PrintAugust 20, 2010
He's Not a Muslim! (Not that There's Anything Wrong with That)
With two major polls out this week showing that many millions of Americans think the president is Muslim, the Jurassic media's panicked reaction can be characterized only as hilariously Seinfeld-esque. And by Seinfeld-esque, I refer to the famous episode where Jerry and George are mistaken for a gay couple -- a charge they recoil from in horror while repeating the line, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
I think we all get the implication. And we have all heard the media shouting this week that Obama is not a Muslim -- not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.
So when you couple these polls and the media's reaction to them -- not to mention the whole issue of the Ground Zero Mosque -- I submit it is fair to ask if President Obama is now in need of some serious "Jesus Cred."
Consider a little history:
In March of 2008, the initial unmasking of Barack Obama started in earnest as it became obvious to at least a swath of America that the presidential candidate had cynically handpicked Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church to gain his "black street cred."
After all, he had arrived in Chicago with all kinds of white cred -- a Hawaiian prep school and the Ivy League, not to mention the fact that he was light-skinned, clean, articulate, and spoke with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to. (And we would like to "give a shout-out" to Joe Biden and Harry Reid for helping us construct that description.)
That was all well and good for a career as a national politician in a white guilt-laden nation -- but first came the bothersome detail of actually starting a political career in the inner city of Chicago. White cred is but funny money in certain areas there.
And nothing could dub Obama as black enough to win Chi-town votes quicker than assimilation into the anti-white, anti-capitalist, and anti-American Black Liberation Theology community. These folks are most definitely "down for the struggle."
Feel free to read some Black Liberation Theology literature if you doubt it is all of the above. Besides, have you seen Obama's jump shot lately? It screams "White Men Can't Jump!" He needed something else.
Of course, Ground Zero for Black Liberation Theology in the City of Broad Shoulders was Trinity Church, and its high priest was Jeremiah Wright. Wright, as we know, must be capable of some kind of Jedi mind tricks, as he was able to use sermons to simultaneously inspire Obama's first (or was it his second?) autobiography and put him to sleep for twenty years.
Nevertheless, it worked. Obama's black street cred was established well enough for him to quickly job-hop through Chicago and Illinois politics -- voting "present" at every step along the way. Black street cred was indeed established, and Obama carried over 90% of the black vote in the '08 election.
Now, in the summer of 2010, with his poll numbers tanking almost everywhere except on the "Muslim question," it is fair to muse that maybe Obama should trot Wright back out to establish some "Jesus Cred." This is a president who is becoming more and more of a mystery to many the more they find out about him, and fewer and fewer believe Obama has any Jesus cred as time goes on.
And the media reaction is so predictable.
Of course, when secular liberals start trying to go all religious on us, it becomes an intellectual struggle. Their dots do not connect. The fragile construct they had concocted about Obama's faith life is starting to crumble. That's why America is simultaneously getting to know Obama better and knowing less about him at the same time.
The entire issue of religion in the 2008 campaign was somewhat successfully pigeonholed into neat little compartments by the media -- pigeonholes that have little to do with reality. Everything was built around hiding or obfuscating or outright lying about who Obama is and what he believes.
On the one hand, we were told that Obama's relationship with Wright was irrelevant and that he slept through the hateful messages -- and on the other, TUCC was where Obama practiced his professed Christianity and received inspirations for his writings. We were told that in spite of that, Obama's relationship with Wright was no more of an issue than was John McCain's with John Hagee, an evangelical preacher with whom McCain had shared a lectern on occasion.
And through all of this, we were required to have enough suspension of belief to count Black Liberation Theology as Christian in the first place. Right. Never mind Jeremiah Wright's relationship with and support of Louis Farrakhan.
We were told to fear Sarah Palin's devout faith -- and yet told to embrace Obama's professed Christian conversion. Every stone in Wasilla was overturned in hopes of finding some evidence of Palin's handling of snakes or casting out of demons -- while the entire "no no no -- G.D. America" tape collection available on the Trinity Church website was ignored for months and months.
We were told that Obama is certainly not a Muslim, yet he would have a magical ability to reach out to the Muslim world -- thus ending America's role as a terror target. We were told that the world, especially the Muslim world, would continue to hate America if we elected a religious nut like Palin, however.
Of course, none of that makes any sense -- and that becomes clearer and clearer to more and more Americans under the microscope of the Ground Zero Mosque issue. And it's not the mosque issue alone, of course. As theorized by J.R. Dunn, that could simply be the tipping point.
There's the skipping of the Boy Scout's 100th Anniversary Ceremony. There's the golf instead of church almost every Sunday. There's the "clinging to their guns and religion" comment. There's the anti-Israel comments and policies. And on and on.
So now we have a president haunted by the idea that he is really a Muslim -- and not a Christian at all. How delicious it is that his blatantly secular liberal supporters are totally impotent at fighting this battle for him -- given that so many Americans take faith seriously?
And going back to Wright's Trinity Church will not help. There will be no Jesus Cred available there. Listen to the tapes or order the books. You will simply find Black Liberation Theology and Marxism and so on. Jesus? Not so much.
So Americans will likely continue to think of Obama as a Muslim in increasing numbers. But hey -- "not that there's anything wrong with that."
Is there?
