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Old 01-13-2008
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O'Sullivan Bere O'Sullivan Bere is offline
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Re: Thoughts on Obama

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheriff View Post
There is enough evidence that can make a sceptics believe that Obama is what he says he is from religious perspective:

NEWSWEEK: Factcheck.org: Sliming Obama | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com

"Dueling chain e-mails claim he's a radical Muslim or a 'racist' Christian. Both can't be right. We find both are false. If these two nasty e-mail messages are any indication, the 2008 presidential campaign is becoming a very dirty one. One claims that Obama is 'certainly a racist' by virtue of belonging to Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, which it says 'will accept only black parishioners' and espouses a commitment to Africa. Actually, a white theology professor says he's been 'welcomed enthusiastically' at the church, as have other non-blacks. Another e-mail claims that Obama 'is a Muslim,' attended a 'Wahabi' school in Indonesia, took his Senate oath on the Koran, refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and is part of an Islamic plot to take over the U.S. Each of these statements is false. These false appeals to bigotry and fear remind us of the infamous whispering campaign of eight years ago, when anonymous messages just before the South Carolina primary falsely accused Republican candidate John McCain of fathering an illegitimate child by a black woman."

United Church of Christ has denied the allegations of racism: Thomas denounces smear campaign against UCC’s largest congregation

"'Trinity UCC is rooted in and proud of its Afrocentric heritage,' [Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president] said. 'This is no different than the hundreds of UCC churches from the German Evangelical and Reformed stream that continue to own and celebrate their German heritage, insisting on annual sausage and sauerkraut dinners and singing Stille Nacht on Christmas Eve. Recognizing and celebrating our distinctive racial-ethnic heritages, cultures, languages and customs are what make us unique as a united and uniting denomination.' While Trinity UCC is predominately African American, it does include and welcome non-Black members. The Rev. Jane Fisler-Hoffman, Illinois Conference Minister, who is white, has been a member of the congregation for years." READ MORE HERE

AND HE NEVER ATTENDED A RADICAL MUSLIM SCHOOL:

CNN confirms: Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

And the Indonesian Embassy:

Indonesian Embassy Says That Besuki School Attended by Barack Obama "Has Never Been an Islamic Madrassah Type of School." A letter from the Indonesian Embassy stated that "Sekolah Dasar Negeri Besuki in Menteng, Jakarta, Indonesia has always been a public school. It has never been an Islamic madrassa type of school." [Letter From Ambassador Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat to Senator Barack Obama, 1/25/07]

Obama Was Baptized And Attends Church Once a Week When He is Able. In the Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote, "I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized." In 2004, he "attend[ed] the 11 a.m. Sunday service at Trinity in the Brainerd neighborhood every week -- or at least as many weeks as he is able. His pastor, Wright, has become a close confidant." When asked about his decision to be baptized, Obama said "Kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt I heard God's spirit beckoning me," he said of his walk down the aisle of the Trinity United Church of Christ. "I submitted myself to his will and dedicated myself to discovering his truth." [Audacity of Hope, p.208, Chicago Sun Times, 4/5/04; AP 6/28/06]

Obama Held His Personal Bible When He Was Sworn-In As A U.S. Senator. "...Even before the makeshift office was up and running in the basement of a Senate building, even before he raised his hand Tuesday to take the oath of office as the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama was already a political rock star and a celebrated new face in Congress. He arrived Tuesday, his first official day in the Capitol.... In the circles he runs in now, celebrity status is checked at the cloakroom door...When it was finally time to take the oath, he held his personal Bible, as family from as far away as Kenya watched from the visitors' gallery above. His daughters, Malia, 6, and Sasha, 3, in velvet dresses and patent leather shoes, bounced in their chairs when he looked up and waved." [Los Angeles Times, 1/5/05]
Exactly. Obama is not and has never been a Muslim. He's a Christian. And the childhood school he went to was equivalent to a American public school. It was nondenominational and even has Christian students. And even if he was a Muslim, so what. That isn't any evidence by itself that he would be disloyal. His father's ancestry is also irrelevant. This kind of thing is exactly what brings out the old dark days and those bigots who think they were the good ones.

Moreover, FOX should have been skinned alive for carrying that story that was a smear, almost as shoddy journalism as the Dan Rather bogus document scandal except more slimy in that it was a false smear that looked to prey upon and inflame bigots and bigotry, much like the Bush attacks on McCain in 2000 with the push polling about 'would you vote for a person who had an illegitimate black child' and trying to give the false impression that his adopted Philippino daughter is such a child, the Bob Corker 527 ad against Harold Ford in Tennessee in 2006 showing the white playboy bunny wooing the light skinned black Ford in a sexually suggestive manner, etc.

What even bothers me about the ugliness of this smear is that it will bring out even more open and violent bigots who will either believe it and/or not care whether it is true or not because it is a nice lie to hang their prejudice.

One concern I have, and it hasn't been mentioned much, but should be, is whether Obama might draw enough anger from these:





that makes him a higher risk of an assassination target. I wish it weren't true, but the country still has too many of that mindset.
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Last edited by O'Sullivan Bere; 01-13-2008 at 05:50 PM.
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