| | |  Editorials | Opinions | August 2008 
The Myths About Obama
 Ed Tasca - PVNN
Recently, scurrilous, sophomoric accusations have surfaced both in print and online - leveled at presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama. Most of what has been written and disseminated by Obama's detractors are misstatements, others are half-truths (my polite description), and still others are vicious misrepresentations aimed at characterizing Obama in a way that is anti-American. I won't mention any names (Jerome Corsi), but the most publicized (and right-wing) author has already been discredited for previous unsubstantiated hogwash.
Most of this nonsense, such as the fact that Obama once said "Selma Got Me Born," sparked opponents to quickly point out that Obama was born in 1961 and the Selma marches weren't until 1965.
This is silly finger-pointing. Are there really people out there so dense as to believe that the statement has to be literally true? Is there not reasonable wiggle room here for us to interpret this statement to mean the results of the Selma phenomenon "got me born."
Obama's family are often targets of criticism, which in itself is nothing more than a distraction by opposing political blocks, proof that they are running low on substance of any kind with which to wage a legitimate political debate. Obama once described his father as "A Proud Freedom Fighter." Opponents balked at such a statement, explaining that Obama's father was part of one of the most corrupt and violent governments Kenya has ever had.
Let's assume this is relevant, which it isn't. Maybe this particular early Kenyan government was corrupt. The truth is that Obama's father was an anti-colonialist. And when he returned to Kenya from America, he went back to join the first government that emerged after the British gave up its colonial interests. Obama's father did fight for independence for his country from British colonialism, which I believe Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin and others would call a freedom-fighting patriot. More importantly, Obama's heritage is almost exclusively a maternal one, having been raised and influenced by his mother's family and specifically his maternal grandmother. His father's family had little or no contact with the young man for his entire life.
The innocuous statement "My Grandmother Has Always Been A Christian" believe it or not is another of Obama's comments critics say is false. Obamaphobes had found evidence that "she (granny) does her daily Salat prayers (Islamic) at 5 AM, according to statements in her own interviews, not to mention, that she has been one of 14 wives to one man."
For God's sake, every three-year-old knows everybody has two grandmothers. Obama's maternal granny is Christian, at least in name. Not only that, but she's the woman who raised him.
Here's the accusation I find the wackiest: "Barack Hussein Obama is not half black. If elected, he would be the first Arab-American President, not the first black President. Barack Hussein (they like flaunting this middle name - so when he becomes prez, I'm going to call him H.) Obama (H.) is 50% Caucasian from his mother's side and 43.75% Arabic and 6.25% African Negro from his father's side (I'm impressed these people can do this kind of math.) While Barack Hussein Obama's father (the elder H.) was from Kenya, his father's family was mainly of Arabic heritage (his father's birth certificate even states he's Arab, not African Negro.)"
Have you ever heard anything more damn mongrel Yankee in your life!
Then there's the whole religion thing. Obama insists whenever it's polite and appropriate to do so, that "I never practiced Islam." Antagonists insist he's lying. They contend that he practiced it daily at his Kenyan school, where he was registered as a Muslim and kept that faith for 31 years until his wife made him change.
This is a complete unadulterated falsehood. All of the claims about Senator Obama's faith and education raised in a recent Insight Magazine story, repeated on Fox News and in this newly published book on Obama (whose title in the name of decency I refuse to print) are false. Senator Obama was raised in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother. Obama's stepfather worked for a U.S. oil company, and sent his stepson to two years of Catholic school, as well as two years of public school. As Obama described it, "Without the money to go to the international school that most expatriate children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools and ran the streets with the children of farmers, servants, tailors, and clerks."
Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends church every Sunday in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrasah, a Muslim school teaching the Koran and traditional Islam.
On January 22, CNN Reporter John Vause reported, "I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta, looking for what some are calling an Islamic Madrasah, like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I've been to those Madrasahs in Pakistan and this school is nothing like that." [CNN, Situation Room, 1/22/07]
Time Magazine's highly respected political reporter Joe Klein has said, "Attacks On Obama's Elementary School Are 'Laughable' given the moderate form of Islam practiced in Indonesia, especially in those days. The effort to slime Barack Obama has begun in the slimiest possible way."
Describing attacks on Obama's early years in Indonesia, Klein wrote, "Obama's stepfather was not a Muslim extremist (among other things, he worked for Shell Oil). Obama attended public school for two years in Indonesia, in addition to the two years he spent in catholic schools - although, as Obama's staff points out, Indonesia is a Muslim country, so the public schools undoubtedly reflect the dominant religious culture." [Time Blog, 1/22/07]
Despite all this evidence to the contrary, some detractors insist they caught the Senator in a lie, because (get this) they had found that "there's evidence he got in trouble in Koranic Studies for making faces."
To that I say, God bless him, he sounds as American as apple pie to me.
Even more ridiculous, a writer for the New York Times a year ago noted in an editorial that "Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark (by Obama) that seemed delightfully uncalculated ("It'll give Alabama voters heart attacks"), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as 'one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.'" This has been hailed as an example of Obama's misrepresentations and hypocrisy, and allegedly shows that he's hiding something and whitewashing "troubling" facts.
I for one think the senator demonstrates sensitivity to music even Alabamans might appreciate. I'm an atheist, but I love singing the Ave Maria (both of them), and the Gregorian chants fill me with awe. Does that make me a crazy Catholic zealot of some kind?
Manipulating real facts, giving unsubstantiated hearsay credibility and turning all this into negatives that suit your politics is ugly. It serves only to characterize the perpetrators as mindless, desperate and bigoted. And anyone who can think through a proper logical argument should be able to see it all for what it is: malicious and irresponsible defamation of character in the guise of reportage. For whatever faults Senator Obama has demonstrated, very little of his early background seems to bear any relevance to whether or not he is fit to be a next president. His goal is to create effective change in America by focusing on bringing people together to solve what seems like a mountain of common problems.
What his estranged cousin did in Kenyan politics or whether he said Islamic prayers as a child are totally irrelevant issues. It is an embarrassment to me that my fellow countrymen would give any credence to such nonsense. I'm a writer of nonsense for entertainment purposes, and I can tell you I'm real good at spotting it. As for many of the other falsehoods that have emerged, most are manufactured claptrap that have earned currency, because, let's say it, there's a lot of racial bigotry out there. In such an environment, ignorance, rationalizations and distrust flourishes.
America, let's start growing up as a nation. It's easy to mouth off when all you have is a grudge and an agenda, and you don't feel the necessity to prove what you believe with a little honest investigation and discourse. Before you accept something as truth, check it out. Read for God's sake. Read!!! And get both sides of a story. The truth really is out there.
Ed Tasca is a Democrats Abroad member living in Ajijic, Mexico.
 Democrats Abroad Mexico is the official organization of the Democratic Party in Mexico. There are currently seven chapters in Mexico, including: Lake Chapala, Metropolitan Mexico City, San Miguel de Allende, Mazatlan, Veracruz, Young Democrats in Mexico City, and Costa Banderas. For more information, or to become a member of the Costa Banderas Chapter of Democrats Abroad, click HERE, contact Susan Wichterman at 044-322-303-5181 or mexicoms(at)hotmail.com or Paul Crist at 322-222-4793 or editor(at)mexicodemocrats.org. |
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