Byron York:
As Obama said, his grandfather was a Muslim. His father was raised a Muslim before becoming, by Obama’s account, “a confirmed atheist.” Obama’s stepfather was a Muslim. His half-sister Maya told the New York Times that her “whole family was Muslim.”
Obama spent two years in a Muslim school in Indonesia and later, in a conversation with the Times’ Nicholas Kristof, described the Arabic call to prayer, the beginning of which he recited by heart, as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.” Given all that, it is entirely accurate and fair to describe Obama as having Muslim roots.
Some might go even further, when their guard is down for a moment.
What does it matter?
Do you value the US as a secular nation?
So what’s your point? Better, yet, who cares.
Well, he got one thing right. The Moslem call to prayer is one of the prettiest sounds I can think of.
“Who cares?”
Well, a lot of Lib/left people seem to care a great deal about Stephen Harper’s religious affiliations, no?
What does it matter ?…and who cares?
Wowzers!!!!!!
From every corner of the media today, the attitude seems the same..’who cares’?
It will mean a great deal when all the facts are known. One hopes it is not too late when we do know what we already suspect. About a lot of things.
No one values the US as a secular nation. The founding of the nation is important and the manner in which it was founded. There are millions of Americans who appreciate that and are prepared to fight to bring the great ship of state aright, so off course she has been these many decades.
He’s not a Muslim. Furthermore, so what if he was/is?
We look silly when this nonsense is pressed. We’ve got better/useful/accurate/actual bad things to question him on, not this chickensh*t.
Yeah, exactly…. why should anyone care. His religious beliefs are his business. We should be concerned about what he DOES, not what somebody thinks his ‘religion’ might be.
This ‘religion’ issue does explain why there are so many problems in America today. Way too many people are myopically focused on inconsequential personal issues, while completely missing what’s really important.
Moslems have fought Moslems, viciously and violently, as for example a couple of years ago in Gaza.
And the strife between Sunni and Shia is endemic.
There is no reason, in principle, why a Moslem president of the United States
could not lead his country against a Moslem power. Christians have often fought Christians, after all.
However, there is in Obama’s attitude toward religion a sense of duplicity.
It would be much more sensible, and would relieve the sense of double-dealing and treachery that Obama gives,
if he were to say, “Yes, I am a Moslem. I pray to God fives times a day. God willing,
I shall lead us all against the scourge of fundamentalist and violent Islam.”
To the comment,
“What does it matter?
Do you value the US as a secular nation?”
I would say that it matters because the US is a
great secular nation.
He’s not a Muslim. Furthermore, so what if he was/is?
We look silly when this nonsense is pressed. We’ve got better/useful/accurate/actual bad things to question him on, not this chickensh*t.
Posted by: Dante at August 23, 2010 12:26 AM
So Dante…..when your daughter is subjugated to Sharia law,and stoned to death for “dating” an infidel,you will call it chickenshit?
The only chickenshit here is you.Islam is NOT a religion,but a political way to attempt to gain world governace.Funny how when the Commies went down,it all of a sudden became Islam.Same Godless b’tards,same useful idiots following them.
The ME should stand for one thing…multi explosives,NOW.
(Sorry for feeding the troll,Kate et.al)
Funny that those who find his muslim roots so uninteresting even though Islam has always been a potent merger of politics and religion, do not extend that disinterest to the beliefs of those nonmuslims who have been designated as enemies of secular humanism and all its great works.
The point of whether he’s Muslim or not lays on his credibility and deceitfulness. As is whether he’s gay or a CIA operative as some conspiracy people allege.
The point is – No one knows who this guy is really, full stop.
That is a very dangerous person to have in charge of “the most powerful nation in history”.
Can he or is he being blackmailed and compromised?
Where is his birth certificate and what POTUS would spend over one million dollars of his own wealth to supress that information?
It is indeed important to find out whether Barry Soetoro is a Muslim or not!
I don’t know of any islamists that don’t allow their religion to taint their political or cultural views. They may exist, but from all I’ve seen of people that have been raised or exposed (yes, I’m saying “exposed” to the religion of islam) they all turn into something that you wouldn’t really want to have leading a friendly country like the USA. That may have quite a bit to do with him hiding his past life, and all that entails.
They seem to be unable to separate their religious views from their political views. While it isn’t a problem for normal religions, that is, religions that seek to bring you closer to God or closer to a spiritual well being, it does present a problem with islam, as its underlying proposition appears to lust solely for world domination and control of its adherents.
*Have the “normal” muslims been told that B.Hussien was a muslim while he was residing in Indonesia, and now appears to be an apostate? I’m just asking.
*Does B. Hussien have “SoA” (soldier of allah) on his business card like the Fort Hood Dr. that murdered 13 and wounded another 32? Can someone check before the shit storm starts?
Frank gafferty On Hugh Hewitt stated that obamas support for the mosque is a clarifying moment as it will be seen as the event where Obama publically embraced sharia. Meanwhile repubs led by newt are taking the battle to stealth sharia.
The vast majority of Americans are and will side with the GOP on this issue and it could precipitate and epic rout in November AND 2012.
Justthinkin:
You are so right….people who think that Muslims in general are peacefull people have their heads up their ass!
Just Google the website “Religion Of Peace”…they are keeping score!
As the speech by Bill Whittle says on the SDA blog, we had better wake up…FAST!
At this time the last thing the Americans need is a possible closet Muslim as their President.
Justthinkin and Sgt. Lajaune say it well.
“He’s not a Muslim. Furthermore, what if he was/is?”
The point is that *Obama* covered up his Muslim upbringing, just as he’s covered up a lot of other things that may or may not matter, depending on your point of view. During the campaign he released ‘fact sheets’ on his website saying he’s “never been a Muslim or practiced any other faith” – “I’ve always been a Christian. The only connection I’ve had to Islam is that my grandfather on my father’s side came from that country…”
He outright *lied* about a whole range of factual, check-able information, including the fact that he was registered as a Muslim at both schools he attended in Indonesia back during a time when it was entirely viable and not a problem to check off any other religion.
It’s interesting that the Washington Examiner’s Byron York’s matter-of-fact, undeniable statement “it’s accurate and fair to describe Obama as having Muslim roots” should evoke so many variants of “who cares” in light of the fact that Obama himself apparently cares enough to lie about it during a Presidential campaign and afterwards.
I’m curious: are the commenters who say “who cares?” and that it doesn’t matter suggesting that an American President’s Muslim upbringing couldn’t possibly affect his foreign policy actions as President? If so, make the case; I’ve certainly never heard or read anyone who suggested that George Bush’s faith had no effect on his worldview. Why is it all of a sudden a complete non-issue that Obama has Muslim roots?
There’s an inherent contradiction in the notion that the matter of his Muslims roots – to whatever extent – is simultaneously a smear and a “who cares” issue.
Suppose a particular Presidential candidate went to great lengths, for whatever reason, to cover up and deny his Catholic upbringing, and a reporter wrote:
Would that factual statement be proscribed and treated as a self-evident smear? Or might it merely be seen as a correction of the particular candidate’s record of lying to the public about the matter?
After Canada’s left/hard left spinning Harper’s regular church attendance and that of Reform/Alliance leaders/candidates into a “hidden agenda”, it is certainly disingenuous to declare that religion is a never-ya-mind when it targets a leftist leader—even a sitting POTUS.
One of the inconvenient details that did slip through the filter is that OILBAMA attended Occidental in California with a Federal Scholarship for foreign nationals and that he was registered as Barry Soetoro, Indonesian, muslim.
This can not be dismissed as a childhood experience/environment…..this was a young ADULT in post-secondary school…….
What other inconvenient, embarrassing, little details are suppressed?
This is not trivial…..These matters are of signal importance….due to the prospect that the POTUS could be subject to blackmail etc.
You can play “What If” games till hell freezes over and it won’t make a damn bit of difference. The fact remains that America is screwed because of choices Americans made and only Americans can get themselves out of the mess they’re in. Scapegoating it on the POTUS is a popular pastime that’s been going on in every administration. Blame games are simply avoiding personal responsibility and nothing more than a means of delaying the inevitable.
Stop buying cheap import crap that sends your dollars and jobs overseas. Think locally, support your neighbors, become self reliant again. Emulate the Founding Fathers, and take back the country they were willing to die for. Take charge of your lives and turn the country around, it’s up to you.
“So Dante…..when your daughter is subjugated to Sharia law,and stoned to death for “dating” an infidel,you will call it chickenshit?”
So Justthinkin…does that mean your son is surely doomed to be sexually molested should the president be a Catholic?
“Well, a lot of Lib/left people seem to care a great deal about Stephen Harper’s religious affiliations, no? ”
And they shouldn’t. It’s only a problem when a politician makes governing decisions based on his religious beliefs. An instance where this may be the case with Stephen Harper is the following. He has ignored all reason and fact in regards to crime and drug policy in his attempts to implement mandatory minimums for minor drug offenses. This leaves one wondering if his religion isn’t the decisive factor, since his governing actions follow the guidelines of his religion rather than reason.
I’ll leave it to you to find an example of Obama doing something similar. Obama really hasn’t done much period, so good luck.
“The point is that *Obama* covered up his Muslim upbringing, just as he’s covered up a lot of other things that may or may not matter, depending on your point of view.”
Is this anything new or unique in the realm of politics? Being politically presentable despite the truth?
If Israel decides to take out the Iranian nuclear plant, then we’ll quickly find out what religion our boy Barry is following.
Some people want to bend over backwards to be tolerant and secular at just the wrong time here, having a lying secret Muslim president would be more of a disaster than America has experienced so far.
I also just don’t get this growing concept that it really doesn’t matter “that much” if he was born in Hawaii or Kenya. It matters a lot and should be instant grounds for impeachment if he lied about that. The death of dear old granny on election night sounds really suspicious in the context of other facts.
I’ll betcha Hillary and Bill know the facts and perhaps have done since about, oh, September 08 when the blackmail began.
@ BTJ.
“”So Dante…..when your daughter is subjugated to Sharia law,and stoned to death for “dating” an infidel,you will call it chickenshit?”
So Justthinkin…does that mean your son is surely doomed to be sexually molested should the president be a Catholic?”
So BTJ…are you just playing stupid? His son would stand a much better chance of being sexually molested under sharia law.
“I’ll leave it to you to find an example of Obama doing something similar. Obama really hasn’t done much period, so good luck.”
Really? I think most people who visit this site might disagree. Or at worst, know better. Obama has done more than enough.
“Is this anything new or unique in the realm of politics? Being politically presentable despite the truth?”
If you don’t consider a communist/muslim President of the United States of America as new or unique, you troll here to spite the truth.
I have to agree with the 2 comments from John Galt above.
“So BTJ…are you just playing stupid? His son would stand a much better chance of being sexually molested under sharia law.”
Wow…you clearly didn’t get the point of my comment.
” Obama has done more than enough.”
Ok, what has he done? Other than stick to the same path that his predecessors laid out?
“If you don’t consider a communist/muslim President of the United States of America as new or unique.”
Haha…now he’s a communist? We’re finished here friend, I’m done debating with this level of ridiculousness.
Btj. Small and silly.
BJT is a troll that comes out from under the bridge anytime he smells words like Muslim or Islam.
Ignore it, most likely a Muslim troll. The going in circle “arguments” and forever “explain yourself” requests without any self clarifications make for easy dismissals. It’s a rigged game not worth playing.
Like it or not Mitt Romney is not president of the United States today because he is a Mormon (and may again not get the nomination as Republican candidate). So why shouldn’t Obama have taken his lumps in the primaries and election if he is really Muslim?
For sure if he for various reasons was not born an American then he could be impeached.
If, I said if, he is a a Muslim then it means he lied about one of the most personal things in humanity, his beliefs about religon.
If he is a Muslim and admitted that when he ran the first time then I it is pretty clear he would have lost. He likely would have lost to Hillary.
I dont think he is, I think his roots give him a soft spot/blind spot for Islamism, no different than a Catholic probably cuts the RC church. In his case, I think it is a confluence of family members being that religon (hence the unwillingness to demonize) and his own political philosophy assigning protected status to an American minority and sympathizing with the alleged victim status of Islam worldwide.
I dont think he is a muslim. I think he is sympathetic, but I think he is blind to the more nefarious characters that are promoting islamic supremicism…not assigning any weight to the religous underpinnings of their philosophy, he dismisses it. His experience with Islam is likely pretty moderate, as would almost any Moslems in Indonesia in the 60;s and early 70’s.
That Obama can be deceived by people speaking well meaning words and cloaking themselves in anti Western victimhood doesnt surprise me at all. But that makes him indistinguishable from any one of a number of left leaning politicians, journalists and religous leaders.
For those who say who cares if the President is a practicing Muslim and that the US is a secular society make their own argument invalid. For the leader of a Western society to be a Muslim is a conflict of interest. The beliefs and current practice of Islam is incompatible with current beliefs and practices of a western society. Islam does not value women nor does it value many other practices and cultural norms that are the hallmarks and defining characteristics of a modern western society. The last 20 years have proven that. The religious beiefs of our forefathers, mostly Christian, allowed them to accept a secular society, allowed them to accept that women are equal and have allowed them to accept that the rule of law is paramount and that only the state can decide who should live and who should die, not some archaic sense of honour which actually translates into slavery or the murder of women. Islam as it is currently preached and practiced is not compatible and cannot accept what we have built as a culture and a society. So how can it be OK that our leader does not believe in the very values he is suppose to defend?
The u.s. as far as i can see is a hugley populated christian nation so to have a muslim or anyone else run it seems suicidal for christians .
Paul in calgary
It matters because the Great Communicator can’t convince people of what he is or isn’t anymore.
People are on to His Slickness, how he uses sweet talk and a measured pace to speak much and say little.
They are also on to his real political ways and the fact that he is killing the American economy.
Jimmy Carter is so relieved Obozo got elected.
In the 19th century, some of the more vociferous critics of Benjamin Disraeli regularly referred to him as “The Jew”. Disraeli’s father was a Jew, although his son was brought up as a Christian. To be sure, Victorian anti-semitism played a part in the reaction to Disraeli, but part of it stemmed from objections to his foreign policy, which seemed to favour accommodation with Turkey at the expense of oppressed Christians in the European parts of the Ottoman Empire.
Disraeli’s religion (or, more properly, his cultural “attachments” became important only in the context of his policies.
York’s statement was modest, straightforward and accurate. What’s notable about his (utterly true) statement “it’s…accurate and fair to describe Obama as having Muslim roots” is that, while it IS accurate and fair, it’s an assessment that, if we’re to be honest, has not been overtly *uttered* or *written* in mainstream assessments of Obama, certainly not in mainstream news coverage. Based on some of the comments here, I can understand why: the floral-scented gift baskets of received wisdom that too many people almost subconsciously absorb, and then promulgate, instruct didactically that it would be somehow “rude” or “beside the point” or “irrelevant” to mention his Muslim roots; it would be small of us to even refer to them, apparently. I suggest that a US president’s Muslim roots may be neither irrelevant or beside the point when it comes to the matter of his foreign policy approach, for example, including towards Israel.
As for BTJ (and his ilk on both sides – apparently – of the political spectrum) I could take his comments more seriously if he was on the record (i.e. in comments, either here or elsewhere) as saying that George Bush’s, or Stephen Harper’s, or “the Right’s” religious beliefs were utterly irrelevant to their manifest world view as it pertains to politics, including foreign policy.
I don’t think that Obama, psychologically, has any religious affiliation. He’s focused only on himself as Himself.
BUT – he has emotional ties to two ‘religions’. His first tie is to Islam and he has himself admitted it – defining the call to prayer as ‘the prettiest sound’. He was raised Muslim at a formative time of his life, around the same time, I suggest, as he moved into pathological narcissism.
We can see the results of this connection in his refusal to acknowledge the reality of Islamic fascism, his refusal to accept the reality of the ‘war on terror’, his refusal to acknowledge terrorist attacks on US soil as ‘jihadist’, his attempt to turn NASA into a ‘Muslim outreach’ program, his refusal to confront the Islamic nations (eg, Iran and its nuclear bomb), his apology to the Islamic nations for ‘the pre-Obama America’, his absurd statements to Islamists that Islam is a religion promoting ‘peace, tolerance, justice and human dignity’ and his statement about the ‘exceptional contributions by Muslims to the USA’.
So, Obama’s emotional connections to Islam, whatever his religious filiation, are strong and warm.
By the way, Islam is less a religion (it has little to say about the metaphysical) and essentially a 7th c political and societal system of total subjugation of all. Cloaking that system in the guise of a ‘religion’ prevents those axioms from being criticized and turfed as repressive and unjust.
Then, there’s Obama’s other religious filiation. Again, it’s not religious per se but also emotional. That’s Black Liberation Theology, via the Rev Wright’s church of his wife, Michelle. She’s hardcore anti-white and anti-American, and that’s what this church is all about. Obama has followed this ideology. Anti-white and anti-American.
It’s these attributes – his refusal to accept the reality of Islamic fascism and his anti-white and anti-American stance – that is the cause of concern.
That’s the problem,EBD.Harper’s religion,or Bush’s,or Thatcher’s IS touted out as bad and evil by the lefties,yet we can’t mention that Obama was/is a practising Muslim/Islamist.
And Dante….my son,under sharia law,would be the one stoning your daughter,after he and his buddies raped her,then claimed she was at fault.Try to remember this fact….under Islamic law,a woman’s word is only worth 1/4 of a “man’s”.My son was taught to respect both sexes as equal,with both being prone to good and bad,BUT we are still equal.
So tell me,what about Islam so scares the crap out of the followers,that seeing a woman NOT in a burlap sack makes them homicidal rapists that they even kill their own sisters/daughters? Could it be following the rants of a pedophile? Try reading the Koran and hadiths,and see the level of depravity in them. Oh wait. Facts.Or a fact.The lefties favorite four letter word.Facts don’t belong in the world of pixie dust and unicorns.
The inflammatory language is counterproductive, Justthinkin. You’re entitled – always – to make your point, but phrases like “homicidal rapists” and “rants of a pedophile” are entirely beside the (intended) central point of the discussion here, which is that it’s merely accurate and fair – as opposed to being some sort of an (apparently self-evident) outrage, or a smear, or evidence of racism or Islamophobia, or an irrelevancy, or a misdirection – to note Obama’s Muslim roots.
Nothing about this guy is as it seems. As Kate has stated a few times all promises have an expiry date. You want him to be Christian, he’s Christian. You want him to be Muslim well he can be that too.
What he has trouble with is being competent and that is the one that matters. You can dislike his Muslim black side or you can hate his commie Christian white side. One way you are a racist,the other way you are right on. The man gives you choices.
Whenever Harper is accused of being a ‘fundamentalist Christian’, I’ll ask that same question – ‘who cares’?
Dante: “He’s not a Muslim. Furthermore, so what if he was/is?”
First, you don’t know if he is or he isn’t, because he hasn’t been clear about his religious affiliation, which does matter to voters, whether you like it or not. It certainly seems to matter to the MSM when a politician is a practising Christian; they’re especially hard on Evangelicals and Catholics.
Second, the fact that Obama’s religious affiliation has been clouded, that he has not been forthcoming about the details, is of concern to many voters, as others have pointed out. It affects his credibility: By refusing to be transparent, you’re left asking, “what’s he hiding and what else doesn’t he want us to know?”
For instance, where was he born, what were his marks at Harvard, etc., all of which Obama has spent a lot of money to keep under a seal of privacy for the next 23 years.
It appears that Obama’s got a lot to hide; he’s a public figure — as POTUS, the leader of the most powerful country in the world — and does not have the right to withhold facts about his past that are relevant to who he is, to what makes him tick, to how he governs. Given that the U.S.A./Western Civilization is in a life-and-death struggle with the ME and Muslim extremists, how can it possibly be said that “it doesn’t matter” whether Obama is a Muslim or not? That would be like saying that it didn’t matter whether or not Winston Churchill was a Nazi sympathizer during WWII.
As for the “who cares?” and “it doesn’t matter” drones: That’s the new default of the historically challenged these days who’ve drunk the MSM/entertain-me-to-death Kool-Aid. When faced with a fact they don’t like, their immediate response is, shrug, whatever, who cares? …
Obama and his puppet masters are counting on this historical amnesia. In addition to his obtuseness, it’s a good cover.
“Then, there’s Obama’s other religious filiation. Again, it’s not religious per se but also emotional. That’s Black Liberation Theology, via the Rev Wright’s church of his wife, Michelle. She’s hardcore anti-white and anti-American, and that’s what this church is all about. Obama has followed this ideology. Anti-white and anti-American.
It’s these attributes – his refusal to accept the reality of Islamic fascism and his anti-white and anti-American stance – that is the cause of concern.”
ET
BINGO! & AMEN!
You beat me to it ET…It’s not really where Barry’s worshipping heart is at thats the concern, its where his heart and convictions are in general. He is afterall, the current leader of the free world.
We might not know to which God he prays and I also believe Obama is not even spiritual enough meaning he would’nt care less if he never did go back to ANY church at all but
one thing thats much clearer and certainly consistant is the fact he seems to despise white America.
My opinion. Obama is not religious in any way. He joined Rev. Wright’s church because, as a community organizer, he used the people at that church and others. If he had worked in Boston, he would have joined a catholic church. If he had worked in San Francisco, he would have been a Vegan Agnostic. The only worship he performs is when he looks in a mirror. If it got him money, power or access to someone, he would perform Aztec rituals at the Lincoln Memorial.
Many politicians don’t let themselves be “known”. There’s always room for backpedaling depending on voter reaction. (Mr. Harper is no exception.) I think many people are uneasy about Mr. Obama because his elusive nature is far more pronounced than what we expect as usual in politicians. His background is murky as are his connections. Perhaps he’s shallow and there simply is nothing to know. Or perhaps he’s naive and fronting for some faceless groups. Or perhaps his interests are inimical to the country he purports to represent. Does he ever speak sincerely about anything? Because he has the gift of delivering teleprompter stuff so convincincly, we are bound to wonder what is the man really like unplugged so to speak? His talk show circuit does nothing to clarify the picture. I think his religion is another aspect of the murkiness that hovers around his presidency. His dismissal of a good number of his citizens as “small town guns and religion” is beyond arrogant, not to mention stupid.
Whatever the man is, Muslim or not, I just don’t think he’s up to the job. Unfortunately, he’s in a position to do a lot of damage.
I beg the moderators indulgence, I don’t usually answer trolls, but really the statement that Obama has not done much is risable! Try a health care that the majority of Americans don’t want and its escalating costs. How about $1.0 trillion in stimulus that was virtually pork barrel waste. The mess of the drilling moratorium and its attendant economic hardship and unemployment. Really this is too easy!
At least all of Barrys supporters, especially those he keeps well fed with food stamps, will be happy to know that he is comfortably enjoying his 9th vacation, since he took office.
1 1/2 years ago how does he find the time to accomplish all that he does?
I just wish he’d get rooted. /Strine
knight 99 – yes, those endless vacations and golf and sports events are quite something.
The Democrats are trying to rebut these valid criticisms of Obama’s endless vacations and parties by relabelling Bush’s going to Camp David and his Crawford ranch as ‘vacations’. No, they weren’t. The two sites were functioning as external White House offices.
Obama is behaving as president much as he behaved as titular president of the Harvard Law Review. He did nothing there; no editing, no writing of articles. He left it all, entirely, up to others. He’d simply appear from time to time, smile and wave and chat – and disappear.
Same with his Community Organizer Role, where he preached (to the converted) and delegated and left.
Same with his brief time in the Senate, where he voted ‘present’ 99% of the time and left the hard work to others.
Now, as President, he’s overseen and allowed the radical left to takeover, to insert a massive ‘stimulus’ that is nothing but pork, and has done nothing for the economy, ram through by bribes and backroom deals and a majority, a deeply unpopular Health Care, allowed unemployment to balloon to over 10 and even 16% in some areas – while promising that his stimulus would keep it below 8.5…ignored the Gulf Oil spill, attacked dissent, attacked Tea Party voices, refused to protect the borders and deal with illegal immigration ..all he ever does is blame Bush or claim racism and fling taxpayer money at any problem…and leave for his golf game.
In foreign affairs, his ignorance of history and reality is mindshaking; he’s insulted our western allies and smooched up to our enemies, supported the anti-constitutional Zelaya, supported the loss of the Falkland Islands to Britain…enabled Iran to get a nuclear weapon, ignored the democracy demonstrations in Iran….and totally ignored Islamic jihadism.
ET you nailed it. I couldn’t have said it better.
It always amazes me that some people cannot see the man for what he is.
The posters here nailed it. It doesn’t matter if he’s Muslim or Christian as much as it didn’t/doesn’t matter what Bush’s or Harper’s religious leanings were/are.
It’s his actions that count.