Reader Posts
« previous | TPM CAFÉ READER POSTS HOME | next »
Gift Post: How Not to Tell a Moslem
Actually, how to tell not-a-Moslem. Copied from a thread.
Why doesn't the Obama campaign answer this "Are you a Moslem" question sensibly?
"Yes, Obama's father was a Muslim, and abandoned Barack when he was 2 years old. Except for 4 years in Indonesia with his hippie/rural development/NGO/world religion mother Ann Dunham and a Moslem stepfather Soetoro who was a Shell manager more interested in golf and oil than religion, Obama spent most of his youth with his Christian grandparents and became a Christian.
Obama's sister who remained in Indonesia with Dunham and Soetoro is a Buddhist, giving you an idea just how worried about Moslem religion Soetoro was."
Was that that difficult? And isn't it much more convincing than arguing about whether we should say Obama's middle name or worrying about whether "as far as I know" is convincing enough?
And people on this site say Hillary has trouble speaking clearly.
Comments (5)
I thought Obama's biological father was an agnostic who was came from a Christian background. (I knew that his step-father was Muslim.)
I've tried looking for a reliable source on this (regarding only the bio-father) and haven't found one either way. Do you have a source?
March 3, 2008 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also, I'm not sure if this was your intention, but this is what your title brought to mind.
March 3, 2008 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Barack's grandfather was Muslim and named all his children from 3 marriages with Muslim names. Whether Barack's father was "practicing" or not, he still gave his child a Muslim name ("Barack" being Muslim as well).
So why not just take out the complicated part - Barack's Moslem father left when he was 2, Barack's mother was more a world spirit non-secular type, and Barack ended up Christian just like the grandparents who raised him, while his sister ended up Buddhist.
Unless you want to spend the next 9 months arguing this to very disastrous results. Very important - include this last one about his sister - because that's from the step-father the wingnuts will equate with sending him to a madrassa. In reality he was a golf-playing oil manager for Shell (which kinda contradicts the poor-oppressed, tough Barack childhood story, but what the hey, now that the primary's almost over we can switch streams), and his mother really wasn't pursuing the rites of Islam around the world.
And no, I'm not trying to get rid of Moslems.
March 3, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're asking people who use Ann Althouse and Andrew Sullivan as points of reference in defining democratic candidates to be reasonable.
March 3, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the head slap, Bev, I'll revert to sheer absurdity and dada poetry now in celebration of the coming days of the Shire. Hobbits! Make sharp now! Ents! A little shade to the left!
March 3, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Post a Comment