ran across a video here,
http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2012/03/30/video-is-santorum-caught-about-to-call-president-obama-the-n-word/
Of course each of us can draw our own conclusions. There is a larger
discussion on the D-Kos page linked there.
On Mar 30, 1:00 pm, plainolamerican <plainolameri...@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/v/R611drTEHPA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xd0d0d0&...
>
> On Mar 30, 9:10 am, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > The Right Wing's Election-Year Islamophobia Fuels a New Smear Campaign
> > Against Obama
> > In an election in which racist slogans are off the table, the
> > Islamophobic accusation of "acting Muslim" remains a politically
> > acceptable chauvinism.
> > March 29, 2012 |
>
> > Those who fervently believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim generally
> > practice their furtive religion in obscure recesses of the Internet.
> > Once in a while, they'll surface in public to remind the news media
> > that no amount of evidence can undermine their convictions.
>
> > In October 2008, at a town hall meeting in Minnesota for Republican
> > presidential candidate John McCain, a woman called Obama "an Arab."
> > McCain responded, incongruously enough, that Obama was, in fact, "a
> > decent family man" and not an Arab at all. In an echo of this, a woman
> > recently stood up at a town hall in Florida and began a question for
> > Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum by asserting that the
> > president "is an avowed Muslim." The audience cheered, and Santorum
> > didn't bother to correct her.
>
> > Though they belong to a largely underground cult, the members of the
> > Obama-is-Muslim congregation number as many as one third of all
> > Republicans. Arecent poll found that only 14% percent of Republicans
> > in Alabama and Mississippi believe that the president is Christian.
>
> > These true believers treat their scraps of evidence like holy relics:
> > the president's middle name, his grandfather's religion, a widely
> > circulated photo of Obama in a turban. They occasionally traffic in
> > outright fabrications: that he attended a radical madrasa in Indonesia
> > as a child or that he put his hand on the Qur'an to be sworn in as
> > president. An even more apocalyptic subset believes Obama to be
> > nothing short of the anti-Christ.
>
> > By and large, however, this cult doesn't attract mainstream support
> > from the larger church of Obama haters. Indeed, these more orthodox
> > faithful have carefully shifted the debate from Obama being Muslim to
> > Obama actingMuslim. Evangelical pundits, presidential candidates, and
> > the right-wing media have all ramped up their attacks on the president
> > for, as Baptist preacher Franklin Graham put it recently on MSNBC,
> > "giving Islam a pass."
>
> > The conservative mainstream still calls the president's religious
> > beliefs into question, but they stop just short of accusing him of
> > apostasy and concealment. What they consider safe is the assertion
> > that Obama is acting as if he were Muslim. In this way, Republican
> > mandarins are cleverly channeling a conspiracy theory into a policy
> > position.
>
> > There is a whiff of desperation in all this. After all, it's not an
> > easy time for the GOP. The economy shows modest signs of improvement.
> > The Republican presidential candidates are still engaged in a
> > fratricidal primary. By expanding counterterrorism operations and
> > killing Osama bin Laden, the president has effectively removed
> > national security from the list of Republican talking points.
>
> > One story, however, still ties together so many narrative threads for
> > conservatives. Charges that the president is a socialist or a Nazi or
> > an elitist supporter of college education certainly push some buttons.
> > But the single surefire way of grabbing the attention of the media and
> > the public -- as well as appealing to the instincts of the Republican
> > base -- is to assert, however indirectly, that Barack Obama is a
> > Manchurian candidate sent from the Islamic world.
>
> > Obama and the Muslim World
>
> > A succession of Republican candidates have attempted to run to the
> > right of party favorite Mitt Romney by asserting that only a true
> > conservative can defeat Obama in November. Most of them boasted of the
> > same powerful backer. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and
> > Rick Santorum all declared that God asked them to run for higher
> > office. Together with Newt Gingrich, they have deployed various
> > methods of appealing to their constituencies, but none is more potent
> > than religion.
>
> > Rick Santorum, a Catholic and the favorite of the evangelical
> > community, has been particularly adept at using his soapbox as a
> > pulpit. The president subscribes to a "phony theology," Santorum has
> > claimed, "not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology."
> > Although he occasionally asserts that "Obama's personal faith is none
> > of my concern," he nonetheless speaks of the president's attempt to
> > "impose values on people of faith"-- implying that the president is
> > certainly no member of that community.
>
> > In his attacks on the president's spirituality, Santorum is cleverly
> > attacking Mitt Romney's Mormonism as well (a theology also based on
> > text other than the Bible). At the same time, the suggestion that
> > Obama is somehow "other" operates as a code word for "Black" in a race
> > in which race goes largely unmentioned.
>
> > It's an odd set of charges. Obama, after all, did everything possible
> > during his first presidential campaign to foreground his Christianity.
> > He was repeatedly seen praying in churches and assiduously avoided
> > mosques. He never made a campaign appearance with a prominent Muslim.
> > He talked about his "personal relationship" with Jesus Christ.
>
> > The day after he clinched the Democratic Party nomination in 2008, he
> > gave a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
> > in which he reaffirmed that he was "a true friend of Israel." Although
> > he would occasionally mention his Muslim relatives and the time he
> > spent in Indonesia as a child, he generally did whatever he could to
> > emphasize only two out of the three major monotheisms.
>
> > As president, Obama has certainly "reached out" to the Muslim world.
> > In Cairo, in June 2009, he spoke of seeking "a new beginning between
> > the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual
> > interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America
> > and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition."
>
> > That new beginning, however, has yet to come. At home, for example,
> > the Obama administration provided federal funds that the New York City
> > Police Department then used to expand its surveillance of Muslim
> > American neighborhoods. (Even the CIA was involved in this "human
> > mapping" project.) The FBI has spent the Obama years rounding up
> > suspected Muslim terrorists in operations that flirt dangerously with
> > entrapment. The administration has expanded the no-fly list, though
> > because the list is secret it's difficult to know whether
> > Muslim-Americans are specifically profiled. Anecdotal evidence,
> > however, suggests that they are.
>
> > The administration's record internationally is even more
> > disappointing. The conduct of U.S. troops in Afghanistan -- the night
> > raids, massacres (including the recent murders of 16 Afghan
> > villagers), and the Qur'an burnings -- have enraged local Muslims.
> > Obama has expanded the CIA's drone air campaign by a considerable
> > margin in the Pakistani borderlands. Civilian casualties,
> > overwhelmingly Muslim, continue to occur there and in other "overseas
> > contingency operations" as U.S. Special Operations Forces have
> > dramatically expanded their activities in the Muslim world.
>
> > Despite right-wing charges, Obama has maintained a tight relationship
> > with Israel and the Israeli leadership. As former New Republiceditor
> > Peter Beinart concludes, "The story of Obama's relationship to [Prime
> > Minister] Netanyahu and his American Jewish allies is, fundamentally,
> > a story of acquiescence."
>
> > It's no surprise, then, that surveys in six Middle East countries
> > taken just before and two months after the Cairo speech in 2009, the
> > Brookings Institution and Zogby International discoveredthat the
> > number of respondents optimistic about the president's approach to the
> > region had suffered a dramatic drop: from 51% to 16%. A 2011 Pew poll
> > found that U.S. favorability ratings had continued their slide in
> > Jordan (to 13%), Pakistan (12%), and Turkey (10%).
>
> > And yet, perversely, the hard right in the U.S. maintains that the
> > Obama administration has behaved in quite the opposite manner.
> > "There's something sick about an administration which is so
> > pro-Islamic that it can't even tell the truth about the people who are
> > trying to kill us," Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich
> > typically said while campaigning in Georgia.
>
> > Pro-Islamic? That's news to the Islamic world.
>
> > But it's nothing new to the world of the U.S. right wing, which
> > portrays Obama as anti-Israel and weak in the face of Islamic
> > terrorism. At best, the president emerges from these attacks as a
> > booster of Islam; at worst, he is the leader of a genuine fifth
> > column.
>
> > Although the administration's policy on Iran is virtually
> > indistinguishable from those of his Republican challengers, they have
> > presented him as an appeaser. The president who "surged" in
> > Afghanistan somehow becomes, through the magic of election-year
> > sloganeering, a pacifist patsy. Although Obama never endorsed the
> > location of the "Ground Zero mosque," his opponents have suggested
> > that he did. Although he was slow to withdraw support from U.S. allies
> > in the Middle East like Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia,
> > Republican candidates have accused the president of practically
> > campaigning on behalf of the Islamist parties that have grown in
> > influence as a result of the Arab Spring.
>
> > Barack
>
> ...
>
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>
> - Show quoted text -
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