OK, OK, another distraction from writing chapter 3.
All of you have seen, heard, or read about The Great Controversy. Yes, the one wherein a pro-Clinton plant asked Trump a loaded and rambling question about Muslims being a problem in America, and Obama being a Muslim and not even an American. Watch the video and you'll see that Trump initially makes light of the question, and then gives a not totally coherent answer about how he will look into a variety of issues and come up with ways to deal with them. Crappy question, and somewhat lame answer--one which shows that Trump does not do any practicing or researching before taking the podium. He relies on a natural gift-of-gab, a considerable one, admittedly, but not one which always resonates well with our Progressive Overlords: precisely why he continues to do well in the polls--at least for now.
Now the Progs and their friends are in a frenzy because Trump did not defend Obama as a Christian and an American. Megyn Kelly on Fox compared Trump's answer unfavorably with McCain's back in 2008, when he fielded a similar question. McCain defended Obama; McCain, of course, lost the election--which, I gather, is why Progs keep citing him as the model Republicans should emulate.
I remain undecided on Trump. I don't see evidence that he has a coherent world view, and remain uncertain that he can go the distance. He, therefore, is not my first choice for GOP nominee, but I see and respect him as a very savvy politician, businessman, and entertainer. Don't listen to the Progs on Trump: he is a smart man. Trump understands our complex modern media age perhaps better than anybody else I have seen on the national stage. He knows how to deliver a message, play a crowd, and set the agenda.
Back to the issue at hand: Trump has no obligation to defend Obama on anything. Could he have provided a better answer to this Clinton provocateur? Sure, but, I repeat, he does not have to defend Obama as being Christian. Why not? None of us knows if he is or isn't Christian. I have written about this before. As a child he grew up in a leftist/Muslim household--father and step-father were Muslim--went to Muslim schools, and as an adult joined that fraudulent Rev. Wright's "church" in Chicago as a political move. Its teachings are not exactly mainstream Christian, I would note.
I am not a Christian and don't play one on the internet. I, however, do know something about religion and have spent most of my life with Christian colleagues, friends, and relatives, e.g., the Diplowife and her family. I don't see anything particularly Christian about Obama or his pronouncements. When he has spoken about Christianity it has been usually to castigate it for some "wrong", e.g., the Crusades. He has not, to my knowledge, used such condemnatory language when discussing Islam; he tends to give those who commit heinous crimes in the name of Islam a pass, denying that they are "true" Muslims. He's not said a word about or moved a muscle to stop the horrendous attacks on Christians in many Muslim countries--and seems quite content to release billions of dollars to the fanatically Muslim Iranian regime and allow it to acquire a nuclear bomb. The only country in the Middle East where Christians now are safe is Israel--a country not on Obama's Christmas card list, shall we say? If he were not a Christian, would he have done anything differently?
One more thing, before it gets sucked away into the memory hole: Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign initially raised the issue of where Obama had been born and his religion. She should be asked about that. Maybe somebody could send her an email?
One of your cheering section here, Mr. Amselem. Again, a great post, and it's too bad you retired too early for someone to name you SecState.
ReplyDeleteThe media discourse about pre-1800 religion (ANYONE's, whether Muslim, Christian, or Buddhist), and even that from trainers at the Foreign Service Institute back when I was there learning about Southeast Asia prior to my posting to Bangkok, is by and large lame, ignorant, groping, confused, prejudiced, puzzled, and pretentious at the same time.
Still, I think the Donald could've done a hell of a lot better.
You know that I am no fan of the O (again, in Hakka Chinese, say it in one tone, it means "child", and in another "to defecate"); and as a Christian (perhaps pre-liberal Evangelical Calvinist best describes me), I hold no candle for Islam.
But, speaking of Islam and Muslims, I had one very intelligent and ambitious high schooler from Guinea, who, on learning of Obama's position on partial birth abortion and his "evolution" re same-sex marriage, exclaimed in transparent horror in emergent, Francophone African-accented English, "How could any Muslim support such things?" The boy was going by the name, and nothing else. I'll only say that it was a wonderful teaching moment that followed.
Thanks also for raising how Shrillary Shrooooo's 2008 campaign "birthed" the "Birther" movement; although I'm of the mind that it might've been the publisher's blurbs on his first book (which spoke of his Kenyan origins) and maybe even something that the O's almas materes are hiding for him that also laid the mountebank open to charges about his eligibility. I am aware that Breitbart News has also raised this fact.
This, of course, points to how downright nasty, petty, and contemptible Shrillary is as a person. For me, the O donning Somali garb while visiting that part of the world is a very small thing that is harmless in and of itself. I wore out a mian ao after several winters when I taught in northern Taiwan as a young man, and I wish I had five green dollars for every FSO and spouse who's ever donned host country costume at one time or another. My eldest brother and his wife came back from their honeymoon in Europe (mostly southern Germany and Austria) sporting lederhosen, high-rise woven socks, and a green hat with a gemsbardt on my brother and a dirndl on his wife. I'll go down trying to punch out the lights of anyone who'd suggest that my brother and his wife are Nazis or otherwise un-American. Again, I wish I had a fiver for every onetime male visitor to Scotland who ever came home with a kilt and sporran in his luggage, or visitor to Israel (Jewish or not) who came home with a souvenir kippeh.
At the same time, if someone were to disparage an American who wasn't Shrill's political opponent for donning foreign or ancestral costume, I'm sure Shrill would be the first to scream "bigot!" and loftily declare how she is sooooooooooo high above such pettiness. This is yet another reason why I think that the most patriotic thing Shrillary Shrooooo could ever do, next to coming clean about her record and taking whatever consequences may come, would be to go home and bake cookies for Chelsea's kid.
The O's issues were, are, and will be his scarcely hidden extreme Leftism, which makes his penchant for golf over work a blessing in disguise for the country that was foolish enough to elect him.
As for religion, I never bought the meme that the O is a secret Muslim. I have worried that some crazy might take it one himself to kill this admittedly miserable excuse of a POTUS for being a murtad. It has always struck me that the O's religion is Leftism tempered with whatever is beneficial to O's political career. Much as I despise Wrev. Jeremiah Wrong, I confess to a wee bit of sympathy for him, since he strikes me as someone whom the O simply used.
Keep it up. I look forward to seeing whatever other comments there are on this post.
I just can't countenance sympathy for Rev. Wright under really any circumstances. He counseled a married couple once, and the woman in that marriage became his wife.
DeleteIf Obama used him (more like mutual objective use), it wasn't even justice.
Other than that.. wholeheartedly agreed... just how did O get reelected... oh.. Romney... I kinda liked R.
- reader #1482
OK. I drop my wee bit of sympathy for Wrev. Wwrong.
DeleteGood grief!!
DeleteMy wager about Obama is that he qualifies as a standard-issue professional class twit. He has not a serious thought in his head about any religious or philosophical question, just a clutch of attitudes. Re Clinton, the sociopathy renders him ultimately empty, just the sum of his appetites. From his private correspondence, we know Richard Nixon was the most parsimonious sort of liberal protestant, tending toward deism. Eisenhower was quite reticent about matters religious (and commonly misquoted); like Nixon he was someone in substantive respects (not necessarily formally) had abandoned a peace-church background. Ford, Reagan, and Bush the Elder were old-school: religious adherence and some quantum of regular worship was the default state, something you eschewed only if you made a considered and explicit decision to reject the faith. Carter and Bush the Younger were the most decidedly religious; in Carter's case, you can see that evangelicalism can and does decay, manifested in his endorsement of homosexual pseudogamy.
ReplyDeleteIf you stop and think about it, there is something discombobulated about the religious commitments of most recent presidents:
1. Wilson: hostile to blacks, big time.
2. Harding: persistent sexual misbehavior, freemasonry
3. Roosevelt: persistent sexual misbehavior, freemasonry
4. Truman: freemasonry (in fact, held quite a high position in the Masonic orders and stacked the Supreme Court with Masons)
5. Kennedy: gross (!) and persistent sexual misbehavior
6. Johnson: gross and persistent sexual misbehavior, candidate for a masonic lodge
7. Ford: freemasonry, canonically invalid marriage
8. Clinton: gross and persistent sexual misbehavior
9. Obama: Jeremiah Wright, &c.
And that does not include the oddity of 3 people from a peace church background serving as Commander-in-Chief, on of whom had enlisted in the wartime military and another of whom was a career soldier. Calvin Coolidge, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush pere, and George Bush fils seem to be the only ones who have been consistent and straightforward in these matters (although Bush pere did show up at some sort of parody wedding).
Art Deco I know very little about your past Presidents but s you seem to have some issue with the Masons I suggest you obtain a reliable non-conspiracy book on them.
DeleteFirst and foremost their organisation requires an open and stated belief in a G-d. There is no requirement for that to be the Christian interpretation so is open to most religions.
Their core philosophy is brotherly love, relief and truth.
Not an organisation whose principles I would feel uncomfortable with.
When did I allude to any conspirazoid discourse, bar in your imagination? Its a matter of historical fact that all of these men belonged to masonic lodges.
DeleteIn the Catholic Church, someone who joins a masonic lodge is excommunicate latae sententiae, because it is an act of apostasy. Why protestant bodies tolerate freemasonry among their members only they can answer. I offered it as an indicator of religious confusion. Truman was associated with Baptist congregations, which are formally non-creedal. Lyndon Johnson belonged to the Disciples of Christ, which is also non-creedal. Maybe that's how they squared that particular circle. Harding, Roosevelt, and Johnson also had to square the circle of their zipper problems. As for Ford, he was married in an Episcopal Church, a body which at that time had a strict marriage canon. Cannot figure how he persuaded a priest to officiate at a ceremony solemnizing a marriage between himself and William Warren's estranged wife, except that 'whatever' has long been a feature of Anglicanism in practice.
Art Deco--a lot of conservative Calvinists, especially of the Netherlands tradition, frown on freemasonry, too. They charge that it is improper to belong to an oath-bound secret society.
DeleteI think that one reason why a lot of Conservative Presbyterians in the USA don't make an issue of Lodge membership is because back in the 18th century, Lodge membership came to be a commonality among a lot of up-and-coming men in many southern communities, and exclusion of Freemasons would've been tantamount to having an all-female congregation.
The Know Nothings were anti-Mason too.
DeleteKnowing that my dumb cousin is a enthusiastic Mason dissuades me from even considering membership.
I think Scottish Rite lodges tend toward deism and Grand-Orient lodges toward atheism, which may explain the greater laxity you see in the Anglosphere regarding parallel membership in masonic lodges and Christian congregations.
DeleteAnglicanism has long tolerated freemasonry and at least one Archbishop of Canterbury was a freemason. "Whatever" has a long history in Anglicanism.
I hadn't heard that about the Know Nothings. They were a secret society themselves. There was an Anti-Masonic Party active ca. 1832. They pioneered certain innovations in political practice, like national party conventions. I think they were eventually absorbed into the Whig Party.
Sounds as if Coolidge and Ike were the only presidents in the last century who were halfway respectable!
Delete"The only country in the Middle East where Christians are safe is in Israel ..."
ReplyDeleteJust to be the turd in the punchbowl - actually (and not that so long ago) there used to be two countries safe for Christians in the ME.
Israel and Syria.
Arkie
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sy.html
Simply *can not understand* [magic?] how that CIA link got transmuted from 2010 into the current 2015 analysis/estimate - so here's a link (from another place dated March 2011) but citing the same CIA page I had pulled up from the Agency's archives;
Deletehttp://www.geocurrents.info/geopolitics/syrias-ethno-religious-complexity-and-potential-turmoil
Ark
My husband observed in 2008 that the man was neither Muslim or Christian....I think he is still right....
ReplyDeleteEast Texas Rancher
That's my view as I wrote in my piece on Feb 23, 2015. He's just full of resentments, entitlements, and ignorance.
DeleteHear, hear. I don't think he's Jewish, Samaritan, Mormon, Buddhist, Hindu, Daoist, Jain, etc., either.
Deletemost definitely Obamaist.... I mean.. self-worship is probably the largest religion in the world and takes at least 90% of any elected government.
Deleteif they were religious people, they wouldn't be in politics.. pretty much.
- reader #1482
The ignorance I think I get. The man made a hash of his liberal education (something almost universal nowadays) and was not curious enough to be an autodidact. People with a given level of educational attainment just do not have the body of common allusions or the sort of erudition which was normal among the educated of my grandparents' generation. The entitlement I think I get. He had an agreeable upbringing all told, and since the age of 27 both he and his wife have received patronage and dispensations by their employers that are seldom seen by ordinary people. The closest he got to an ordinary work life was his stint as a copy editor prior to 1986. That has to have distorted his worldview and sensibilities. The resentments I do not get. I can imagine him resenting some discrete targets (who died in 1982 and 1995, respectively), not the world in general.
Delete... with his family background, it's really not surprising.
DeleteNo significant father-child relationship, just a bunch of stand-ins.
From where could he take any example?
And his book was labeled something like 'Dreams from my father' or some such. Seems pretty clear he missed a lot growing up.
That's a ton of resentment towards any and every thing.
- reader #1482
The 'stand-ins' were his step-father and his maternal side grandparents, who spent decades between them cleaning up after Ann Dunham. Stanley Dunham was a spent bullet at the time, making some commissions on insurance policies he sold out of his home and not working for anyone, so not the best of examples (but not a non-example, either). Not an optimal upbringing, but most of us are not graced with optimality. I can imagine an essentially sour regard for his mother and father and they earned it. (He was at a the Million Man March while his mother lay dying of cancer in Honolulu; I do not think he cared much about her). What I cannot understand is why it extends to anyone else. He did not want for nurturing from his grandparents or from the schools he attended or from friends. If anything, they rather over-watered him.
DeleteJust seems a familiar refrain of the children of "divorce-but-it's-okay-because-we-both-love-the-children-but-not-enough-to-resolve-our-differences-but-they-wont-be-hurt-because-we'll-both-try-to-be-active-in-their-lives-yet-not-exhibit-actual-love-or-sacrifice-for-them-because-we-want-our-own-lives-our-own-way".
DeleteKids in these families have parents and support that are just insufficient, and generalize this to families in general being insufficient. And what else is there? Government. Government should have provided the love that their parents didn't. It doesn't (because it can't and isn't supposed to), but that's not going to stop them. Government must become *good*, not just a body of people, with *good* being whatever takes their fancy. "Insure the uninsured", "Redefine marriage so people don't feel abandoned", "Withdraw from the world because we're obviously incompetent and unloved."
I expect a lot more of this before we might see less of it.
- reader #1482
Come again? Ann Dunham was a shag. I doubt Barack Obama, Sr. cared much about her, ever. For some reason - perhaps to keep the immigration authorities off his back, or to keep the philanthropic fund financing his schooling off his back, or to maintain face in front of Neil Abercrombie and others - he married her. The marriage was invalid because it was bigamous. Ann Dunham decamped to Seattle in September 1961 and they never cohabited again. It's doubtful they ever had any discussions of the sort you imagine. Ann Dunham then discarded her congenial lush of a second husband as well, after refusing to have more than one child by him. Ann Dunham deposited her oldest son with her parents, who may have taken on the task reasoning their daughter was doing a lousy job. Ann Dunham's self-centeredness was exceeded by one person - Barack Obama, Sr., who was a monster of arrogance (however engaging Neil Abercrombie found him).
DeleteCorrection, older child. She had only one son.
DeleteI think the damage done is the same, whether his parents justified to themselves that they cared or not. My point is that, if asked, Obama likely will claim that the lack of a family growing up doesn't/hasn't influenced his politics. But when raised with no roots, no acceptance into a family, people have little choice but to place their faith in external institutions like the government. They don't want others to share that feeling of abandonment and thus rely on the only institution that's been 'there for them' at all.. ie, the government. Obama's politics were set by the circumstances of his birth, as with many adults nowadays.
Delete- reader #1482
He did not lack a family. What he lacked was an intact and abiding domestic life. Nor was he 'not accepted'. He did not have roots, 'tis true, and quite unremarkable for haolies in Hawaii. There are some old families there, but the haolie population there is composed largely of people who found the climate more attractive than the roots they had. From 1940 to 1960, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham never lived any place longer than five years. Ann Dunham did not have any roots either, nor any siblings to anchor her.
DeleteAnd that's one thing notable about Obama. He seems to have no interest in spending his life in the locus where he spent the largest share of his upbringing and taking some sort of place in the odd sort of society that is Honolulu. His grandmother lived there for 48 years and his sister lives there today with her family.
He certainly went through life knowing that his parents were alive but uninterested in him. Grandparents alone are certainly better than nothing.
Delete- reader #1482
Well, this isn't going to change my opinion that the O is America's answer to the malicious and inept Mr. Bean; but all this on the O's family does make me feel a little sorry for him. It also convinces me that no amount of good education and money is going to substitute for a functioning family.
DeleteMr. Bean the Rowan Atkinson character? How is he malicious? And how is the taciturn Mr. Bean at all reminiscent of motormouth Obama?
DeleteBO's mother was self-centered above and beyond the norm for her contemporaries and BO's father just appalling in how he conducted his life. There is nothing remarkable about the rest of his family.
As to your broad statement "The only country in the Middle East where Christians now are safe is Israel.."
ReplyDeleteI'd think UAE would definitely count and perhaps other Gulf mini-states.
I will agree that Israel is the SAFEST place though, at least from state-sponsored repression,
There can be no doubt about who is Obama's Lord and Savior.
ReplyDeleteIt is Obama.
here here
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I detest Hillary I find it impossible to omit Reince Priebus, Karl Rove or Jeb! as being the source of the troll.
ReplyDeletePersonally I don't know and I don't care whether Obama is a Christian.
ReplyDeleteFar more relevant is whether he respects the values, achievements and above all the consitution of America (one of man's greatest achievements); to which the answer is a clear NO.
He is a wrecker, and as you know better than I has done untold damage to your wonderful country.
Obama's religion?
ReplyDeleteBy their fruit you will recognize them. Matt 7:16
Jose
By the bugs on the fruit you shall recognize them.
Delete"...remain uncertain that [Trump] can go the distance."
ReplyDeleteExactly. He is having a lot of fun right now, but that is not going to last for the grueling fourteen months until the election. Aside from the other problems with him, I remain unconvinced that he has the physical and mental stamina required for a presidential campaign.
yeah... he's the candidate with the least *motivation* to become president.. he was already handed billions by his father... he doesn't need trillions of lightly-accounted dollars from congress.
Delete- reader #1482
His father died in 1999, and had four other children. At the time of his death he was a centimillionaire and his son's current net worth exceeds what his was by a factor of more than 10. Trump and his father ran parallel businesses with the father concentrating on modest developments of residential real estate while the son moved into Manhattan commercial real estate, hotels & casinos, &c.
DeleteApologies for the off-the-cuff backhand... wasn't informed or merited.
DeleteI think my original intent of a point still stands... when you're a billionaire with a vast legacy already before you, pulling out of a presidential race doesn't mean a whole lot. For someone with life-long ambition of being President with that kind of personal investment, bowing out of the race (either before or after nomination) is a much more momentous decision.
- reader #1482
"a pro-Clinton plant "
ReplyDeleteare we sure it wasn't a GOP plant?
I saw an interview with the fellow. He says he's a Clinton supporter.
DeleteGiven his history, as son and stepson of Muslims, Obama is inevitably either a Muslim or an apostate. From the Islamic point of view there is no other possibility.
ReplyDeleteThat's not automatic... also his father was already an apostate, which muddies the waters further.
DeleteI think it's reasonable to understand that he's not a hunted man.
- reader #1482
This is actually believable....
ReplyDelete--
When Wallace asked about how an HP "Wholesaler of the Year" could have sold millions of dollars in products to Iran -- despite U.S. sanctions -- without Fiorina knowing, she argued that the wholesaler was doing business with another company that was doing business with Iran. She said the foreign subsidiary of HP was "not honest in their dealings."
"The SEC investigation proved that neither I nor anyone else in management knew about it," she said.
--
... because to anybody who was at HP under Fiorina's tenure, it's clear that she had no idea what *any* part of HP was doing.
fwiw, it didn't start that way... most HPers were extremely excited to have her on board. Nice to be leading the way with a woman, and she was very well spoken.
- reader #1482
Let's wait and see if the "Christian" Barack Hussein Obama bows as deeply for the Pope as he did for the Keeper of the Two Mosques.
ReplyDeleteSomehow I don't think so...
Well now, it seems Germany has finally found Leibesraum..................in Germany. They are now celebrating "International Cossack Appreciation Day" in Syria, and Brussels has discovered that EU is pronounced Eeeew! Modern Marvels my my.
ReplyDeleteJames the Lesser
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ReplyDelete