Dick Durbin has at JJ Goldberg
You know things have gotten weird when Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) writes an opinion column in The Forward. With a similar message to Rabbi Arthur Waskow‘s letter to the editor last week, Durbin criticized a weak Forward editorial, which managed to simultaneously support and criticize the baseless inflammatory emails about Barack Obama’s supposed secret Muslim life that have been circulating among the Jewish community. Durbin sets the record straight on the truth with certainty, something the Forward editorial board was sadly unwilling to do with its wishy-washy “Is Barack Obama a Muslim? Almost certainly not.”
The editorial board released a clarification last week, claiming that it meant to criticize the defamatory emails all along. But many reading the editorial would not get that impression–would you?
If you still have any doubts, Mobius’s recent blog post reminds us of the true Barack Obama’s speech to the Sojourners conference last summer.
The biggest problem in all this is that being Muslim is considered a slur. Even if Obama had been raised Muslim, or was still a practicing Muslim that would not tell us anything about his fitness for government (except that perhaps he would do better at managing our relationship with Muslim states than the current Prez). Many, many, many leaps need to be made from learning in a Muslim school to supporting al-Qaida. Once again, the O.J.C. makes me P.U.K.E.
This time around, the OJC isn’t at fault.
it’s true BZ. i think in this case it’s mostly a case of unorganized Jews, or rather Jews collectively acting individually in a xenophobic manner. and even though the OJC has come out strongly against it, there are elements, like the forward, that are not unequivocally rejecting the individuals’ tendencies.
Yes, yes they are. The OJC is coming out against certain smear tactics, but nobody is questioning the whole premise. The whole discourse is fucked up. Even if he is or ever was a Muslim, that does not disqualify him. Everyone involved tripping over themselves to distance Obama from Muslims, rather than defending the possibility of being a patriotic Muslim American that is getting me so upset.
Chorus, in view of the unwillingness of the majority of mainstream Muslim groups to distance themselves from the Islamists in their community, unfortunately even decent law abiding US Muslims are tarred with the terrorist association. It’s up to Muslim groups to speak out definitively and disassociate themselves from the CAIRS and the radical imams who claim to speak for them, otherwise the rest of us will rightly hold Muslims in general suspect.
And before I hear the argument that my view is prejudiced, provide me any other group who have a significant portion of their public leaders speak in favour of murdering civilians, overthrowing the current legal system, subjugating women, etc.etc. all in the name of their religion. And then tell me why the overwhelming majority of mosques around the country haven’t loudly, and vociferously, reject those views. When that happens, the tar of being a Muslim will be eliminated (and please note that when dealing with individuals, I AM NOT calling for prejudicial treatment – any individual Muslim should have exactly the same rights and privileges as the rest of Americans – but when looking upon Muslims as a group, one has to hold that group as suspect based on their official organization’s statements and actions.
It seems to me that this bares striking resemblance to the pre-internet Roosevelt-Rosefelt word-of-mouth rumor-mill started by anti-Semites during the 30s.
Anon, since I wasn’t around in the 1930’s I really don’t know what my post bears a relation to, for all I know it reflects what the High Dalai Lama thought in 1843 – but I think the post is factually true and represents the thinking of the majority of Americans.
incorrect i wasn’t talking about your comment, just making a bungled attempt at relaying this bit of history and its resemblance to the rumors of Obama fundamentalist Muslim roots.
Hitler even went so far as to tell a Spanish diplomat in August, 1941 that he had proof of Roosevelt’s “Jewish ancestry.†Indeed, anti-Semites in Germany and America referred to Roosevelt as “Rosenfeld,†and an article in the August, 1936 edition of The White Knight published an article referring to the New Deal as the “Jew Deal.†In America during this tumultuous period “informational†pamphlets appeared such as What Every Congressman Should Know in 1940 (featuring a sketch of the Capitol building with a Star of David atop its dome) that proclaimed that the Jews were in control of the American government.