Barack Obama can add the Christian Science Monitor to the Fox News Channel on his list of media outlets “pumping up rumors” about him (ABC News and the New York Times should be there also):
Osama bin Laden must be chuckling in his safe house. After all, the 2008 campaign could very well give Al Qaeda the ultimate propaganda tool: President Barack Hussein Obama, Muslim apostate.
The fact that Senator Obama – the son of a Muslim father – insists he was never a Muslim before becoming Christian is irrelevant to bin Laden. In bin Laden’s eyes, Obama is a murtad fitri, the worst type of apostate, because he was blessed by Allah to be born into the true faith of Islam.
Personally, this would not affect my vote for or against Obama, any more than my vote for or against Hillary Clinton would be influenced by how Muslims in other countries might view a woman president, or my view of some policy would be influenced by how “the Arab street” might react. But it is the sort of story that puts a kink into his new nationwide faith effort to convnce people he is a Christian — which would have been much easier to do had he not stuck with the Black Liberation Theology of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.ÂÂ
If Obama’s campaign wants to make overtly faith-based appeals and send out campaign flyers showing Obama speaking from the pulpit, it will be harder for the campaign to argue that discussion of Obama’s church and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is out of bounds. Of course, this is exactly what the Obama campaign will argue, but that claim is every bit as bogus as the claim that Obama is a practicing Muslim.
Update (6/1/2008): The assertion made by the CSM and Luttwak is a matter of great dispute among Islamic jurists and experts consulted by NYT Public Editor Clark Hoyt.
You know, they really don’t let you read just anything in those “Christian Science Reading Rooms.” It’s funny, but I’ve never actually met a Christian Science follower.
It’s got kind of a flag-lapel-pin feel to it.
One wonders , why ignorant people feel obligated to write articles for a newpapers? So more ignorant ones who will read that be persuaded by the bullshit?
I grew up in the deep south of USSR in the Muslim republic bordering with Afghanistan..
Obama was abandoned by his father which is recognized under Islamic law. He was raised and milkied by his mother who is non-muslim.
Religion is not hereditary in Islam . Islam is not a race. Just because a child has a Muslim father doesn’t mean anything unless the child is being raised as a Muslim.
There are millions of inter-religious marriages where muslim father is one of the parents – in which the children are being raised as non-muslims. I knew plenty. Nobody kills them for being apostates.
Speaking from a pulpit? THEOCRAT!!!!!!!
He was raised and milkied by his mother
I have nipples sosh, could she milky me?
It’s a technical term in Muslim theology, alp, and echoes other Semitic practices. For instance (to oversimplify) you’re a Jew if your mother was. I don’t recall the translation normally used. Consult Muslihoon.
Like any other theological point, there are bound to be Muslims who do not agree and would use the situation precisely as the Monitor suggests.
Regards,
Ric
I’m sticking with the De Niro translation.
“every bit as bogus as the claim that Obama is a practicing Muslim”?
How about as bogus as the claim he’s a Muslim at all? As far as I know, no religious text, theory, tradition, or doctrine overrules our nation’s quaint notion that individuals are able to choose whatever religion they wish. And having bin Laden or some other odious Muslim authority declare Obama an apostate would probably help his campaign, not harm it. But the fact remains: Osama bin Laden types aren’t going to start loving or hating us any more or less if we elect Obama, McCain, Clinton, Paul, Kucinich, or a rabbi named Zionisto Muhammedfucker Eater-of-Palestinian-Orphans Israelrulez!!1!. And since that last guy’s not going to be running in enough states to win the Electoral College, I guess we can just look forward to more of the same from those trogloditic nitwits.
It is racist to discuss Baracky’s religion, unless Baracky is talking about it, at which point, it is racist to question anything he says.
Which is exactly what Karl is suggesting, as well as the writer of the article.
The jihadists have been all about expanding the definitions of faith and adherence to faith. Time will tell whether pragmatism raises its head and having an American President who will be less inclined to inflict long distance damage unto jihadists will trumpt the apostate argument.
Al Qaeda’s overreaching in Iraq has has devastating results for their fighters and their organization. They may be smart enough to let this whole Apostate thing pass and reap the potential benefits, at least as they see them.
sashal
and Spain should not pay attention to the concept of Waqf and jihadists covetous glances at Al-Andalus?
– Whether AQ will make the most of the opportunity or not is up for grabs, since their record of “smart” moves is heavily biased toward the dumbass side of things.
– Whatever the views of Muslims and non-Muslims regarding Baraky’s Muslimness, apparently someone in Washington took the apostate idea seriously enough that they assigned SS protection to him earlier than ever before.
sashal and jon:
I don’t see anyone here claiming that Obama IS a Muslim. It’s being suggested that some Muslims might consider him one.
Yeah, that opinion seems nutty to us, but, you know, guys like bin Laden believe a lot of nutty things.
You fucking racists cannot beat O!bama on the ideas and issues, so you prefer to smear him with this garbage. Way to take the high road, wingers.
But the fact remains: Osama bin Laden types aren’t going to start loving or hating us any more or less if we elect Obama…
And little does Obama himself know that his dhimmi-valiant efforts to create and appease more terrorists will go thankless among his Spiritual Masters.
Another reason for mentioning this is that if you expect to have talks with people of Islamic faith, and say, even 20% of a country sees it the whole heretic way, I’m going to bet that talk isn’t going to happen.
– Exactly SPB. I can remember some of the moonbat arguments early on, when some poor bastard would get snuffed for insulting “his/her” Islamic roots. All the SecProgg bobbleheads would start bouncing up and down defending the Jihadists with claims of “Well he/she should have known better than to insult their heritage.
– In other words, the true believers were so ready to accept the “Omce a Muslim, always a Muslim” POV of their murdering Islamofacist heros then. Now it doesn’t fit so well with their chosen cult leaders possible status, so suddenly its all up for “discussion” and kneejerk denials.
– Welcome to the reality based community, where history starts today.
darleen, what that has to do with the price of tea?
I see some parallels with the 2004 Kerry campaign. All of the shocked and angry reactions to the whole “Swift Boat” uproar seemed contrived as it was Kerry himself who made his Vietnam service a centerpiece of his campaign. Cries of “don’t question my service/patriotism” rang kind of hollow when you were showing up at rallies with your “band of brothers” behind you and the existance of a rather large coterie of vets who thought his whole “winter soldier” routine was at best scurrilous and, at worse, borderline treasonous.
Obama’s people seem to have a concrete mindset that they can control the press narrative as long as the shinier aspects of his campaign resonate with enough of the disaffected electorate. One wonders if this will continue to play out as a consistent back and forth about the “faithier” aspects of his campaign continue to be dogged by direct, targeted questions about the BLT mission statement of his church and his precise views on said statement.
I suspect that those questions will be more important in the long run than the question of apostacy defined by extremists. It remains to be seen if he will fall into the Kerry trap and, by vigorously denying discussion on those topics, keep the questions front and center or will both the electorate and the MSM be content to let the narrative flow as directed by Obama 08.
Yeesh: Incoherent Sentence Alert!
One wonders if this will continue to play out as a consistent back and forth about the “faithier†aspects of his campaign. Can he frame the debate if he is dogged by direct, targeted questions about the BLT mission statement of his church and his lack of precisly stated views on that subject? Will “I’ve already answered that!” and “How dare you question my faith?” work?
Sorry about that.
You know, JD does Thor a little too good…:)
jon & sashal really need to be e-mailing all of the se O!-friendly outlets like the CSM and NYT to tell them to stop making up things like the murtad fitri. Or providing me with links proving that it’s made up.
Obama might not be a Muslim. But the efforts of Obama and his apologists to now deny any aspect of his sacred “cultural” conditioning and genetic heritage – as were also so lovingly indicated by “Hussein” – should be especially shocking to Progressives of all stripes, who otherwise argue that such attributes make a person what s/he is and must be – shocking, that is, were it not for the essentially Progressive forked tongue.
Carin – Too funny.
Sashal, My understaning is thta Obama did actually practice, under his father’s auspices, the muslim faith. That is different from the story he has told, different from the one you have told. There relevence of other muslims caring about it is debatable. Charles Johnson asserted ( and here I put words in Johnsons’s mouth) the prospect of a quasi-muslim sympathetic to Israel-blaming, the power of that, would override any objections to him departing from the faith in childhood.
Well, all I know is that, in a drunken stupor, Teddy Kennedy called him Osama Obama.
I’m not quire sure of the signifigance of that, though.
#25, I went back and read what the NYT recently published about that, and have to self-correct.
They assert that the universal understanding of the Muslim faith is, he was born to a practicing muslim and is therefore ( according to a “universal” understanding of muslim “law”). No mention of practicing the muslim faith even in childhood.
The Lost Poop:
The drunken stupor or the mangled name?
BJT, it made sense to me.
Karl, the thing is that it may or may not be made up that there is some concern in darker corners of the Arab world as to whether Obama is an apostate denier of the Prophet. But the bigger thing is that it doesn’t fucking matter to me what those guys think. I heard they were worried that Barack is a Jewish name (Ehud Barach must love this,) so I’ll let their brains stew on that and many other things while I know full well that they will continue to act in whatever way they wish while justifying it as they go.
But, as I said, if they want to come right out and declare Obama an apostate it would probably help him more than hurt him. Of course, there’d have to be an actual “they” to say it. And the CSM article doesn’t quote anyone anyhow, so this whole issue seems to be some sort of rampant concern-trolling that doesn’t seem to matter much anyhow.
– #19 – Along those lines I wonder if anyone took the trouble to count the number of times Lurch stepped up to the microphone and said “….did I mention I served in Viet Nam”…culminating in the infamous “I’m John Kerry…..reporting for dooty…”.
– The Left seems to have a panchet for hiding all their used condoms on the kitchen table.
– Speaking of condoms on the kitchen table, the O! camp continues to crawl microinch by microinch away from the “unconditional” bragaditio of their fearless leaders embarrassing comment.
– McCains people should just keep hammering on it, showing the tape at every opportunity, until the messiah-Oh is simply forced to admit openly he jumped the shark and retract. People need to be informed on just how impulsive he is likely to act under pressure, and how deep his inexperience goes.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ayan Hirsi Ali, poster child for the left’s “she was asking for it” school of religious freedom.
26. Comment by The Lost Poop on 5/19 @ 9:16 am #
Well, all I know is that, in a drunken stupor, Teddy Kennedy called him Osama Obama.
That’s not true. Edward was stone cold sober when he said that. And Edward knows BHO like his brother.
Tho he might have been seizing up.
CARIN:
I’m a “Christian Science” follower. You can “meet” me — and I was deeply embarrassed that MY paper published this ridiculous op-ed piece. It saddened me. But, the Christian Science Monitor is not a perfect reflection of the Christian Science faith any more – as far as I’m concerned. Most of the people who write for it are not Christian Scientists. As much as I truly love the paper, I’m feeling like it’s biased against Obama. It’s supposed to be a non-biased paper. But it’s really letting me down lately — especially with this article. Sad.
jon,
If you re-read my initial post, you’ll discover I don’t care either. I was merely observing that such stories make life more difficult for the O! campaign as it tries to debunk the silly e-mails about him being a practicing or secret Muslim. I would think that’s a fairly non-controversial point.
The Christian Science monitor n’est pas un journal d’information. C’est “la tribune” d’un business qui manipule des populations superstitieuses. Caroline FRASER ancienne membre de la Christian Science a dressé un réquisitoire documenté contre cette secte.
En France, ils ne représentent rien ils sont quelques dizaines de “cinglés” que SARKOZY envisage de reconnaître comme “association cultuelle” alors que c’est une association commerciale pour la promotions des balivernes de Mme Mary BAKER-EDDY.