That whole Obama is really a Muslim story and its debunking

[SirNitram]

Excuse me folks, one big problem.

The school that this article claims Obama attended is actually for those Muslims seeking higher education, as in College-level classes. At the time this article states Obama attended this school, he would have been a mere SIX YEARS OLD.

So tell me what you believe: A 6yr old in College, or that Insight is printing unsubsantiated lies?

Thank you for pointing that out, Tamar. That pretty well blows this lie apart for me. I don't expect it'll be the last time, though.

Is Obama even Muslim? I thought he was from Hawaii.

....Chewie, Muslim is a religion. There's no racial/regional requirement.

And no, he's not. He's a Baptist. But the ignorant twats who will swallow anything against a black Democrat without so much as a gag reflex will beleive every bit, and the ones who'll beleive anything against Clinton because she's a politcian will swallow the rest.

[The Guid]

I've got to hand it to the right wing if they were behind this. With one swing they have damaged Barak Obama with the whole "ZOMG! He's only going to be elected president to blow himself up and kill the President!" and damaged Hilary Clinton by making it look like she tried some underhand tactics.

[Elfdart]

So why don't you respond to every political story about any politician by saying that he or she is a whore?

Too time consuming.

So this required special effort on your part. I think you've got issues. Did you get beat up by a girl in grade school or something?

And no, he's not. He's a Baptist. But the ignorant twats who will swallow anything against a black Democrat without so much as a gag reflex will beleive every bit, and the ones who'll beleive anything against Clinton because she's a politcian will swallow the rest.

After watching Harold Ford Jr being turned into the second coming of Mandingo, Jack Johnson and Nat Turner rolled into one, I have a good idea of what's in store for Obama. Not only is he a Librul Negro, but one with darker skin and a terrorist name -and he craves white women!


This little flyspeck is just the beginning.

[Beowulf]

Excuse me folks, one big problem.

The school that this article claims Obama attended is actually for those Muslims seeking higher education, as in College-level classes. At the time this article states Obama attended this school, he would have been a mere SIX YEARS OLD.

So tell me what you believe: A 6yr old in College, or that Insight is printing unsubsantiated lies?

Uh... what? Where did you come across this information? The article even quotes one of Obama's classmates from the time.

[Qwerty 42]

Excuse me folks, one big problem.

The school that this article claims Obama attended is actually for those Muslims seeking higher education, as in College-level classes. At the time this article states Obama attended this school, he would have been a mere SIX YEARS OLD.

So tell me what you believe: A 6yr old in College, or that Insight is printing unsubsantiated lies?

Uh... what? Where did you come across this information? The article even quotes one of Obama's classmates from the time.

The news report also said that the school's religious classes were "non-denominational" in that Muslims were taught their beliefs, Christians theirs, and Buddhists theirs, and another religious group was mentioned whose name I missed.

[SirNitram]

Uh... what? Where did you come across this information? The article even quotes one of Obama's classmates from the time.

Madrassa as I understand it, typically means a graduate school. I could be wrong.

The fact there was a school, and there was a picture, and were classmates does not make it a Madrassa, as one thing I'm sure of is that it's a Muslim-only school. The school Obama was in? Non-Denominational.

[Flagg]

Uh... what? Where did you come across this information? The article even quotes one of Obama's classmates from the time.

Madrassa as I understand it, typically means a graduate school. I could be wrong.

The fact there was a school, and there was a picture, and were classmates does not make it a Madrassa, as one thing I'm sure of is that it's a Muslim-only school. The school Obama was in? Non-Denominational.

Madrassa these days implies that it's a fundamentalist Islamic school whose sole purpose is to pump out radicalized young men who are about a heartbeat away from strapping on a bomb and walking into the nearest KFC. The fact that this school is not only nondemominational, but a public elementary school puts all that shit to rest.

[Beowulf]

Uh... what? Where did you come across this information? The article even quotes one of Obama's classmates from the time.

Madrassa as I understand it, typically means a graduate school. I could be wrong.

The fact there was a school, and there was a picture, and were classmates does not make it a Madrassa, as one thing I'm sure of is that it's a Muslim-only school. The school Obama was in? Non-Denominational.

Yeah, you're wrong on what a Madrassa is. It's a school where the kids spend all day memorizing the Koran, basically. I was questioning where Tevar got the info that the school taught college classes.

[SirNitram]

Uh... what? Where did you come across this information? The article even quotes one of Obama's classmates from the time.

Madrassa as I understand it, typically means a graduate school. I could be wrong.

The fact there was a school, and there was a picture, and were classmates does not make it a Madrassa, as one thing I'm sure of is that it's a Muslim-only school. The school Obama was in? Non-Denominational.

Yeah, you're wrong on what a Madrassa is. It's a school where the kids spend all day memorizing the Koran, basically. I was questioning where Tevar got the info that the school taught college classes.

Same place I did, which had it as a law school. Outdated, clearly.

[Darth Wong]

I personally don't think too much of Obama's chances. Call me a cynic, but at the end of the day I just don't think that a dark-skinned man with a foreign-sounding name has a realistic chance in hell of winning the presidency. This sneaky "He's a muslim!" smear tactic simply highlights his extreme vulnerability to "good ol' boy" bigotry.

I could see Obama taking the more progressive regions of the country, and I know people are saying you can win the country without the South, but can you win it without the South or the Midwest?

[Pablo Sanchez]

Yeah, you're wrong on what a Madrassa is. It's a school where the kids spend all day memorizing the Koran, basically. I was questioning where Tevar got the info that the school taught college classes.

Madrassa as a word just means "school" in the vaguest sense. More specifically it tends to refer to the theological schools operated free of charge by Islamic religious groups. They teach people to read and interpret the Koran and other Muslim religious texts, among other things related to Islam. These schools historically provide an important service in that admission is open to all (men) and they were free. You'd be right in saying that a classic madrassa doesn't offer much more than Koran instruction, but to give a little perspective, up until the late 19th century the only degrees given at Oxford were theology, classics, and mathematics.

Since madrassas are operated by Islamic religious groups, many of which are quite radical, they have a reputation for being recruiting centers for Muslims radicals. This doesn't mean that every madrassa is a suicide bomber training facility, of course.

Tevar's confusion probably comes from the fact that in English usage the word madrassa can be taken to refer specifically to a university, for reasons I can't quite fathom.

[Durandal]

I personally don't think too much of Obama's chances. Call me a cynic, but at the end of the day I just don't think that a dark-skinned man with a foreign-sounding name has a realistic chance in hell of winning the presidency. This sneaky "He's a muslim!" smear tactic simply highlights his extreme vulnerability to "good ol' boy" bigotry.

I could see Obama taking the more progressive regions of the country, and I know people are saying you can win the country without the South, but can you win it without the South or the Midwest?

He won't become president, but for an entirely different reason. He simply won't be able to match Hillary's fundraising power. Hell, basically none of her rival Democrats can.

[K. A. Pital]

President Obama. I know that people who are progressive don't have a problem with that. But there's a problem. Progressive people are few. At least, fewer than the narrow-minded crypto-racist assholes out there.

[fgalkin]

So, where's the evidence Clinton's behind this? Oh yea, there appears to be none. Worthless candidate, no doubts, but it's amazing how quickly even educated and smart SDNetters swallow bullshit.

What, you mean aside from the fact that it was claimed, then denied that it was her campaign managers who did it. And some unnamed "right-wingers hit job " is more believable than that?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[fgalkin]

<snip>.

So, in other words, a madrassa is bible study at best, a suicide bomber recruiting center at worst. Hardly great endorsement for that type of education.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Covenant]

I personally don't think too much of Obama's chances. Call me a cynic, but at the end of the day I just don't think that a dark-skinned man with a foreign-sounding name has a realistic chance in hell of winning the presidency. This sneaky "He's a muslim!" smear tactic simply highlights his extreme vulnerability to "good ol' boy" bigotry.

I could see Obama taking the more progressive regions of the country, and I know people are saying you can win the country without the South, but can you win it without the South or the Midwest?

Well, he'll take Illinois. He's remarkably good in person and I think that's something we often discount, especially with the run starting as early as it is. If he gets the lead out and starts stepping into these towns to spread word of mouth he might be able to pick up steam. Racism is dangerous to his campaign of course, but he's going to be friendly to their faith and to their issues, and the racist bunch are probably going to be so conservative that they're across the gap anyway. I think you can kind of count those voters out for just about any theoretical democratic candidate. It's not as if there's a lot of racist progressives who can be 'peeled off' by harping on his race. It's cynical to say that racism is going to tank him. I don't think racists vote for democrats anyway.

I think more dangerous to his campaign is going to be stuff like this though, just purely fabricated nonsense. His minimal record shields him from a lot, but swiftboating him with garbage out of nowhere is going to be more plausible because of it. He also has a less-than-sterling history, but that (and his religion) may make him a suprise favorite for a certain brand of conservative that would not be receptive to Hillary. Obama also has the attraction factor which has always played minorly into elections in the past. I still think he's a strong contender, and seeing how fast he kicked this story in the balls via his staff shows that it's being handled well so far. We didn't have the days and days of rumoring going on that Kerry and such let happen.

[Flagg]

<snip>.

So, in other words, a madrassa is bible study at best, a suicide bomber recruiting center at worst. Hardly great endorsement for that type of education.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Good thing Obama never went to either of those then, isn't it?

[Covenant]

So, where's the evidence Clinton's behind this? Oh yea, there appears to be none. Worthless candidate, no doubts, but it's amazing how quickly even educated and smart SDNetters swallow bullshit.

What, you mean aside from the fact that it was claimed, then denied that it was her campaign managers who did it. And some unnamed "right-wingers hit job " is more believable than that?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Given the context, I think so. This is Fox News citing a Conservative rag being told by an unnamed source who we cannot vet that someone in the Clinton camp dug up some utterly ficticious evidence of something that never happened? If Hillary wanted to know about his school she could just pick up his book like anyone else could, or use her vast powers of office to just call them up.

Plus, why would a Clinton researcher have anything to do with a piece of trash magazine like Insight? Is he a secret Republican plant working from within their camp to leak information to the Conservative newspapers? Because surely there's plenty of better places for one of Hillary's aides to take some information besides the enemy's camp.

It's ridiculous. We know that Rove and such concoct these kinds of bullshit articles, and we also know that Hillary has nothing to gain from something like this, especially since any researcher worth Hillary's money is going to be able to come up with a story that has at least the appearence of being actually researched.

[Flagg]

I personally don't think too much of Obama's chances. Call me a cynic, but at the end of the day I just don't think that a dark-skinned man with a foreign-sounding name has a realistic chance in hell of winning the presidency. This sneaky "He's a muslim!" smear tactic simply highlights his extreme vulnerability to "good ol' boy" bigotry.

I could see Obama taking the more progressive regions of the country, and I know people are saying you can win the country without the South, but can you win it without the South or the Midwest?

I think he has a good chance if he doesn't fuck up and can get his message out there. The media really seems to like him which always helps and he's got more charisma than Bill Clinton at his best. People are surprisingly willing to ignore the ugliest of shit if they really like the cantidate.

But we'll have to see how things go over the next year with the primary campaigns. If the US is still in Iraq in 2008 (I can't see any reason we won't be), then I think it's going to be very hard for a Democrat to lose.

[18-Till-I-Die]

If the Republicans spent a fraction of the time with foriegn policy or domestic issues that they do with massive, complex smear jobs like Swift Boats and the now infamous "The Sheriff is a Nigger!" Harold Ford Jr. campaign they'd actually not suck so hard at being leaders.

This was actually quite brilliant thought. It's a win win situation for them.

IF Hillary takes the bait (she didnt) then they can call her a racist. Imagine the irony-mixed with-hypocrisy there. The Right calling someone else a racist.

Then if she doesnt grab it an run, it would still destroy Obama in the eyes of the retard Red State hoodlums who make up the Republican base, who already dont like him cause he's black but now, oh, now he's a Mulsim too? And when the smole clears they can say that it was Clinton who pulled the screw job, and alienate her from HER base, who are decidedly less open to such blatantly racist tactics. All the while they can take the high ground and wag their fingers "For shame! For shame!" at the Dems.

And yet with all that strategy they couldnt figure out a way to make Iraq somehow suck less.

[Glocksman]

In this case it looks as if HRC isn't the one who 'uncovered' this 'information', but I wouldn't have been surprised if it did come from her camp.
Not because of anything that she's done specifically, but because primary fights in both parties can be downright nasty events with all kinds of dirty tricks and low blows used.

I'm sure everyone remembers the slander campaign used against McCain during the 2000 Republican primaries and the Willie Horton ads used against Dukakis in 1988.
What a lot of people don't know about the Horton ads is that the information was originally dug up and used by Al Gore during the '88 primaries.

It's going to be an interesting race.

[brianeyci]

Too time consuming.

Bullshit, bullshit. You've got enough time to say calling Bush a sociopath is an "ideological safety blanket" and name calling Bush "doesn't solve anything."

Anyway at least the McCain thing makes sense. People call McCain a whore for keeping his trap shut during the Iraq invasion because he didn't want to rock the party establishment, hence selling himself out for power. Also when you sell yourself out to evangelicals, you're a whore too.

What's Hillary a whore to? Lobbyists? Special interest groups? The NAACP? What a joke. Politicians are all about reconciliation and bringing together disparate groups, so it's only worth calling one a whore if she sells her beliefs out for votes. I bet one hundred percent you wouldn't be making this whore "crack" as you put it if the bj thing hadn't happened, or if Hillary wasn't a woman.

[Mr. T]

I personally don't think too much of Obama's chances. Call me a cynic, but at the end of the day I just don't think that a dark-skinned man with a foreign-sounding name has a realistic chance in hell of winning the presidency. This sneaky "He's a muslim!" smear tactic simply highlights his extreme vulnerability to "good ol' boy" bigotry.

I could see Obama taking the more progressive regions of the country, and I know people are saying you can win the country without the South, but can you win it without the South or the Midwest?

He won't become president, but for an entirely different reason. He simply won't be able to match Hillary's fundraising power. Hell, basically none of her rival Democrats can.

Having the largest war-chest by a fair margin didn't help Howard Dean during the 2004 primary's. I think Obama has the best shot at taking down Clinton because alot of the media is in love with the guy. Rarely if ever would Time magazine give a cover story about the Presidential aspirations of a half term senator otherwise, as they did a few months ago for Obama.

Perhaps one of Obama's biggest struggles (and Hillary's too for that matter) will be winning Iowa. This is an area where John Edwards will definitely have an advantage and possibly be able to overtake the other two, due to his surprise strong showing there in 2004.

[Pablo Sanchez]

So, in other words, a madrassa is bible study at best, a suicide bomber recruiting center at worst. Hardly great endorsement for that type of education.

Considering that madrassas have been around for over a thousand years and public education in the Muslim world is a phenomena of the last 100 years, they might have some small amount of historical significance as a result of, you know, teaching millions of people to read who would otherwise be illiterate (like contemporary Europeans) over the course of time. Perhaps fond cultural memories cause them to be retained.

[Elheru Aran]

Funny that this topic came up. Got this email today from one of my fundie acquaintances...

(Sorry about the formatting btw, I don't have time to edit it into a more presentable form but you should be able to understand still)

>> >
>> > U. S. presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama was
born
>> > in
>> > Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black Muslim
from
>> > Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunham, a white atheist from
Wichita,
>> > Kansas. Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.
>> >
>> > When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father
>> > returned to Kenya. His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a
radical
>> > Muslim from Indonesia. When Obama was 6 years old, the family
>> > relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a Muslim school in
Jakarta.
>> > He also spent two years in a Catholic school.
>> >
>> > Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim.
He is
>> > quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also
>> > attended Catholic school."
>> >
>> > Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that
>> > Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and that this
>> > influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama
>> > returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any
>> > direct influence over his son's education. Lolo Soetoro, the
second
>> > husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to
>> > Islam. Osama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta.
Wahabism is
>> > the radical teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who
are
>> > now waging Jihad against the western world.
>> >
>> > Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when seeking
major
>> > public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has
joined
>> > the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim
>> > background.
>> >
>> > Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's presidential candidacy.
>>

Funny thing, you'd think a Baptist would be aware of Obama being one too... not to mention that if he was willing to become a Christian, presumably he'd, ya know, be *sincere* about it? In which case, why the fuck would his 'Muslim background' matter?