11 January 2008

Slime


The dirty tricks are only just starting. Now that Bill is out of the race, at least he won't have to deal with them. That is the reason that one of our greatest Americans, Colin Powell, will have nothing to do with electoral politics.

I had hoped to put the whole sordid mess out of my mind, but then the lies started hitting the in-box. This is not even the first time around the block for the slime being thrown against Sen. Obama.

It is interesting. It is coming in equal measures from the Fox News crowd and the awesome Clinton political machine.

It is going to get worse, so stand by and try to avoid getting that stuff all over your shirt.

The smear de jour has its origin more than a year ago, when it appeared Obama might actually run for President. In the earlier version of the attack, the Senator was characterized as a "radical Muslim" who "will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance."

That last bit is patently false, and in fact actually refers to another African-American Congressman, Keith Ellison, who requested (as is his right) to be sworn into office on a copy of the Koran. You don't have to like it, but you should know who you are slandering.

Here is a sample of what is going around, just on the off-chance that you have been in a cave, and missed the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. It is recycled trash; in the digital age nothing ever dies, and I am excited at the prospect of seeing all that old stuff about the cattle futures and Whitewater and the list of the Clinton Dead again. I will not be surprised if the Swift Boat folks come out and attack Hillary's combat record. God Bless the hard drive and mass storage.

The slime bring drooled on Senator Obama goes like this:

“If you do not ever forward anything else, please forward this to all your contacts...this is very scary to think of what lies ahead of us here in our own United States...better heed this and pray about it and share it.

Who is Barack Obama?

Probable U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white ATHEIST from Wichita, Kansas. Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.

When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya . His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia. When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta . He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school." Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that he is not a radical.

Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.

Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world. Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background. ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.

Barack Hussein Obama will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor will he show any reverence for our flag. While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches.

Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy.

The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States, one of their own!!!!”

You may see the version of the smear includes the admonition that it has been checked on “Snopes.com,” the famous urban legend site. If you check, you will find the lies there are thoroughly debunked. No one ever went broke underestimating the laziness of the general public.

The truth is much more mundane. You can dislike the Senator's progressive politics, and you can be nervous about his lack of experience, but here is the truth:

Barack Obama served as an Illinois state senator for a few years, starting in the mid-1990s.

An ambitious young man, he lost a bruising congressional battle with incumbent Democratic Congressman (and former Black Panther) Bobby Rush in Chicago. Although he was trounced, the race made his name familiar in Chicago and raised his profile across the state and nation.

Bobby Rush was incensed at the challenge, saying that he and Obama agreed on 95% of the issues. So there is something worth checking out, if you care about the truth, but that is not what this is about.

After the embarrassing public melt-down of Senator Carol Mosley Brown that concluded in 1998, Republican Peter Fitzgerald was elected as the junior senator from Illinois, the first of his party in 20 years. He had a curious career in the Senate, constantly warring with the conservative leadership. He even attacked his own party's state leadership, insisting on an outside special prosecutor to examine corruption. Republican Governor Ryan indicted, and there were a few dirty tricks played on Fitzgerald, which I will not dignify, since he is smart enough not to be running for anything this year.

With the chickens coming home to roost, he declined to run for re-election in 2004, leaving essentially an open field for Obama. At the last moment, he was opposed by stand-in conservative icon Alan Keyes, imported specially for the occasion, but the outcome was a forgone conclusion.

Fitzgerald thus becomes the only US Senator to have replaced and been replaced by African Americans. Obama was sworn in as a Senator (on a bible) in 2004.

His keynote address before the Democratic National Convention later that year brought him national prominence, and you would have to be tone-deaf not to have heard a Kenyan Kennedy standing at the podium. in a manner of speaking, the beating he received courtesy of Congressman Rush is the key to his possible path to the White House.

The slime going around attempts to paint him as a dangerous, sleeper-agent of radical Islamo-fascism. No evidence supports a claim that Obama is currently, or ever has been, a Muslim, radical or otherwise.

Lies are best concealed with a modicum of truth. His father indeed was brought up in the Islamic faith. He was born in Alego, Kenya, on the coast of majestic Lake Victoria. He met and married Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas, while they were both attending the University of Hawaii.

They named their son Barack Hussein Obama after his birth on 4 August 1961 at the Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, an accomplishment he shares with my younger son, who is also possibly dangerous but no Muslim.

Although the elder Obama was raised in the Islamic tradition, Senator Obama's family history notes that his father was an atheist, or agnostic, by the time he married the Senator's mother.

In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote: “For my mother, organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness.”

“This isn't to say that she provided me with no religious instruction. In her mind, a working knowledge of the world's great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education. In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology.”

The smear claims: “When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia. When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta . He also spent two years in a Catholic school.”

The truth is again more mundane. Barack Obama's parents divorced when he was two, his father moving to Connecticut to continue his education before returning to Kenya. His mother married again, this time to an Indonesian oil executive named Lolo Soetoro,

Barack and his mother moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, where Obama spent four years attending both Muslim and Catholic schools before his mother dispatched him Stateside to live with his Caucasian maternal grandmother.

The claim that Obama is, or was, a Muslim is a lie. The smear campaign asserts that Obama admits "he was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school." Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that he is not a radical.”

Barack Obama has never said anything of the sort. Obama campaign communications director Robert Gibbs noted last year that “As a six-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism," and the Senator has been associated with the United Church of Christ since the mid-1980s. In public life, he has always described himself as a Christian and says that he is "rooted in the Christian tradition."

The claim that Obama attended a radical Wahabbist school in Indonesia is inflammatory, but false. The Saudis, not for lack or trying, did not make a great deal of progress in exporting their virulent version of Islam to Indonesia, and there was little direct influence of Wahhabism on Indonesian reformist thought until the 1970s, or after the time that Obama attended school there.

Most of the lies are based on an Insight magazine article published in January 2007 that claimed Obama “spent at least four years attending what is variously described as a "madrassa," a "radical Muslim religious school," or a "Muslim seminary" in Indonesia.

The claim was debunked by CNN and the AP last year, but of course the lie makes a better story.

The Basuki school in Djakarta, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971, is a place where religion respected but not given preferential treatment. The students are from all faiths, though a majority are Islamic, just as they are in the larger society. The school is co-ed and the boys and girls wear neat uniforms, and the teachers are attired in Western clothing.

Barack Obama joined the United Church of Christ in Chicago a quarter century ago. Since he was first elected to the Illinois state senate in 1996, the worst you can say about him in this regard is that he is a politician.

There is a touching story of personal faith which I find cloying, but it is not relevant to anything except the fact that political enemies are lying about him.

The capper to this particular Dirty Trick is the allegation that Obama will not recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and refuses to show reverence for our Flag. In fact, he did draw criticism over a photograph that shows Bill Richardson, Hillary and another woman with hands on heart and the candidate with his hands clasped in front of him. It is unclear if it is before the anthem has been played or after.

This would not be the only embarrassing picture of politicians; I think my favorite is of former Senate Majority Leader Daschle with the wrong hand over his heart. Or maybe it is the one of the elder President Bush being sick at that Japanese banquet. He wasn't running for anything then, though.

As a retired serviceman, by new federal law, I am permitted to offer the hand salute during the anthem, even if not in uniform, so custom differs. I do remember that I always made sure in formation to look at what people were doing around me so I did not look stupid and out of place.

In the picture, Barak is the first in line, which is always a dangerous place to be since you cannot see what is happening behind you.

The Senator has plenty of evidence of having recited the Pledge and stood, hand-over-heart, in other circumstances.

The latest round of slanders against Senator Obama is nothing but old slime. It is a dirty trick. It is politics.

But as Mark Twain observed, I repeat myself.

Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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