In these lean times for President Barack Obama’s fan base, it has surely been a fun few days, filled with pointing and laughing at those silly people who have told pollsters they believe he is a Muslim.
These Democrats, in their thirst for some shred of a silver lining to these cloudy days of his decline, can be forgiven for extrapolating that if millions of Americans can be shown to be mistaken about his faith, maybe they are similarly wrong in their low view of his policies and his competence.
One problem: Those polls do not reveal what America’s panicked left wing wishes they revealed. In their eyes, it is evidence of a nation so blinded by bigotry and partisan fury that Obama’s critics will believe anything. In reality, instead of a case of hatred spawning unfounded belief, it is an example of well-founded skepticism spawning disbelief.
In the last year and a half, Americans have seen a succession of reasons to mistrust this administration. Why should they take at face value the president’s testimony that he is a Christian?
After all, he had us believe he was a calming, post-racial, transcendent figure who would usher us into a new era of harmony and prosperity. With that claim dashed against the rocks of history, it is not a leap to suggest he may be hosing us on his religious heart as well.
That said, count me among those willing to take him at his word on this issue. There are plenty of ways to be a Christian in America, and one is to spend years in the poisonous environment of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. That’s where the future president heard the consistently un-Christlike sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, famous for his racial and political condemnations of America and his embrace of the wholly concocted Black Liberation Theology, in which Jesus is painted first and foremost not as a saver of souls but as a divine deliverer of blacks from bondage as defined by modern race activists.
So while Obama might not be my kind of Christian, if he says he’s a Christian, fine. But this is not the open-and-shut case some say it is.
Amid the mockery the president’s media handmaidens have heaped on doubters, there is the charge that those identifying him as a Muslim have reached that conclusion “contrary to the facts.”
Really? “Facts”? If I may go back to one of the yellowed pages of my first college journalism classes: Something does not become fact just because a politician you like says it.
Objectivity requires those stories to say, “… contrary to the president’s claims.” And, again, I’ve said I am willing to accept his claim to Christianity.
But those in a less trusting mood deserve somewhat better than the savaging they’ve gotten from condescending critics. This is not like suggesting that Obama is Asian or from Oregon or 80 years old. Those polled were asked about his religion, something which can be doffed like a suit or a campaign promise.
I have seen him defend a mosque near Ground Zero while asking Georgetown University to cover up Christian imagery for his visit. I have seen him openly embrace Ramadan while keeping the trappings of his supposed Christian faith obscured. And I have seen him adopt an arrogance toward Israel that any Palestinian would love.
Does this make him a Muslim? Not any more than my affinity for Israel makes me a Jew. But if some Americans examine his actions and choose to doubt his claim to Christianity, it is not as though his governance hasn’t given them a sound basis for choosing not to take him at his word.
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