Told ya so. A White House aide has announced that Obama has Muslim roots and "experienced Muslim on three continents."
ABC News' Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller report: The other day we heard a comment from a White House aide that never would have been uttered during the primaries or general election campaign.
During a conference call in preparation for President Obama's trip to Cairo, Egypt, where he will address the Muslim world, deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Denis McDonough said "the President himself experienced Islam on three continents before he was able to -- or before he's been able to visit, really, the heart of the Islamic world -- you know, growing up in Indonesia, having a Muslim father -- obviously Muslim Americans (are) a key part of Illinois and Chicago."
Update 1: It gets worse. Obama has now announced that the U.S. could be viewed as one of the largest Muslim countries in the world:
As President Obama prepared to leave Washington to fly to the Middle East, he conducted several television and radio interviews at the White House to frame the goals for a five-day trip, including the highly-anticipated speech Thursday at Cairo University in Egypt.
In an interview with Laura Haim on Canal Plus, a French television station, Mr. Obama noted that the United States also could be considered as “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.”
Talk about distortion! America is still 75% to 80% Christian, according to pollsters. Muslims represent less than 1% of the population. For comparison purposes, 11% of Americans still think Elvis could be alive (according to a 2002 poll taken 25 years after Elvis died). So I guess by Obama's definition, America is still one of the largest Elvis-afterlife-believing nations in the world.
Update 2: From Michael Goldfarb:
Eight million Muslims seems to be at the high end of estimates of America's Muslim community. That number barely puts the United States in the top 40. There are more Muslims in tiny Jordan than there are in the United States, and twice as many in Syria.
Obama is undertaking a very significant reorientation of American foreign policy, and one hopes that he isn't doing so on the very mistaken belief that the United States is one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. Actually, if you look at the number of Jewish Americans, we'd be the largest Jewish country in the world after Israel. And America is the largest Christian country in the world. This context might be useful to the president as he tries to help the Muslim world better understand the United States.
As I wrote last September when the mainstream media were dismissing out of hand the possibility that Obama is Muslim, When Obama Refers to 'My Muslim Faith,' Slip or Not, It's Fair to Ask Questions. My lengthy post from September 8, 2008 is suddenly very relevant again. For those interested, it is reprinted in full below.
As a Christian, yes, it bothers me that we've elected a president whose professed Christian faith often seems tenuous. Of course I believe that America's blessings flow partly from its religious faith in a forgiving, loving God. In this 9/11 world, I also have some qualms about the wisdom of putting a man with Muslim roots in the highest office in the land. If Obama otherwise came across as a patriotic, America-loving, tough-on-defense president, this might be less of a concern. But as he is, taking all of his weakness in matters of national security into account, Obama is a worrisome president.
Will Obama's newly-rediscovered Muslim roots help him with Muslims in the Middle East? No, because (a) Obama officially renounced Islam to join Rev. Wright's anti-American Chicago church, and hence is an "apostate" worthy of death, as far as most Islamists are concerned and (b) Islamists who are committing murder and mayhem around the world in the name of Allah simply cannot let go of their real and imagined grievances. If they did, they would have to stop killing people, and where's the fun in that?
To illustrate the point, al Qaeda's number two leader Ayman al-Zawahri is already scoffing at Obama's goodwill overtures:
In an audio message posted on a radical Islamist website, al-Zawahri said:
"His bloody messages were received and are still being received by Muslims, and they will not be concealed by public relations campaigns or by farcical visits or elegant words..."
"...[Obama is] that criminal who came seeking, with deception, to obtain what he failed to achieve in the field after the mujahideen ruined the project of the crusader America in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia..."
"...The White House said that Obama will send a message from Egypt to the Islamic world, but they forgot that his messages have already been received by the Islamic world when he visited the Wailing Wall, put on his head the Jew's cap and prayed their prayers, though he claims to be Christian."
The good news is that according to the AP piece citing the AQ quotes above, "some analysts believe [this] indicates the terrorist organization is worried [President Obama] will be effective in improving the U.S. image in the Muslim world." While I think it would be a very good thing if some of the edge was taken of off the attitude of many Muslims toward the U.S., I just can't quite imagine al-Zawahri and his colleagues staying up late at night in caves or huts in the FATA region of Pakistan clutching their worry beads.
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