Not too early is it? 2008 Presidential fun

[Motorboat Cruiser]

The problem I am having here is that, if the theory is that the Clinton Camp was behind this, why on earth would they leak something like this to what amounts to a right-wing political tabloid that no democrat is ever going to believe in the first place. How does that help their cause? With this inept strategy, the only people who are going to believe these unsubstantiated rumors are people who were never going to vote for either of these candidates anyway.

[Nephythys]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

The problem I am having here is that, if the theory is that the Clinton Camp was behind this, why on earth would they leak something like this to what amounts to a right-wing political tabloid that no democrat is ever going to believe in the first place. How does that help their cause? With this inept strategy, the only people who are going to believe these unsubstantiated rumors are people who were never going to vote for either of these candidates anyway.

Regardless- I gave you the story and the link to the claim made by the magazine.

ahh- this is going to be a fun couple of years.

[Motorboat Cruiser]

Originally Posted by Nephythys

Regardless- I gave you the story and the link to the claim made by the magazine.

Indeed, you did. It's just that their side of the story makes very little sense and seems far from credible, especially given the background of their publication. Even the Washington Times editor made sure to distance his publication from theirs:

"Are the American people ready for an elected president who was educated in a Madrassa as a young boy and has not been forthcoming about his Muslim heritage?" asked Insight, the Internet magazine. "This is the question Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's camp is asking about Sen. Barack Obama."
Wicked stuff, but was it true? Insight, which is owned by the owners of The Washington Times but is absolutely, positively and entirely separate from the newspaper, was denounced by the handlers of both Hillary and Obama. "Trash," said a spokesman for Obama. "A right-wing hit job," said a spokesman for Hillary.
Neither this newspaper nor most others took up the story, which cited no named sources.

[Moonliner]

I'm less concerned about who dug up the mud than how well it sticks.

I would expect a leader of the free world be able to dodge any amount of mud tossed in their direction no matter who it came from. If they can't then perhaps this is not the job for them.

For this round of mud slinging I give one point to Obama house because I don't see anything sticking at this point.

And take one point from slytherin Hillary house for at the very least attracting suspicion.

[BarTopDancer]

Wait wait wait. I thought that religion of the President wasn't supposed to matter. So who cares what religion Obama is? Or is it not supposed to matter only if the President is Christian?

[Nephythys]

Have you really missed all the attacks on Bush for his faith?

It's been around since 2000- nothing new. So sorry- I don't think you're on to something there.

[BarTopDancer]

My point was that who cares if he is not being upfront about it?

Bush tried to implement his faith into the entire country. If he had been quietly religious no one would have cared. How many presidents before Bush were attacked for being Christian?

[Strangler Lewis]

A president's religion is relevant the same way his stock holdings are relevant. You have to wonder if the level of his commitment would lead him to favor certain policies that might not be good for the country as a whole. Romney's Mormonism is relevant because the Mormon Church is an economic power, plus they have their weird polygamy strand that could play into certain debates about government interference in personal affairs. Lieberman's Judaism and love of Israel are relevant to the extent they fuel his views on war in the middle east. If a Moslem candidate ran, you'd want to know where his head was at as well. We know where Bush's head is.

[Nephythys]

Originally Posted by BarTopDancer

My point was that who cares if he is not being upfront about it?

Bush tried to implement his faith into the entire country. If he had been quietly religious no one would have cared. How many presidents before Bush were attacked for being Christian?

That is untrue.

He has made his faith public but he has never forced it into the entire country.

I see- so if a person is quiet about their faith it's ok- but if not they are trying to force it on someone?

That's baseless, untrue and ridiculous.

[Alex]

Actually, this seems like a good time to presettle an issue (at least among us here):

Query: If it were to turn out to be true that when living in Indonesia as a young child*, Barak Obama attended an Islamic school, what relevance or impact to his candidacy do you feel this should have?




*A bit of a reality check on the madrassa issue. First, Barak Obama does admit he attended madrassas while living in Indonesia. On pages 30-31 of his 1995 book Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance he wrote:

"In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school, two years at a Catholic school..

and on page 271:

Our family was not well off in those early years [...] Without the money to attend the international schools that most expatriate children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools...

Now the key here, as so often these days it seems, is different people using the same words in different ways.

In Arabic, the word "madrassa" simply means "school." When Obama attended a Catholic school in Indonesia, he was, in the local language, attending a madrassa. If you went to Indonesia and wrote a report on your life and had it translated into Arabic, you might say that you attended madrassa for 12 years.

There is no inherent religious meaning to the word - in Arabic. That said, Indonesia is a Muslim nation and the public schools are not secular. So if you live in Indonesia and go to public school, there will be Islamic influences. Just like American public schools 50 years ago were heavily influenced by Christianity (and still are to some degree) even though they were not schools of religion.

As the word madrassa has been adopted by American English, it has a much more limited meaning of specifically being a school for advanced Islamic study.

So, yes, Barak Obama attended madrassa for his entire childhood on into adulthood (Indonesian public school, followed by Indonesian Catholic school, followed by Punohou in Honolulu, followed by Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School), but at no point did he attend what most of us probably think of when we hear the word "madrassa." But that is our mistake, not his.