The Cryptic Cypher: Is Obama a Muslim, and Who Is at Fault for Perpetuating the Myth?

"The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide."
-- US President Barack Hussein Obama, August 21, 2010, during his weekly radio address

In the interest of full disclosure, I am taking the above quotation completely out of context, as it was in response to a recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance. Regardless, the line proves most interesting and ironic when considering the President's reluctance to basically share any core information about his life or upbringing.

OK, wait, let's start over.

The political world was positively abuzz on Friday morning with the release of poll results indicating that an amazing (although still statistically irrelevant) 18% of Americans believe that the President of the United States is, in fact, a practicing Muslim. In a sane, rational world, it wouldn't matter in the slightest if the leader of the free world was Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Zoroastrian, or a devout atheist. However, we live far from within a rational world, and in one where terrorists murder thousands in the name of their faith -- and then look to build conquering memorials upon the very same land -- this stuff is going to come up. It didn't take long for people on all sides to weigh in on the matter, alternately declaring that they have long suspected Obama's secret proclivities and/or proclaiming Americans to be a bunch of dumbasses.

Personally, I don't care in the least what the President is or isn't, nor do I believe that he is a secret part of some sort of Manchurian Islamist Conspiracy. I also don't believe that he is a Kenyan citizen and therefore unqualified to hold office. What I do believe, though, is that -- for a guy everyone tells us is so very super-smart -- Barack Obama sure does a lot of dumb stuff.

In the absense of real information, what else can you do but build your own reality upon a cypher? It's not as if you see or hear stories every week about the President attending religious services at a local Washington-area parish of any denomination. So, when you hear that the President has openly presented himself an ambassador to the Muslim world, or declared that the United States has always been a fundamentally Muslim nation, or come out more strongly in favor of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque than practically anyone else, it seems logically reasonable to take it to the next possible conclusion as well -- that he's a Muslim. Again, this doesn't mean it's true, it just means it is a semi-logical conclusion to draw.

This history of withholding key information is par for the course for the Administration, which has also refused to come 100% clean on his birth in Hawaii or release his academic records from higher education, fostering a score of wacky conspiracy theories related to his eligibility to serve as president or questioning his academic status/capabilities. Why not be completely transparent? After all, the only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide, right?

Links:

• "Obama Challenges GOP on Campaign Finance Ruling" (Tampa Bay Online)
• "Rev. Franklin Graham: President Obama 'Born a Muslim'" (Politico)
• "Is Obama a Secret Muslim?" (Texas Sparkle)
• "Polls Show Public Unclear on Obama's Faith" (Fox News)
• "Obama Seeks 'New Beginning' in Muslim World" (MSNBC)
• "Planting the Flag: How One Mosque May Change Life as We Know It" (Geek Soap Box)

Comments

[teejaycee]

why dont Republicans remember all the shit they gave him for the Rev. Jeremiah Wright????

In a harsh condemnation of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama said Rev. Wright used "incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and blacks alike."

DUH 

[TSL]

What...does that exactly have to do with any of the points of my argument?

[teejaycee]

I thought it said is Obama a muslim?