This is just terrific. Obama in 2007:
“I truly believe that the day I’m inaugurated, not only does the country look at itself differently, but the world looks at America differently. If I’m reaching out to the Muslim world, uh, they understand that I’ve lived in a Muslim country — and I may be a Christian, but I also understand their point of view.”
Let’s get this straight: Mr. Obama expected that anti-American Muslims would see a boastful Christian — of Muslim stock, with a Muslim name, who rejected his Muslim heritage in favor of Christianity — as such a sympathetic figure that it would make them completely re-think their hatred of the Great Satan? This is his “understanding” of their “point of view”?
Is there absolutely no limit to this man’s incandescent vanity? He, of all people, should know better than this — but he is so bedazzled by his own awesomeness that he simply cannot see the world before his eyes.
Listen to the whole thing. If the Romney campaign has any sense, they’ll see to it that this clip gets plenty of airplay between now and November.
19 Comments
Let’s get this straight.
Obama is not of “Muslim stock.” His mother was Christian and his father – who he never knew – was an atheist. He was raised as a Christian.
Obama did not “reject his Muslim heritage” because he never had a Muslim heritage to begin with.
I lived in Hong Kong, which gave me an understanding of Chinese culture. It did not make me Chinese. Obama lived in Indonesia, which gave him an understanding of Muslim culture. It did not make him a Muslim.
Let’s look at the big picture. Obama inherited an awful mess after conservatives held the levers of power during the Bush administration. Perhaps you think that he did not clean up the mess fast enough, or that different agenda would have cleaned it up faster. If you want to make that case, you would have a substantive argument. Focusing on minutiae which has no basis in reality may appeal to others with Obama Derangement Syndrome, but doing so is meaningless and unhelpful.
The things you say, Peter!
Who’s “deranged” here?
Of course Mr. Obama is of Muslim stock. His father was an apostate Muslim, from a Muslim family. Where do you think the name “Hussein” comes from? (That’s Mohammed’s grandson, in case you didn’t know.)
I’ve never said the president was himself a Muslim, nor do I believe him to be one. But he seems fond of flattering himself, as does does in this clip, that somehow he has a special ‘in’ with Muslims because of who he is — a guy with a Muslim name, of Muslim stock, with many Muslim relatives, who grew up in a Muslim country…
This is typical of his Messianic narcissism: he thinks he is all things to all people, a universal Redeemer.
The planet will start to heal, the waters will recede, the lion will lie down with the lamb — and of course the mere fact of His election offers America redemption for its original sin.
My point here is that he can’t have it both ways. Muslims are going to look at him and think: “Infidels are one thing — but here’s a guy from a Muslim family, with a Muslim name, who grew up in a Muslim country — and yet he turned his back on Islam!”
Small wonder that, instead of thinking that he “understands their point of view”, they are now calling for his head.
I will grant you this: the title of this post is not fairly applied to Mr. Obama, as I have no reason to believe he was ever a Muslim himself. My point was that this is the way much of the ummah will see him, which he seems too full of himself to realize. Indeed, such naÁ¯vetÁ© argues against the claim made by many people that he is indeed a Muslim himself.
Obama’s father renounced all religions, including Islam, in college and became an atheist. Calling him a Muslim is like calling Christopher Hitchens a Christian. If you renounce something, you are no longer part of that which you renounce.
Hussein is the Arabic word for “good” or “beautiful.” Given his father’s atheism and his mother’s Christianity, suggesting that his middle name is an homage to Islam makes no sense.
Grace Slick called her daughter China. That doesn’t make her Chinese. Frank Zappa named his daughter Moon-Unit. That doesn’t make her an alien.
The point about Bush is not that conservatives screwed the pooch during the Bush era, but rather that if you want to have a meaningful critique of Obama’s Presidency, it starts with comparing where we are now to where we where when he took office. Obama inherited enormous problems which, in my view, he has been remarkably successful in solving. You may disagree. However, the essence of his Presidency is what he has actually done and how he has actually governed, and not his speculation as a candidate on what his election would mean or what is on his tumblr page. If you want to make the case that Obama was a bad President, or that Romney would be a better one, then make the case. The rest is just twaddle.
Right, right. No connection whatsoever to Islam should be assumed when a Luo man from a Muslim family gives his son the Arabic name “Hussein”, which just happens, by the wildest of coincidences, to be the name of the Prophet’s grandson, and is one of the most common of Muslim names.
And of course it’s nuts even to suggest that a man is of “Muslim heritage” just because his father was raised as a Muslim, by an extended Muslim family. What was I thinking?
Look, here’s the point again, which you seem determined to ignore in favor of tendentious non-sequiturs. This post was about one thing only: Obama’s folly in claiming that his background somehow made him a sympathetic, mollifying presence for the world’s angry Muslims.
Someone who was born Christian, raised by Christians, and has been Christian all his life would properly be said to be “of Christian stock” and with Christian heritage.
When Obama was a newborn, his biological father exited stage left quicker than Snaglepuss. They share a common heritage to the extent that a child who resulted from a one night stand shares the heritage of the sperm donor. The fact that Obama Sr. wasn’t even a Muslim makes the assertion of Muslim heritage even more of a fatuity.
What Obama said, in plain English, is that he “lived in a Muslim country” and hence can “understand their point of view,” much as my having lived in Hong Kong enables me to have some understanding of how Chinese view the world. (I may have a better understanding of it than Mitt Romney, whose familiarity with China seems to come from eating at Panda Express.)
There’s nothing remarkable about that statement. It’s like saying that you can understand someone better once you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. (This is something I have long advocated, as you end up with his shoes.) My point remains: if you want to offer a meaningful critique of Obama, then it must focus on what he has actually done as President, and not from taking lines out of speeches and using prestigiditation and flights of fancy to turn them into things they are not.
Once again, we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. The only point here — I’ll repeat it one last time — is the disconnection between how Mr. Obama imagined his background would affect the world’s angry Muslims, and how they themselves were likely to see it.
It’s plain to see that it hasn’t worked out the way he expected. That’s all I have to say here. Readers are, as always, invited to draw their own conclusions.
Obama is anti-American. Romney is not.
Obama is a racist. Romney is not.
Obama is a Jew-hater. Romney is not.
Obama is a narcissist. Romney is not.
Obama is an economy ignoramus. Romney is not.
Obama is a history ignoramus. Romney is not.
Obama is an ignoramus. Romney is not.
Obama is, and if given a chance will continue destroying the America we love. Romney will not.
This is why America-loving Americans must vote for Romney.
So far as I know, by Islamic law, Obama is an apostate Muslim.
No one has the right to leave Islam, so regardless of what Obama’s father said about rejecting Islam, shariah does not allow this.
Moreover, anyone whose father is Muslim is also Muslim, so in terms of shariah, Obama is Muslim.
I don’t accept shariah, of course, so I don’t regard Obama as Muslim. I think he’s Christian, just as he claims to be.
Jeffery Hodges
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Meshugenah Henry lost me with his mishegas at “Obama is anti-American.” Why I made it that far is a good question.
It is incorrect to say that “it hasn’t worked out the way he expected.” Obama never claimed that his understanding of the Muslim point of view would lead to irenic harmony. The Middle East has been ablaze as long as we have been alive, and it will continue to be ablaze for many years to come. The fact that Obama lived in Indonesia was not going to change that, and nothing in his statement indicated an expectation that it would.
His prediction that “not only does the country look at itself differently, but the world looks at America differently” now that he is President is absolutely true. This extends to the Muslim world (including all the Muslims, not just the “angry” ones). Even Obama haters will concede that the ascendancy of a black man to the White House is something few of us expected to ever see.
Because many in the Arab world view America through the prism of the Arab-Israeli conflict, there was disappointment when it became evident that Obama would continue the existing American policies regarding Israel. When the Obama administration blocked the UN vote for Palestinian statehood, it was the coup de grace in many Arab eyes. American presence in the region has always attracted tragic events, from the 444 days of captivity in the Tehran embassy under Carter to the 241 Marines killed in Lebanon under Reagan to the surrounding of the Kuwaiti embassy under Bush I. It is a cluster situation where successes are few and failures are the norm.
Jeffery,
Exactly. Hence the title of the post.
I don’t think Obama’s a Muslim either.
Peter, are you done yet? Don’t forget the first rule of holes.
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TBH, who is this “One-eye” you refer to? I seem to remember that Ulysses was called “Nobody,” but I can’t quite dredge up a memory of the one who called him that . . .
Jeffery Hodges
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Hmmm . . . I still can’t recall the guy, so your prayer must be working . . .
Jeffery Hodges
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The first law of holes is inapplicable here, as everything I have written is demonstrably true. My facts are unassailable, my logic is impregnable, and my conclusions are inarguable.
As for today’s meeting of the 4-H Club (Henry Has His Hissy-fit, or is it Hapless Henry’s Hateful Harangue?): the Dyspeptic One obviously does not know me, as I am about the least self-loathing person around. Actually, I think that I am fucking awesome. I continually marvel at my extraordinary powers of observation and ratiocination, as well as my uncanny prescience and the consistently insightful and thought-provoking nature of my trenchant remarks. If only the rest of humanity would pay more attention to them, the world would manifestly be a happy place.
As for the remark about being a Jew-hater: this, like everything else le chien fou Henri writes, is beneath contempt and not worthy of a response.
Henry, you need a time out, amigo. Peter is neither self-loathing, nor a Jew-hater, and your last few remarks are beyond the pale, and completely inappropriate here.
Enough. Simmer down, big guy.
(Also, you can’t just throw that ultimate curse around in all directions; as we recording engineers say, you’ll run out of headroom.)