All of us, every single man, woman, and child on the face of the Earth were born with the same unalienable rights; to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And, if the governments of the world can't get that through their thick skulls, then, regime change will be necessary.
If you wonder how anyone could have gotten the crazy idea that Obama is a Muslim, consider this list of Obama's actions, which she published last June:
April 2009, Dalia Mogahed, the first hijab-clad senior adviser to Obama on Muslim affairs says in an interview with terrorist- and jihad-supporting Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi's website, "Many have claimed that terrorists have 'hijacked Islam'. I disagree. I think Islam is safe and thriving in the lives of Muslims around the world. What the terrorists have been allowed to take over are Muslim grievances."
June 2009, Obama invites the Muslim Brotherhood, violent global jihadist group whose sole objective is a universal caliphate, to his speech to the ummah (Muslim community) in Cairo.
November 2009, Obama offers the Taliban control of the Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan, Kunar and Nuristan provinces, in return for a halt to the Taliban missile attacks on U.S. bases.
With a record like that, how could anyone get the idea that Barack Obama is warmly positive toward Islam, and may even continue to consider himself a Muslim, as he was registered in school as a child in Indonesia?
Revere Rides Again comments:
Obama is a "Christian" in the sense that Muslims claim all Christians are Muslims, and vice versa. Obama is a Muslim by birth and early education, an NOI "Muslim" by racist inclination, a cheerleader for Muslim conquest out of hatred and resentment for Western Civilization, which dovetails nicely with his socialist politics, and seeing Islam as the best hope for downfall of the West.
Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim in every way that counts with regard to the survival of this nation.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Well I'll be a sonofabitch. I've been out here 30 of these 30 months.
The last time I was out of work for more than 2 months was in 1988.
Under Obama: 30 Worst Months of Employment in the Past 25 Years
The federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes monthly tallies for the employment-population ratio. That stat shows something rather straightforward: Among those who are living in America and are free to pursue employment, what percentage are employed? (The bureau excludes those who are under 16 years old, are active-duty military, or are — in the bureau’s own words — “inmates of institutions (for example, penal and mental facilities, homes for the aged),” from its tallies.)
Over the past quarter of a century (a total of 300 months), dating back to May 1987 and the Reagan administration, here are the 30 worst months (that is, the bottom 10 percent) for the employment-population ratio, along with the president who happened to be in office at that particular time (scroll down to the see the list):
1. (tie) July 2011, 58.2 percent, President BarackObama
1. (tie) June 2011, 58.2 percent, Obama
1. (tie) November 2010, 58.2 percent, Obama
1. (tie) December 2009, 58.2 percent, Obama
5. (tie) August 2011, 58.3 percent, Obama
5. (tie) December 2010, 58.3 percent, Obama
5. (tie) October 2010, 58.3 percent, Obama
8. (tie) April 2012, 58.4 percent, Obama
8. (tie) October 2011, 58.4 percent, Obama
8. (tie) September 2011, 58.4 percent, Obama
8. (tie) May 2011, 58.4 percent, Obama
8. (tie) April 2011, 58.4 percent, Obama
8. (tie) February 2011, 58.4 percent, Obama
8. (tie) January 2011, 58.4 percent, Obama
15. (tie) March 2012, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) January 2012, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) December 2011, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) November 2011, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) March 2011, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) September 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) August 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) July 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) June 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) March 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) February 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) January 2010, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) November 2009, 58.5 percent, Obama
15. (tie) October 2009, 58.5 percent, Obama
29. February 2012, 58.6 percent, Obama
30. (tie) May 2010, 58.7 percent, Obama
30. (tie) April 2010, 58.7 percent, Obama
30. (tie) September 2009, 58.7 percent, Obama
Interestingly, the 30 (or 32, including ties) worst months for employment in the past 25 years have all come after the most recent recession ended, in June 2009. In other words, they’ve all come during the Obama “recovery.”
What’s more, under every other president during the past 25 years (spanning from the later stages of the Reagan presidency through the entire George W. Bush presidency), the employment-population ratio was always over 60 percent — every single month, for 260 consecutive months. In vivid contrast, with the exception of the month in which he took office (January 2009) and his first full month in office (February 2009), the employment-population ratio under Obama has always been under 60 percent — every single month, for 38 consecutive months. (For 32 consecutive months — from September 2009 to the present day — it’s been under 59 percent.)
In fact, the worst non-Obama month in the past 25 years was December 2008, when the employment-population ratio was 61.0 percent under George W. Bush. Comparatively, Obama’s best month to date (not counting January 2009, when he entered midstream) was his first, February 2009, when the employment-population ratio was 60.3 percent. In other words, over the past 25 years, the worst month under any other president has beaten the best month under Obama.
UPDATED TOWARDS BOTTOM OF POST - BUMPED TO THE TOP FOR NOW
From Doug Ross:
Victor Mordecai, writing in the May 2010 edition of Israel Today (PDF, 4MB), offers this report which, as yet, is unconfirmed by an independent source such as MEMRI.
My wife Rachel, who monitors Arab language broadcasts for Israel Radio, picked up a revealing statement on the “Round Table Show” on Egypt’s Nile TV.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said he had a one-on-one meeting with Obama, who told him that he was a Muslim, the son of a Muslim father and stepson of Muslim stepfather, that his half-brothers in Kenya were Muslims, and that he was sympathetic to the Muslim agenda. He asked the Arabs to show patience.
Obama promised that once he overcame some domestic American issues (like healthcare reform), he would show the Muslim world how he would deal with Israel.
...Pro-Arab, so-called Christian presidents are one thing. But how concerned should we be if the US President is a Muslim who is loyal to the Muslim agenda to isolate and weaken Israel? When the Palestinians talk about nothing but war with Israel and its annihilation, and the president of what was our strongest ally backs their demands for a state with Jerusalem as its capital, and adheres to the same faith, should we not be warning the American public?
...It is time to create an awakening among our true brethren and allies in America: Congress, the Jews and the Christians. We must work together to thwart the emerging alliance between the US and the Arab-Islamic agenda. We must pray for an awakening among the Jews and a Christian revival for Israel’s survival.
In September of 2009, Obama did meet with Ahmed Aboul Gheit. This photo, provided by the State Department, depicts the pair with their spouses.
All the Arab sides – both those who support negotiations and the ones who pin their hopes on resistance – must refrain from extending a [friendly] hand to the extremist Israeli government. What we need now is to increase Israel's isolation, to besiege it as an occupying country, and to expose its racist face and gain the world's support for our just causes. If this peaceful siege does not achieve the hoped-for results, we will discuss [what to do] when the time comes.
Of course, if Obama believes himself a Muslim, it was taqiya -- deception or lies to advance Islam. Which he performed brilliantly during his election: he lied with brazen contempt. And clearly his Islamic Jew-hatred is made painfully clear in his stunning rebuke of Israel.
Is it any wonder that his counter terror adviser speaks arabic, calls Jerusalem al quds and calls jihad a "legitimate tenet of Islam"?
Adul Gheit claimed Obama told the Arabs to show patience. Obama promised that once he overcame some domestic issues, like the Health care reform, he would show the Muslim World how to deal with Israel.
They met more than once. Gheit had a private meeting with Obama in May 2009.
Egypt: Obama "The Boy King"
Worse yet, Gheit just last month called Israel "the enemy." This after Israel gave them the Sinai (which Israel had won in a defensive war and defended through another one) with all its oil in return for "peace."
April 2009, Dalia Mogahed, the first hijab-clad senior adviser to Obama on Muslim affairs says in an interview with terrorist- and jihad-supporting Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi's website, "Many have claimed that terrorists have 'hijacked Islam'. I disagree. I think Islam is safe and thriving in the lives of Muslims around the world. What the terrorists have been allowed to take over are Muslim grievances."
Barack Obama has come out swinging against his Republican rival, sponsoring television advertisements that ask, "What is Mitt Romney hiding?" The allusion is to such relatively minor matters as Romney's prior tax returns, the date he stopped working for Bain Capital, and the non-public records from his service heading the Salt Lake City Olympics and as governor of Massachusetts. Obama defended his demands that Romney release more information about himself, declaring in Aug. 2012 that "The American people have assumed that if you want to be president of the United States that your life's an open book when it comes to things like your finances." Liberals like Paul Krugman of the New York Times enthusiastically endorse this focus on Mitt Romney's personal history.
If Obama and his supporters wish to focus on biography, of course, this is a game two can play. Already, the temperate, mild-mannered Romney criticized Obama's reelection campaign as "based on falsehood and dishonesty" and a television ad went further, asserting that Obama "doesn't tell the truth."
Not always truthful: Obama claimed Kenyan birth in 1991 to sell his autobiography.
A focus on openness and honesty are likely to hurt Obama far more than Romney. Obama remains the mystery candidate with an autobiography full of gaps and even fabrications. For example, to sell his autobiography in 1991, Obama falsely claimed that he "was born in Kenya." He lied about never having been a member and candidate of the 1990s Chicago socialistNew Party; and when Stanley Kurtz producedevidenceto establish that he was a member, Obama's flacks smeared and dismissed Kurtz. Obama's 1995 autobiography,Dreams from My Father, contains a torrent ofinaccuracies and falsehoodsabout such his maternal grandfather, his father, his mother, his parents' wedding, his stepfather's father, his high school friend, his girlfriend, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. AsVictor Davis Hansonputs it, "If a writer will fabricate the details about his own mother's terminal illness and quest for insurance, then he will probably fudge on anything."
Into this larger pattern of mendacity about his past life arises the question of Obama's discussion of his faith, perhaps the most singular and outrageous of his lies.
Contradictions
Asked about the religion of his childhood and youth, Obama offers contradictory answers. He finessed a Mar. 2004 question, "Have you always been a Christian?" by replying: "I was raised more by my mother and my mother was Christian." But in Dec. 2007 he belatedly decided to give a straight answer: "My mother was a Christian from Kansas. … I was raised by my mother. So, I've always been a Christian." In Feb. 2009, however, he offered a completely different account:
I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist, grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized religion. I didn't become a Christian until … I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college.
He further elaborated this answer in Sept. 2010, saying: "I came to my Christian faith later in life."
Which is it? Has Obama "always been a Christian" or did he "become a Christian" after college? Self-contradiction on so fundamental a matter of identity, when added to the general questioning about the accuracy of his autobiography, raises questions about veracity; would someone telling the truth say such varied and opposite things about himself? Inconsistency is typical of fabrication: when making things up, it's hard to stick with the same story. Obama appears to be hiding something. Was he the areligious child of irreligious parents? Or was he always a Christian? A Muslim? Or was he, in fact, something of his own creation – a Christian/Muslim?
Obama provides some information on his Islamic background in his two books, Dreams and The Audacity of Hope (2006). In 2007, when Hillary Clinton was still the favored Democratic candidate for president, a number of reporters dug up information about Obama's time in Indonesia. Obama's statements as president have provided important insights into his mentality. The major biographies of Obama, however, whether friendly (such as those by David Maraniss, David Mendell, and David Remnick) or hostile (such as those by Jack Cashill, Jerome R. Corsi, Dinish D'Souza, Aaron Klein, Edward Klein, and Stanley Kurtz), devote little attention to this topic.
I shall establish his having been born and raised a Muslim, provide confirming evidence from recent years, survey the perceptions of him as a Muslim, and place this deception in the larger context of Obama's autobiographical fictions.
"I Have Never Been a Muslim"
Obama readily acknowledges that his paternal grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, converted to Islam. Indeed, Dreams (p. 407) contains a long quote from his paternal grandmother explaining the grandfather's reasons for doing so: Christianity's ways appeared to be "foolish sentiment" to him, "something to comfort women," and so he converted to Islam, thinking "its practices conformed more closely to his beliefs" (p. 104). Obama readily told this to all comers: when asked by a barber (p. 149), "You a Muslim?" for example, he replied, "Grandfather was."
Obama presents his parents and stepfather as non-religious. He notes (in Audacity, pp. 2006, pp. 204-05), that his "father had been raised a Muslim" but was a "confirmed atheist" by the time he met Barack's mother, who in turn "professed secularism." His stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, "like most Indonesians, was raised a Muslim," though a non-practicing, syncretic one who (Dreams, p. 37) "followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths."
As for himself, Obama acknowledges numerous connections to Islam but denies being a Muslim. "The only connection I've had to Islam is that my grandfather on my father's side came from that country," he declared in Dec. 2007. "But I've never practiced Islam. … For a while, I lived in Indonesia because my mother was teaching there. And that's a Muslim country. And I went to school. But I didn't practice." Likewise, he said in Feb. 2008: "I have never been a Muslim. … other than my name and the fact that I lived in a populous Muslim country for 4 years when I was a child I have very little connection to the Islamic religion." Note his unequivocal statement here: "I have never been a Muslim." Under the headline, "Barack Obama Is Not and Has Never Been a Muslim," Obama's first presidential campaign website carried an even more emphatic statement in Nov. 2007, stating that "Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian."
"Barry Was Muslim"
But many pieces of evidence argue for Obama having been born and raised a Muslim:
(1) Islam is a patrilineal religion: In Islam, the father passes his faith to the children; and when a Muslim male has children with a non-Muslim female, Islam considers the children Muslim. Obama's grandfather and father having been Muslims – the extent of their piety matters not at all – means that, in Muslim eyes, Barack was born a Muslim.
(2) Arabic forenames based on the H-S-N trilateral root: All such names (Husayn or Hussein, Hasan, Hassân, Hassanein, Ahsan, and others) are exclusively bestowed on Muslim babies. (The same goes for names based on the H-M-D root.) Obama's middle name, Hussein, explicitly proclaims him a born Muslim.
Obama's registration document at Santo Fransiskus Asisi, a Catholic school, in Jakarta. (Click to enlarge)
(3)Registered as Muslim at SD Katolik Santo Fransiskus Asisi:Obama was registeredat a Catholic school in Jakarta as "Barry Soetoro." A surviving document correctly lists him as born in Honolulu on Aug. 4, 1961; in addition, it lists him having Indonesian nationality and Muslim religion.
(4) Registered as Muslim at SD Besuki: Although Besuki (also known as SDN 1 Menteng) is a public school, Obama curiously refers to it in Audacity (p. 154) as "the Muslim school" he attended in Jakarta. Its records have not survived but several journalists (Haroon Siddiqui of the Toronto Star, Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times, David Maraniss of the Washington Post) have all confirmed that there too, he was registered as a Muslim.
(5) Islamic class at Besuki: Obama mentions (Audacity, p. 154) that at Besuki, "the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made faces during Koranic studies." Only Muslim students attended the weekly two-hour Koran class, Watson reports:
two of his teachers, former Vice Principal Tine Hahiyari and third-grade teacher Effendi, said they remember clearly that at this school too, he was registered as a Muslim, which determined what class he attended during weekly religion lessons. "Muslim students were taught by a Muslim teacher, and Christian students were taught by a Christian teacher," said Effendi.
Andrew Higgins of the Washington Post quotes Rully Dasaad, a former classmate, saying that Obama horsed around in class and, during readings of the Koran, got "laughed at because of his funny pronunciation." Maraniss learned that the class included not only studying "how to pray and how to read the Koran," but also actually praying in the Friday communal service right on the school grounds.
Obama with his class at SD Besuki, a public school, in Jakarta.
(6) Mosque attendance: Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama's younger half-sister, said her father (namely, Barack's stepfather) attended the mosque "for big communal events," Barker found that "Obama occasionally followed his stepfather to the mosque for Friday prayers." Watson reports:
The childhood friends say Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque. "We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque. But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played," said Zulfin Adi, who describes himself as among Obama's closest childhood friends. … Sometimes, when the muezzin sounded the call to prayer, Lolo and Barry would walk to the makeshift mosque together, Adi said. "His mother often went to the church, but Barry was Muslim. He went to the mosque," Adi said.
(7) Muslim clothing: Adi recalls about Obama, "I remember him wearing a sarong." Likewise,Maraniss found not only that "His classmates recalled that Barry wore a sarong" but written exchanges indicating that he continued to wear this garment in the United States. This fact has religious implications because, in Indonesian culture, only Muslims wear sarongs.
(8) Piety: Obama says that in Indonesia, he "didn't practice [Islam]," an assertion that inadvertently acknowledges his Muslim identity by implying he was a non-observant Muslim. But several of those who knew him contradict this recollection. Rony Amir describes Obama as "previously quite religious in Islam." A former teacher, Tine Hahiyary, quoted in the Kaltim Post, says the future president took part in advanced Islamic religious lessons: "I remember that he had studied mengaji." In the context of Southeast Asian Islam, mengaji Quran means to recite the Koran in Arabic, a difficult task denoting advanced study.
In summary, the record points to Obama having been born a Muslim to a non-practicing Muslim father and having lived for four years in a fully Muslim milieu under the auspices of his Muslim Indonesian stepfather. For these reasons, those who knew Obama in Indonesia considered him a Muslim.
"My Muslim Faith"
In addition, several statements by Obama in recent years point to his Muslim childhood.
(1) Robert Gibbs, campaign communications director for Obama's first presidential race, asserted inJan. 2007: "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago." But he backtracked in Mar. 2007, asserting that "Obama has never been a practicing Muslim." By focusing on the practice as a child, the campaign is raising a non-issue for Muslims (like Jews) do not consider practice central to religious identity. Gibbs added, according to a paraphrase by Watson, that "as a child, Obama had spent time in the neighborhood's Islamic center." Clearly, "the neighborhood's Islamic center" is a euphemism for "mosque"; spending time there again points to Obama's being a Muslim.
(2) He may have made faces and horsed around in Koran class but Obama learned how to pray thesalat in religion class; his former teacher at Besuki, Effendi, recalls that he would "join the other pupils for Muslim prayers." Praying the salat in of itself made Obama a Muslim. Furthermore, he still proudly retains knowledge from that long-ago class: in March 2007, Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times, witnessed as Obama "recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them [to Kristof] with a first-rate accent." Obama recited not the salat itself but the adhan, the call to prayer (typically chanted from minarets). The second and third lines of the adhan constitute the Islamic declaration of faith, the shahada, whose very utterance makes one a Muslim. The full adhanin its Sunni iteration (skipping the repetitions) goes as follows:
God is the greatest. I testify that there is no deity but God. I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of God. Come to prayer. Come to success. God is the greatest. There is no deity except God.
In the eyes of Muslims, reciting the adhan in class in 1970 made Obama a Muslim then – and doing so again for a journalist in 2007 once again made Obama a Muslim.
(3) In a conversation with George Stephanopoulos in September 2008, Obama spoke of "my Muslim faith," only changing that to "my Christian faith" after Stephanopoulos interrupted and corrected him. No one could blurt out "my Muslim faith" unless some basis existed for such a mistake.
(4) When addressing Muslim audiences, Obama uses specifically Muslim phrases that recall his Muslim identity. He addressed audiences both in Cairo (in June 2009) and Jakarta (in Nov. 2010) with "as-salaamu alaykum," a greeting that he, who went to Koran class, knows is reserved for one Muslim addressing another. In Cairo, he also deployed several other pious terms that signal to Muslims he is one of them:
"the Holy Koran" (a term mentioned five times): an exact translation from the standard Arabic reference to the Islamic scripture, al-Qur'an al-Karim.
"the right path": a translation of the Arabic as-sirat al-mustaqim, which Muslims ask God to guide them along each time they pray.
"I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed": non-Muslims do not refer to Islam as revealed.
"the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed … joined in prayer": this Koranic tale of a night journey establishes the leadership of Muhammad over all other holy figures, including Jesus.
"Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them": a translation of the Arabic 'alayhim as-salam, which pious Muslim say after mentioning the names of dead prophets other than Muhammad. (A different salutation, sall Allahu alayhi wa-sallam, "May God honor him and grant him peace," properly follows Muhammad's name, but this phrase is almost never said in English.)
Obama speaking about Islam in Cairo in June 2009.
Obama's saying "Peace be upon them" has other implications beyond being a purely Islamic turn of phrase never employed by Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians. First, it contradicts what a self-professed Christian believes because it implies that Jesus, like Moses and Muhammad, is dead; Christian theology holds him to have been resurrected, living, and the immortal Son of God. Second, including Muhammad in this blessing implies reverence for him, something as outlandish as a Jew talking about Jesus Christ. Third, a Christian would more naturally seek peace from Jesus rather than wish peace on him.
(5) Obama's overblown and inaccurate description of Islam in the United States smacks of an Islamist mentality. He drastically overestimates both the number and the role of Muslims in the United States, announcing in June 2009 that "if you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." (Hardly: according to one listing of Muslim populations, the United States, with about 2.5 million Muslims, ranks about 47th largest.) Three days later, he gave a bloated estimate of "nearly 7 million American Muslims in our country today" and bizarrely announced that "Islam has always been a part of America's story. … since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States." Obama also announced the dubious fact, inApr. 2009, that many Americans "have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country." When ordering religious communities in the United States, Obama always gives first place to Christians but second place varies between Jews and Muslims, most notably in his Jan. 2009inaugural speech: "The United States is a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers." Obama so wildly overestimates the Muslim role in American life that they suggest an Islamic supremacist mentality specific to someone coming from a Muslim background.
In the aggregate, these statements confirm the evidence from Obama's childhood that he was born and raised a Muslim.
"My Whole Family Was Muslim"
Several individuals who know Obama well perceive him as Muslim. Most remarkably, his half-sister,Maya Soetoro-Ng, has stated: "My whole family was Muslim." Her whole family, obviously, includes her half-brother Barack.
In June 2006, Obama related how, after a long religious evolution, he "was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith" with an altar call. But when his pastor at Trinity United, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was asked (by Edward Klein, The Amateur, p. 40), "Did you convert Obama from Islam to Christianity?" Whether out of ignorance or discretion, Wright finessed the question, replying enigmatically: "That's hard to tell." Note his not rejecting out of hand the idea that Obama had been a Muslim.
Barack's 30-year-old half-brother who met him twice, George Hussein Onyango Obama, told an interviewer in March 2009 that "He may be behaving differently due to the position he is in, but on the inside Barack Obama is Muslim."
"His Middle Name Is Hussein"
Muslims cannot shake the sense that, under his proclaimed Christian identity, Obama truly is one of them.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the prime minister of Turkey, has referred to Hussein as a "Muslim" name. Muslim discussions of Obama sometimes mention his middle name as a code, with no further comment needed. A conversation in Beirut, quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, captures the puzzlement. "He has to be good for Arabs because he is a Muslim," observed a grocer. "He's not a Muslim, he's a Christian," replied a customer. No, said the grocer, "He can't be a Christian. His middle name is Hussein." The name is proof positive.
Despite knowing better, Asma Gull Hasan "can't seem to accept that Obama is not Muslim."
The American Muslim writerAsma Gull Hasanwrote in "My Muslim President Obama,"
I know President Obama is not Muslim, but I am tempted nevertheless to think that he is, as are most Muslims I know. In a very unscientific oral poll, ranging from family members to Muslim acquaintances, many of us feel … that we have our first American Muslim president in Barack Hussein Obama. … since Election Day, I have been part of more and more conversations with Muslims in which it was either offhandedly agreed that Obama is Muslim or enthusiastically blurted out. In commenting on our new president, "I have to support my fellow Muslim brother," would slip out of my mouth before I had a chance to think twice. "Well, I know he's not really Muslim," I would quickly add. But if the person I was talking to was Muslim, they would say, "yes he is."
By way of explanation, Hasan mentions Obama's middle name. She concludes: "Most of the Muslims I know (me included) can't seem to accept that Obama is not Muslim."
If Muslims get these vibes, not surprisingly, so does the American public. Five polls in 2008-09 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Pressasking "Do you happen to know what Barack Obama's religion is?" found a consistent 11-12 percent of registered American voters averring that he's really a Muslim, with much larger percentages among Republicans and Evangelicals. This number increased to 18 percent in an Aug. 2010 Pew survey. AMarch 2012 poll found about half the likely Republican voters in both Alabama and Mississippi seeing Obama as a Muslim. Pew's June-July 2012 survey found that 17 percent saying Obama is a Muslim and 31 percent not knowing his religion, with just 49 percent identifying him as a Christian. This points to an even split between those who say Obama is a Christian and those who do not.
That those who see him as Muslim also overwhelmingly disapprove of his job performance points to a correlation in their minds between Muslim identity and a failed presidency. That such a substantial portion of the public persists in this view points to a bedrock of reluctance to take Obama at his word about being a Christian. This in turn reflects the widespread sense that Obama has played fast and loose with his biography.
"He Was Interested in Islam"
While attending school in Indonesia, Obama famously attended Koranic class; less known, as he recalled in Mar. 2004, was his "studying the Bible and catechisms" at the Asisi school. As each of these classes were intended just for believers, attending both was irregular. Several of his former teachers there confirm Obama's recollection. Here are three of them on this topic:
Obama's first-grade teacher at Asisi, Israella Dharmawan, recalled to Watson of the Los Angeles Times: "At that time, Barry was also praying in a Catholic way, but Barry was Muslim. … He was registered as a Muslim because his father, Lolo Soetoro, was Muslim."
Obama's former third-grade teacher at Besuki, Effendi, told Anne Barrowclough of the Times(London), that the school had pupils of many faiths and recalled how students attended classes on their own faiths – except for Obama, who alone insisted on attending both Christian and Islamic classes. He did so even against the wishes of his Christian mother: "His mother did not like him learning Islam, although his father was a Muslim. Sometimes she came to the school; she was angry with the religious teacher and said 'Why did you teach him the Koran?' But he kept going to the classes because he was interested in Islam."
An administrator at Besuki, Akhmad Solikhin, expressed (to an Indonesian newspaper, theKaltim Post, Jan. 27, 2007, translation provided by "An American Expat in Southeast Asia," quote edited for clarity) bafflement at Obama's religion: "He indeed was registered as Muslim, but he claims to be Christian."
This double religiosity, admittedly, is being discussed at a time when Obama is an international personality and when the nature of his religious affiliation had taken on political overtones; still, that three figures from his Indonesian past independently made this same point is striking and points to the complexity of Barack Obama's personal development. They also raise the inconclusive but intriguing possibility that Obama, even at the tender age of six through ten, sought to combine his maternal and paternal religions into a personal syncretic whole, presenting himself as both Christian and Muslim. In subtle ways, he still does just that.
Discovering the Truth
In conclusion, available evidence suggests that Obama was born and raised a Muslim and retained a Muslim identity until his late 20s. Child to a line of Muslim males, given a Muslim name, registered as a Muslim in two Indonesian schools, he read Koran in religion class, still recites the Islamic declaration of faith, and speaks to Muslim audiences like a fellow believer. Between his non-practicing Muslim father, his Muslim stepfather, and his four years of living in a Muslim milieu, he was both seen by others and saw himself as a Muslim.
This is not to say that he was a practicing Muslim or that he remains a Muslim today, much less an Islamist, nor that his Muslim background significantly influences his political outlook (which, in fact, is typical of an American leftist). Nor is there a problem about his converting from Islam to Christianity. The issue is Obama's having specifically and repeatedly lied about his Muslim identity. More than any other single deception, Obama's treatment of his own religious background exposes his moral failings.
Questions about Obama's Truthfulness
Yet, these failings remain largely unknown to the American electorate. Consider the contrast of his case and that of James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces. Both Frey and Obama wrote inaccurate memoirs that Oprah Winfrey endorsed and rose to #1 on the non-fiction bestseller list. When Frey's literary deceptions about his own drug taking and criminality became apparent, Winfrey tore viciously into him, a library reclassified his book as fiction, and the publisher offered a refund to customers who felt deceived.
In contrast, Obama's falsehoods are blithely excused; Arnold Rampersad, professor of English at Stanford University who teaches autobiography, admiringly called Dreams "so full of clever tricks—inventions for literary effect—that I was taken aback, even astonished. But make no mistake, these are simply the tricks that art trades in, and out of these tricks is supposed to come our realization of truth." Gerald Early, professor of English literature and African-American studies at Washington University in St. Louis, goes further: "It really doesn't matter if he made up stuff. … I don't think it much matters whether Barack Obama has told the absolute truth in Dreams From My Father. What's important is how he wanted to construct his life."
How odd that a lowlife's story about his sordid activities inspires high moral standards while the U.S. president's autobiography gets a pass. Tricky Dick, move over for Bogus Barry.
Sep. 14, 2012 update: A few notes on what I did not include in the above analysis:
Anything that does not specifically point to Obama having been a Muslim: This includes his first name and his turning NASA into a feel-good organization for Muslims.
Anything speculative and not grounded in certain fact: This includes the question of what he did during his college-age travels to Pakistan and the possibility that Obama's converting to Christianity would inspire Islamists to try to execute him. (While there has been no indication of this during his 3½ years in office, it is also true that the Secret Service that protects him may well have decided that prudence requires that these threats not be publicized.) Taqiya (Arabic for sanctioned dissimulation) and the idea that Obama is even today a Muslim is not knowable by me; I therefore accept that Obama is currently a Christian. Obama's paternity raises many questions: Jack Cashill and Joel Gilbert postulate, notably in the latter's video, Dreams from My Real Father, that Frank Marshall Davis (1905-1987), a Communist Party USA leader in Chicago and Hawaii, seduced Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, impregnated her, and is Barack's biological father. (If true, this throws Barack's been born a Muslim in doubt.)
Contradictory, inconsistent, or confused information: Research decades later into an undistinguished family unearths unsure memories. The Indonesian interlude, in particular, is replete with these. Two examples: (1) Haroon Siddiqui of the Toronto Star reports that "Tine Hahiyari, a retired teacher – who told Los Angeles Times correspondent Paul Watson that Obama was registered as a Muslim – tells my interpreter that she can no longer recall what he was." (2) Zulfin Adi, an Indonesia friend of Obama's, is quoted (in London's Daily Telegraph) as saying, "I've asked all the neighbours whether they saw him [Obama] pray at the mosque and the answer is no, but he played around the mosque." Also, Jason Kissner notes that when exactly Obama walked "down the aisle" and became a Christian at the hands of the Rev. Wright is unclear because of "two completely contradictory accounts" regarding its time frame; the best he can conclude is that the conversion took place sometime between 1987 and the early 1990s.
The religious views of Obama's parents: Barack's father, Obama Sr. may have been a "confirmed atheist" but he thought like a Muslim, David Maraniss (p. 163) reports: "As for having a wife in Kenya, Obama [Sr.] told his student advisor that 'all that is necessary to be divorced is to tell the wife that she is divorced and that constitutes a legal divorce'." As for his mother, although she married two Muslims, Ann Dunham seems not to have cared much for Islam. Hinted at by materials in my article, this is seemingly implied by her daughter, Maya Soetoro-Ng, in an interview: Q: "Your mom has been described as an atheist." Soetoro-Ng: "I wouldn't have called her an atheist. She was an agnostic. She basically gave us all the good books — the Bible, the Hindu Upanishads and the Buddhist scripture, the Tao Te Ching — and wanted us to recognize that everyone has something beautiful to contribute." Q: "You didn't mention the Koran in that list, although Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world." Soetoro-Ng: "I should have mentioned the Koran. Mom didn't really emphasize the Koran, but we read little parts of it. We did listen to morning prayers in Indonesia."
Obama's apologetics: To combat the perception of his being a Muslim, Obama emphasizes his Christian identity. In Aug. 2009, for example, he spoke of "fasting is a concept shared by many faiths - including my own Christian faith" and in Nov. 2010 he referred to his having gone to a mosque as "a Christian visiting a mosque." He blames the perception of him as a Muslim not on himself but on conservatives; referring to white males, he told labor leaders in a Dec. 2010private meeting, according to David Corn that, "Fed by Fox News, they hear Obama is a Muslim 24/7, and it begins to seep in."
Obama Jr. says his quest for the presidency was "inspired" by his "love of the country [Africa] that allowed his father to triumph against astonishing odds."
Obama Jr's father was born a member of the Luo tribe in Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya. Senior's Luo father (Obama Jr's grandfather), Hussein Onyango Obama, was a prominent and wealthy farmer who converted from Christianity to Islam.
In Obama Jr's book, Dreams From My Father, his step-grandmother Sarah Obama traces his male ancestral line in Africa back 12 generations. Obama Jr. has at least one great and revered Luo leader on the African side of his ancestry.
One of Obama Jr's great grandfathers (several generations back), "Owiny" was said to be a powerful leader of the Luo tribe, which moved into Kenya some 400 years ago.
Sarah Obama, a devout Muslim, was quoted telling Obama Jr. "What your grandfather respected was strength. Discipline. This is also why he rejected the Christian religion, I think. For a brief time he converted [to Christianity], and even changed his name to Johnson. But he could not understand such ideas as mercy towards your enemies, or that this man Jesus could wash away a man's sins. To your grandfather, this was a foolish sentiment, something to comfort women. And so he converted to Islam-he thought its practices conformed more closely to his beliefs."
Obama Jr's grandfather, for whom he was given the middle name, Hussein, was "fiercely devoted to Islam."
He had at least 3 wives: Helima, who had no children, Akuma who gave birth to Sarah Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. and Auma Obama. The third wife was Sarah, who Obama Jr. refers to as his "grandmother." Sarah became the primary care giver for Senior after his mother, Akuma, left the family when her children were still young.
At 18, Obama Jr's father, Barack Obama Sr. (Senior), married a girl called Kezia from a local village.
Four years later (1957) Obama Sr., because of his father's wealth and influence, was awarded an American sponsored scholarship in economics to the University of Hawaii. The presumption was that Obama Sr. would return to Africa and use his "Western-honed skills in a new Kenya." At the age of 23, Obama Sr. left behind his pregnant wife Kezia and their children to become the first African student enrolled at the University of Hawaii.
Obama Sr's other wives
While still married to Kezia, Obama Sr. married fellow University of Hawaii student Anna Dunham, an 18 year old white anthropology major. Anna gave birth to a son on August 4th, 1961 in Honolulu. Obama Sr., a Muslim, chose the Muslim Koranic name, Barack Hussein Obama, for his son. The middle name "Hussein" to honor Muslim grandfather Hussein Onyango Obama.
Two years later, Obama Sr. abandoned Anna and Obama Jr. for a scholarship to pursue a PhD program in economics at Harvard University.
In June 1964, Obama Sr. returned to Kenya to work for the Jomo Kenyatta administration. Soon after, he married another white woman, his third wife, an American-born teacher called Ruth, who he met at Harvard. She followed him back home to Africa and conceived 2 children by him. He fathered 2 more children by Kezia.
Anna divorced Obama Sr. when Obama Jr. was 6 to marry Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim. Soetoro moved his new family to Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim country. Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro was born in Indonesia.
Obama Senior died in 1982, the result of an alcohol-related car accident (his second) in Kenya. He left behind three wives, one mistress, six sons and a daughter -- also a possible eighth child by a mistress. Although Obama Jr. claims Senior was an atheist, Senior was buried as a Muslim. Obama Jr's mother, Anna, died of cancer a few months after the publication of his 1995 memoir.
Polygamists and radical Muslims who hate Christianity because its ideas are "weak" (Nietzsche and Hitler would have agreed). What a disgusting family tree. Not something I would want to remember were that my family.
