Appearing today with George Stephanopoulus, Barack Obama defended his recent criticisms of the McCain campaign, whom he accused of feeding rumors that he is a Muslim. Watch the video:
To those with a modicum of integrity, Obama’s minor fumble – in which he uses the phrase, “my Muslim faith” – is nothing more than unfortunate slip of the tongue, a clear mistake clarified by context. Even RedState and TownHall are staying away from this one.
To those with absolutely zero integrity, though, the slip becomes Freudian. While thankfully none of the mainstream media are covering this – let’s keep it that way – smear politics makes strange bedfellows (Conservapedia, its stormtroopers, American Thinker… and Israeli Insider?!).
Barack Obama is a Christian. The only evidence to the contrary is a slip of the tongue – immediately corrected and clarified from context – and his middle name. Kos had more compelling proof that Trig was Sarah’s baby. Can we all, as a nation, learn not to trust thirteen-second sound bytes? We can make fun of political gaffes, but to draw substantive conclusions from them would be as foolish as thinking that George W. Bush wanted to put food on your family.
Nobody’s going to be convinced by this slip. Anyone “persuaded” by it was already a moron.
I understand the political imperative behind this — but the idea that Obama’s defense on this point is/(has to be?) “I’m not a muslim” rather than “Who cares?” is sick.
Posted by Jon | September 7, 2008, 8:17 pmEXACTLY RIGHT. The proper response is “who cares?” – but for America, it has to be “NO I’M NOT.” While that’s the true tragedy, it’s not one the 24h news cycle is fit to deal with
Posted by Ames | September 7, 2008, 8:18 pmCan we chill now? No. You didn’t think this issue would go away just because it was untrue, did you?
Posted by Narc | September 9, 2008, 6:10 pm