing. Of course, to the western mind, the rational mind, the logical mind, the American mind, that is insane.”
.
She also said that Obama’s Pearl comments were “spoken like an” “antisemitic Muslim terrorist.”
.
Geller is also the one who took the fake story pushed by Right wing bloggers and talkers like Liddy that Obama admitted to Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit that he is a Muslim and changed it for print to make it an actual statement by Obama.
.
She also likes to start her posts with names like “the Muslim president” or “Muslim in the White House?”
.
Jeffrey Kuhner stated that Obama “is a cultural Muslim whose sympathies lie with the Islamic world in its life-death struggle against Israel.”
.
KSFO’s Lee Rodgers lied and said that Obama wrote in one of his books that “in case of a confrontation between the Western world and the Islamic world, he will stand with the Muslims.”
.
.
Rose Tennent on the radio show she co-hosts with Jim Quinn: “I don’t think you can be a Christian and vote for Barack Obama.” She went on about after a listerner disagreed. “I’m not judging; I’m laying out the facts. … You know, you’re going to be held accountable for this vote. If you voted for Barack Obama and you call yourself a person of faith, you will be held accountable for that vote. I believe that with all of my heart.”
.
Fox News’ Special Report asked of Obama: “Islam or Isn’t He?”
.
Andrew McCarthy portrays, based on lies and smears, Obama as a Muslim in his book The Grand Jihad.
.
Pieder Beeli in his WorldNetDaily.com column: Obama has a “preference of Islam over Christianity.”
.
See? That proves it!
All those people couldn’t say it on teevee and online and in the papers (“What’s a ‘newspaper’ Daddy?”) if it weren’t true!
Is Obama a Muslim? I really don’t think so. I think he’s a religious opportunist. Now these are the facts as I understand them.
.
Obama’s mother was an atheist and his father and his father was a Muslim. When he went to school in Indonesia, he was registered as a Muslim.
.
If he converted to Christianity, it was when he around the age of 29 and started to attend the Rev. Wright’s church. The problem with this is that Wright is sometimes associated with the nation of Islam. Of course, the church is prominent, and anyone aspiring to be a politico in Chicago needs faith. Attending Wright’s church, regardless of of it’s message, is good for a career in the Chicago machine.
.
.
And your facts would be wrong. And proven so quite some time ago.
I commented in the other thread on the mistake I made. In this case my facts are not wrong. Are you telling me his mother was not an atheist or that his father was not a Muslim? Are you saying that his parents did not register him as a Muslim in Indonesia. Or are you saying he didn’t convert to Christianity?
.
Honestly, if there’s nothing wrong with being a Muslim, why is all the left squawking when it turns out some believe he is.
.
I have an acquaintance who was raised in Islam, but converted to Christianity. He is convinced Obama is a Muslim. It makes me wonder in the demographics of that poll how many of the respondents are Muslim or view it as being a good or neutral thing.
.
As I stated earlier, I don’t think Obama is Muslim.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp
.
In brief: To the best of Obama’s recollection, his father had pretty much renounced Islam by the time he married Obama’s mother – which would kind of be necessary, as by his description she was probably agnostic (as she was willing to consider the possibility that there was a God, and to let young Barack make up his own mind). The schools he attended in Indonesia were not madrassas – when he wasn’t in Catholic school (which he was, apparently, for a time – there’s mention of his studying the Catechism in school at age 6); they merely had a lot of Islamic students, to be expected in a country where the majority faith is Islam.
.
So far as I can tell, there’s no such thing as being “registered as a Muslim”, at least in Indonesia. If in fact such a state exists, it apparently never applied to the young Barack. He attended secular schools (except the stint in Catholic school); his mother led a secular life.
.
These were all debunked years ago. I am dismayed that such fictions are still circulated as truth, and further dismayed that so few bother to double-check these data when the checking is so simple.
Alright, I just found this interview: http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/11/obamas-interview-with-cathleen.html
It was conducted when Obama was running for senate in 2004. He does state his mother was a Christian and that his father was agnostic, but his from a Muslim father.
.
However, the following column, relying on the Chicago Tribune (not exactly a right wing rag) puts forth evidence that she called herself an Atheist and spent her formative years in Washington state.
.
http://wizbangblue.com/2008/04/07/obamas-lie-about-his-atheist-mother.php
.
Daniel Pipes writes about Obama’s Muslim past: http://www.danielpipes.org/5354/confirmed-barack-obama-practiced-islam
.
To sum it up, he wasn’t devout, but he registered as a Muslim at the Catholic school he attended. This registration was POSSIBLY in error, but the recollections place him as irregularly following his stepfather to Mosque.
.
The truth of the matter is that his background is muddied, and we have to go by who we trust. If you don’t believe the facts come down on him ever being a Muslim, fine. I think they point heavily to him possessing a significant Muslim influence in his youth.
.
As for the comment I just made about the make-up of the 20%, a Muslim woman weighed in on the issue 1 1/2 years ago with this: http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/24/muslim-barack-obama-opinions-contributors_islamic_president.html
.
To sum it up, he wasn’t devout, but he registered as a Muslim at the Catholic school he attended.
.
I was baptized as a baby. But, as I’m sure you can guess, I didn’t exactly have a say in the matter.
.
I think they point heavily to him possessing a significant Muslim influence in his youth.
.
Considering he moved around a lot as a child, “heavily” is probably rather overstated.
“I would say his actions demonstrate him to be far more sympathetic and tolerant of Muslims than Christians”
What actions exactly shown him to be less tolerant of Christians than of Muslims?
.
After 8 years of Bush, I think anyone except Sarah Palin would seem unChristian.
.
To me, a non-Christian, Obama seems not to favor Christians any more than he favors other people, but I don’t see that he favors then less. And that is how an elected official should be, IMO.
.
Christians don’t need special treatment, they’re already pretty powerful and influential in the US.
Christians don’t need special treatment, they’re already pretty powerful and influential in the US.
.
The other day on the website for one of the local news stations here, somebody actually left the comment: “Christians have been persecuted since the beginning of time.”
I do believe that this cartoon is a fascinating illustration of how some people think…
It’s certainly an interesting commentary on the irony that some people feel a full investigation into financial support and background is warranted into behavior that should be supported by freedom of religion, but cry foul when the same mindset is suggested for freedom of speech.
.
Either holding up one’s motivations to scrutiny when one is exercising one’s constitutionally protected rights is fair…or it’s not.
.
PAD
I, for one, look forward to finding out where Harry Reid and Howard Dean get their money.
.
Way to kill the message, Nancy. Every time I think our political class has hit the bottom they show up with a bigger shovel.
I can’t be the only one who thinks that the misconceptions of the 1st Amendment are getting downright dangerous.
.
Take, for example, Dr. Laura. After her little incident last week, she says she’s quitting her radio show to “take back” her 1st Amendment rights. Huh. I wasn’t aware she had lost them.
.
But then Palin follows up on Twitter with her equivalent of “You go girl!”, and who also just criticized Obama for daring to say that we have religious freedom in this country.
.
Sarah Palin, a woman who could have been vice president of this country, yet she doesn’t have an effing clue as to what the 1st Amendment means.
As far as I can tell, “Dr.” Laura is under the impression that the First Amendment means that not only can she say whatever fool idea crosses her mind, but she is immune to any sort of consequences for doing so. Nobody is ever allowed to criticize her for anything she says, no matter how racist, hateful, or just plain stupid.
.
Funny, I thought the First Amendment just meant that we couldn’t make it illegal for her to be an idiot at the top of her lungs…
I hold the main stream media at fault here, for following the “sexier” story (and Fox’s lead) and ignoring the more important story that has greater impact. (9/11 workers)
As opposed to the “mosque” story which will effect no one but those who will use the Center.
These are the end-times. But we’ll bring about our own end.
One thing to ponder when looking at polls like these–I wonder if at least some of the respondents aren’t giving the answer to get the <i.reaction</i. they want, regardless of their actual beliefs on the subject. So the people who said that Bush knew of the 9/11 attacks in advance or those who say that Obama is a Muslim may, in part, just be saying that to give a metaphorical raspberry to a president they are not fond of.
.
Someone pointed out to me that Obama once, in a TV interview, made reference to quote "my Muslim faith" but I think it's indisputable that this was a verbal mistake and should not be taken as evidence by any fair minded person.
.
I believe that was on This Week and they were talking about faith and the flap about faith. He corrected it as soon as he said it.
When I first saw this, I was reminded of my initial reaction to “Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?” IE, people know, and can reliably converse on, that which they use in their daily lives. Fifth graders use fifth grade knowledge, or that’s what one would hope. Their parents, who, unless they are my in-laws, have been out of fifth grade for quite some time before having kids, deal with other things. Their knowledge is more specialized. My mother in law, the nurse, can’t have an intelligent conversation about politics, or physics, or philosophy. Nursing, on the other hand, she can speak on.
.
.
I then thought of the people I hang around with. We can pull facts or ideas about things out of our heads about things that we don’t do every day. My son can quote chapter and verse about sharks and snakes and predators, but unless he’s hiding something in his closet, I don’t think he deals with them regularly. Why is my happy little crew different? I don’t know.
Are we forgetting how the polls are done? They are unsolicited land line phone calls. That automatically discounts any one that only uses a cell phone, thus most people under the age of 30 are not included in these polls. Then we can knock off a big portion of people that are probably at work when they do the polls. After that there must be a large chunk of people that just don’t have enough time in their hectic lives to do these polls. Not to mention all the people that are sick of doing them.
So what are we left with? A bunch of unemployed and retired people with no lives that don’t know the President of the United States of America is a Cristian despite the fact that his Reverend was on TV almost every fifteen minutes in the fall of 2008. Given the demographic… Is that really a surprise?
.
“So what are we left with? A bunch of unemployed and retired people with no lives that don’t know the President of the United States of America is a Cristian despite the fact that his Reverend was on TV almost every fifteen minutes in the fall of 2008. Given the demographic… Is that really a surprise?”
.
Not really much of an argument. Unemployment is hitting all races, religions, educational backgrounds and genders in America right now. It’s also hitting people in both political parties whether they voted for Obama or not. I’m also not sure how being retired or unemployed means these people have “no lives” or, by extension of your post’s point, are stupid just because they’re unemployed or retired.
I didn’t say people that are unemployed or retired have no life just because they are unemployed or retired. I’m not pulling a Sharon Angel here. I’m unemployed my self and still have a hectic life with friends and responsibility (including hosting a comic book podcast on Bludcast Radio on Ituns). When I use the combo of “Unemployed/Retired AND No Life” I mean that the person has the is home during the day, has NOTHING else to do, and are so lonely that they will talk to pollsters for a half hour to forty five minuets.
Think about this for a second. How much stuff do you have to do in your every day life? On top of that, how much stuff do you do just because you want to do it? Now, how much stuff do you wish you could have gotten done but just couldn’t find the time to do it? If a pollster called you up would you have time to do the poll? Would you even be home to answer the phone or do you even have a land line for that matter?
Bottom line is that I call BS on this poll being any were near an accurate representation of the beliefs of the American people. The polls no longer get a true cross section of the population and the way the questions are formed and asked can effect the answers. How does the number of people that think Obama is a Muslim go up now that President has been in office for over and year and a half and his Cristian Reverend was on TV every day for four months straight before he was elected?
So what are we left with? A bunch of unemployed and retired people with no lives that don’t know the President of the United States of America is a Cristian despite the fact that his Reverend was on TV almost every fifteen minutes in the fall of 2008.
.
Not only that, but we have a bunch of people who think he’s not a citizen even though they do not dispute that his mother is American. They think either that he was born in Kenya or that, if he was indeed born in Hawaii, that doesn’t count because it’s not part of the continental U.S. Yet at the same time they don’t question that McCain is American even though he was not, in fact, born in the continental United States.
.
PAD
Obama is a Muslim. No, wait! Obama is a atheist. Er, no, he is a Christian from an anti-white church! Yes, that is the one. Or is he actually a Muslim?
.
This is getting silly, folks. At least we lefties had a more consistent conspiracy theory about Bush. You guys should pick one for Obama.
.
But I sorta agree with the “accusation” that Obama is a religious “opportunist.” But I’d call that a guy that isn’t strongly religious, has had many influences, and is open to experiment. In other words, a guy I can identify with and a guy I find a lot more normal and reassuring than some zealot with iron-clad faith in his version of the creation myth.
.
And, in any case, a guy’s religion should be one the last things we worry about when we evaluate leadership. In a perfect world.
The truth of the matter is that his background is muddied, and we have to go by who we trust.
No, to both.
The background is pretty clear. It’s that you don’t want to accept that. (And it’s even clearer if you substitute Jewish or Protestant in for Muslim).
Hi Peter,
See IDIOCRACY if you haven’t already. It provides a satire on the advent of “Stupid Americans” that’s almost on the level of Jonathan Swift.