Friday, October 03, 2008
Madrid Diary: In which I set Barack Obama's record straight
I slept in a Holiday Inn Express last night near the Madrid airport, and while it did nothing for my competence today it did require me to take a taxi in to town to meet my wife at the Hotel Wellington, the much nicer place where we will spend the next three nights. My driver spoke only passable English, but like almost everybody everywhere he was interested in the presidential election. Not two minutes into the ride, having ascertained that I was indeed an American, he asked "Obama, or McCain?" I said that I was planning to vote for McCain, but I thought Obama would win. My driver then announced very emphatically that he was for McCain, a supposedly rare point of view in Europe.
"Why?," I asked.
"Obama is Islamic!"
This, of course, presented me with a difficult ethical challenge, but I rose to the occasion and told the cabbie that Obama was, in fact, Christian. Yes, his father had been Muslim, but Obama had been raised by his mother and was definitely a Christian.
"I'm still for McCain!" said my driver with great enthusiasm.
Duty done, I chalked one Madrid cabbie up for the good guys.
33 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Oct 03, 08:51:00 PM:
The Manchurian candidate.
I wonder when we last had a President who had at least one parent not born in this country.
I wonder if it has ever happened.
That's a good Quiz question
By , at
Fri Oct 03, 09:21:00 PM:
I wonder when we last had a President who had at least one parent not born in this country.I wonder if it has ever happened.
Here is one example. Offhand I don't know of any more.
Both of Andrew Jackson’s parents were Scots-Irish immigrants. No wonder he was so ornery!
The cabbie's opinion supports the oft-repeated observation that anti-Americanism in Europe is more common in the elite and the chattering classes than in the common man. Perhaps this is so because both the elite and the common man in Europe know from whence Americans came.
By 
Escort81, at
Fri Oct 03, 09:44:00 PM:
So we can infer that the cabbie did not vote out the government in Madrid after the train bombings, as so many of his countrymen did.
If all Spaniards over the last 500 years were as hardnosed as your cabbie, the great Spanish empire throughout the Americans would still be Spanish, and I would not be writing this in English.
Good for you, TH, to set him straight on his facts, regardless of your leanings. Such things do matter.
Of course, since you mentioned who you were voting for, he might have just been going for a bigger tip.
By , at
Fri Oct 03, 10:00:00 PM:
Hussein is a Muslim!! You have no evidence to support that he is not, other than his say so.
He spent 20 years in a church not remembering anything that was said because he was praying to Allah.
"Barack" was Mohammed's horse, the horse that carried him from Jerusalem to heaven. Obama's gather named him after the carrier/bringer of Mohamed because Barack was a Muslim.
In fact, it is clear that Obama is censoring information, his transcript, his undergraduate thesis and his birth certificate. There can only be one reason; because it would prove that he is a Muslim and that he has lied about it.
Well, maybe hiding his thesis doesn't prove he's a Muslim and, instead, proves that he plagiarized the work on which his undergarduate degree is based.
The media would ask these question of a non=commie, why don't they ask Hussein?
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Fri Oct 03, 10:10:00 PM:
Re: "I thought Obama would win"
We're only a few minutes into the third quarter. According to some polls, Bush One was down this much around this time in '88. I remember worrying about it.
How many times over the past year have people counted McCain down and out? He keeps roaring back.
I liked this comment from Peggy Noonan today: "Sarah Palin saved John McCain again Thursday night. She is the political equivalent of cardiac paddles: Clear! Zap! We've got a beat!"
By , at
Fri Oct 03, 10:43:00 PM:
Interesting. We took a three week vaca to Italy in June. Not many cab drivers spoke English, but there were three who did - every one of those three was for whomever the Republican candidate would be, and each one who spoke English was in a different city (Rome, Sorrento and Milan). Plus our tour guide (Tony of Perillo Tours) was for McCain. All were emphatically for a Republican win in November, citing how the weak dollar was killing their business, and how a Democrat in the White House would make it worse.
We didn't hear one person bring up the leading candidates in the Democatric race in a positive light. 'Course, we weren't there to talk politics (wanting to get away from it all, after all), but it struck me then -- Where was this overwhelming monolithic European cry for Dem win I kept hearing about from our MSM?
Oh, right....
By davod, at
Sat Oct 04, 04:37:00 AM:
"The cabbie's opinion supports the oft-repeated observation that anti-Americanism in Europe is more common in the elite and the chattering classes than in the common man. Perhaps this is so because both the elite and the common man in Europe know from whence Americans came."
Is this the same as in the USA?
By Dan Kauffman, at
Sat Oct 04, 09:44:00 AM:
By Boludo Tejano, at Fri Oct 03, 09:21:00 PM
So we can infer that the cabbie did not vote out the government in Madrid after the train bombings, as so many of his countrymen did
**********************************
I always felt we needed to cut some slack about that election,
It was CLOSE as close as our last two and let's be honest they could have gone the other way I refuse to accept that would have condemned the entire country
We had a lot of allies in Spain to many for the over reaction towards the Spanish that I have heard then and since.
By Punditarian, at
Sat Oct 04, 10:18:00 AM:
According to Shariah Law, the son of a Muslim man is a Muslim.
That status can never be changed, and according to Shariah Law, an apostate from Islam is punished by death.
By GreenmanTim, at
Sat Oct 04, 10:44:00 AM:
"According to Shariah Law, the son of a Muslim man is a Muslim.
That status can never be changed, and according to Shariah Law, an apostate from Islam is punished by death. "
...Thus putting Barak Obama in the same boat as Salman Rushie when it comes to fundamentalist fatwas. His resistance to such intimidation should earn him Punditarian's approbation.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat Oct 04, 11:37:00 AM:
There's a theological/legal difference, but it's probably beneath the concern of most people.
"His resistance to such intimidation"
Demonstrate where he has ever faced any such intimidation and I might agree with you.
By , at
Sat Oct 04, 12:13:00 PM:
We cannot afford a Muslim sympathizer in the White House.
He never assumed a Christian name, he paid for his education with Muslim money, his best friends in college were Pakistani, with whom he traveled to Pakistan. [I traveled throughout Europe after college] Indeed, I developed a love for the Greeks having spent only 6 months in Greece at the age of 9.
Obama, raised 4 YEARS in Indonesia betwee 6 and 10 years of age, by a Muslim father, hopes to visit all 57 states some day (the number of Islamic states in the world that is).
He feels we are mistreating Muslim nations and Muslim war-criminals. He associates with people who hate America and who love the anti-Semite Farrakan.
We know of no single ACT of substantive accomplishment or patriotism from Barrack Hussein Obama--nothing but "Just words."
In short, there is no objective reason to make him our commander-in-chief.
By Punditarian, at
Sat Oct 04, 01:33:00 PM:
Greenmantim,
Nice try, but the Obamessiah has never to my knowledge spoken out against the Shariah Law that makes a capital crime of his apostasy, nor has he ever admitted that it might apply to him.
Moreover, after having been born to a Muslim father, Obama seems to have been adopted by his Muslim stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, and when he was registered in a Catholic school in Jakarta, he was registered as a Muslim. Obama has said that the chanting of the Adhan (the Muslim call to prayer) at dusk as "one of the prettiest sounds on earth."
It seems that his Pastor and spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright, is also a former Muslim, although in his case, he was a "Black Muslim" and I am not sure if that "counts" for the adherents or proponents of strict Shariah Law.
As usual, Obama is trying to have it both ways. He emphasizes his Muslim background when he wants to appeal to the citizen-of-the-world elitists and his Arab backers, but identifies himself as a Christian when he faces middle class Americans.
It would not surprise me one bit if a President Obama (ptui!) would invite a Muslim Imam to his inauguration, in the name of diversity and cultural sensitivity, and take his Oath of Office on both a Bible and a Koran. What a signal to the Shariah Law enthusiasts that would be! Open season on AmeriKKKa!
By , at
Sat Oct 04, 03:27:00 PM:
Obama has certainly given no indication that he is other than a concientious person of Christian faith. Believer in God, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, his only son our Lord.
However, why on earth does anyone in our pluralistic society actually care? . . . other than as a means to sew seeds of bigotry?
There is no charge that he is an Islamic fundamentalist zealot. Or even creditable suggestion that he is some sort of Louis Farakkan disciple (except, you know, that he "running for office while black").
It is a disqualification from high office that someone has travelled to Pakistan with Pakistani friends?
And what, exactly, is a "Muslim sympathizer"?
Hoping, myself, that our next president is something approaching worldly. Certainly can't hurt; might help.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Sat Oct 04, 03:44:00 PM:
"Obama has said that the chanting of the Adhan (the Muslim call to prayer) at dusk as 'one of the prettiest sounds on earth.' "
I'm a blue-eyed descendant of Vikings. I served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. Later I lived in Indonesia. I agree with Obama's statement -- it does sound nice.
P.S. I also support McCain.
By , at
Sat Oct 04, 04:09:00 PM:
Obama might be some sort of Christian - but his definition of sin not following your heart rejects the fundamental doctrine of Original Sin.
By , at
Sat Oct 04, 04:35:00 PM:
Yes, it appears that Obama is not a "fundamentalist" -- Christian, Islamic, or otherwise.
His church (from which, I believe, he has severed official ties) was the United Church of Christ: situated within the broad mainstream of trinitarian Christian belief, and more specifically within the family of Reformation-era Protestant churches.
By Punditarian, at
Sat Oct 04, 08:14:00 PM:
Fair & Middling,
Thanks for the information. I wouldn't have thought that Jeremiah Wright's racist, anti-American tirades were in the broad mainstream of trinitarian Christianity. In the tradition of Savonarola and Father Coughlin maybe.
The point is, that all of Barack Hussein Obama's associations reveal him to have grown up and lived in a series of milieux, the denizens of which think America and freedom are the root causes of all the problems in the world.
The idea that such a person would make a reasonable President is monstrous.
By davod, at
Sat Oct 04, 09:13:00 PM:
"However, why on earth does anyone in our pluralistic society actually care? . . . other than as a means to sew seeds of bigotry?"
The caring relates to what he would do about the Muslim part when in office. Being pluralistic may not be on his agenda.
By , at
Sat Oct 04, 09:25:00 PM:
Gee, whiz. Does that make all Christians Crusaders-in-waiting?
Maybe it's not bigotry . . . maybe just fear-mongering.
You do realize that religious tolerance is actually meant to be a good thing -- and an "American" (i.e., patriotic) value?
By , at
Sat Oct 04, 10:06:00 PM:
It has been said that Islam, in principle and doctrine, is by far the most tolerant of all monotheistic religions.
Judaism rejects Jesus and Muhammad, and Christians reject Muhammad. Islam, however, is inclusivistic: It recognizes each and every prophet who lived before Muhammad and considers the Bible, including the New Testament, as a holy script.
We know that religious fundamentalist extremists come in many stripes. I, as a Christian -- believing that God has given us each other as a blessing to be treasured, who knows us through and through and loves us still and all -- would hate to be confused with someone who reads our shared scripture in a cramped and hateful way. (Remember that the well-heeled prophets of Christian fundamentalism, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, initially laid blame for the tragedy of the attacks on 9/11 at the doors of moral decadence, announcing that "God gave us what we deserve." Washington Post, 9/14/01.)
Islamic terrorists who trade on violence have nothing to do with the true heart of Islam at all, but with the love of bloodshed and the mustering of power. Ditto for Christian fascists.
By , at
Sat Oct 04, 11:15:00 PM:
fair and middling :
It has been said that Islam, in principle and doctrine, is by far the most tolerant of all monotheistic religions.
Such as Koranic references to Jews as pigs and monkeys?
For Islamic tolerance in practice, try setting up a church in Saudi Arabia, or even bringing in a Bible.
A Shiite or a Sufi has more freedom to practice his form of Islam in the US than in Saudi Arabia.
As regards "Christian fascists", consider the difference between the way that Islam and Christianity treat apostates. Oh so tolerant!
I strongly suggest that you spend some time in Saudi Arabia.
By , at
Sat Oct 04, 11:35:00 PM:
Yes, but Saudi Arabia, as an absolute monarchy ruled by the religious movement at the source of modern radical Islamic fundamentalism, is certainly not the only face of Islam.
By Gary Rosen, at
Sun Oct 05, 03:21:00 AM:
Saudi Arabia may not be the "only face of Islam" but it has the prestige of being the site of Mecca and Medina not to mention having enormous economic wealth to leverage its influence througout the Islamic world.
By Punditarian, at
Sun Oct 05, 03:38:00 AM:
Fair & Middling,
It was the great Muslim polymath, theologian, scientist, and jurist Ibn Khaldun (732 AH - 808 AH, predating the Islamism of Qutb by 500 years) who opined that military jihad against infidels was a particularly even uniquely Muslim mission, in that Islam was (is) in his view a uniquely universalist religion, because of Islam's contention that it had replaced all other religions. Hence the religious obligation to convert every human being to Islam by either persuasion or force. Islam is only inclusivist when it conquers each and every human soul. Those it has not yet conquered, or who have abandoned it, it condemns absolutely. Is that "tolerant" to you?
By , at
Sun Oct 05, 11:35:00 AM:
Gary Rosen -- Could not agree more.
But where the conversation started was asking the basic question about Obama's religious background -- and simply noting that associating him with the word "Muslim" is nothing more than a crass politically motivated smear, playing to the basest ignorance about the tenets of Islamic belief as a whole.
I mean, seriously, is anyone actually concerned that Obama is a jihadist based on the religious affiliations of his father and stepfather and the places he lived as a child?
If so, we're in a whole mess o' trouble and don't actually need to go to Saudi Arabia to find it.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Oct 05, 11:48:00 AM:
"It has been said that Islam, in principle and doctrine, is by far the most tolerant of all monotheistic religions.
Judaism rejects Jesus and Muhammad, and Christians reject Muhammad. Islam, however, is inclusivistic: It recognizes each and every prophet who lived before Muhammad and considers the Bible, including the New Testament, as a holy script. "
That's totally not true.
If Islam accepted the New Testament, that means that they would accept the idea of Jesus as the Messiah and son of God. They don't; that's a heresy caused by Satan. The New Testament is, literally, tainted by Satan.
Likewise with accepting the Old Testament. That would invalidate the very reason for Islam coming into being in the first place; to correct the mistakes of Judaism and Christianity.
Islam's 'acceptance' of other religions' prophets is theological justification for the very existence of Islam. Namely, that those (genuine) prophets' messages have been lost and corrupted by the ignorant and/or debauched Jews and Christians. That it is touted as an example of Islamic enlightenment is an affront to logic.
And the 'tolerance' of conquered Christians and Jews, as oft-mentioned 'People of the Book,' basically means, "We'll let you live, but you have to pay a special tax that no one else pays, you cannot own or bear arms, and your testimony is worthless against a Muslim in court. Every so often there will be popular riots against your faith where many of you will be killed, raped, and pillaged. The authorities will wring their hands about lawless elements, but do nothing because they secretly believe that if you were decent people who deserved protection, you'd be Muslim. Welcome to our Islamic paradise.
Oh, and all you polytheists and idolators (Hindus, pagans, and Buddhists who use idols as part of their rituals)? Line up to be executed. Or convert. Your choice."
By , at
Sun Oct 05, 12:48:00 PM:
I said that Muslims consider the Bible a holy script. Not that they accept Jesus as the Son of God.
My understanding is that Muslims believe that Jesus was a prophet, granted special powers by God to show people the power of God (along with the other Jewish prophets, including -- among others -- Noah, Moses, Abraham, Jacob, Ishmael and Issac).
At least that is my understanding of what some of the estimated 7 million Muslims living in the United States believe.
By Punditarian, at
Sun Oct 05, 02:07:00 PM:
"I mean, seriously, is anyone actually concerned that Obama is a jihadist based on the religious affiliations of his father and stepfather and the places he lived as a child?"
I am not concerned that the Obamessiah is a jihadist based on the religious affiliations of his father and stepfather, etc.
I am concerned, however, that he grew up in an atmosphere of anti-Americanism and extreme leftism. Moreover, as an adult, he accepted the patronage of deeply committed communist terrorists who have openly bragged about their bombings of the Pentagon and the Capitol, and who once intended --according to their own accounts-- to set off an anti-personnel bomb at a social dance for American troops at Fort Dix, New Jersey (only the premature explosion of that IED, killing the 3 bombmakers.)
I am concerned that as an adult, he has numbered among his advisers anti-American, terrorist supporters Edward Said and Rashid Al Khalidi.
I am concerned that as an adult, he spent 20 years soaking up the spiritual mentorship of a virulently anti-American one-time-BLack-Muslim minister, Jeremiah Wright, having himself married in Wright's Church and exposing his daughter's to regular doses of Wright's poison.
I am concerned that as an adult he was a member of and counsel for the communist agitation and vote-stealing group, ACORN.
I am concerned that as an adult, and as a State legislator and United States Senator, he actively aided and abetted the corrupt Chicago Democrat party machine. He was also intimately connected as lawyer and friend with the corrupt Chicago financier Antoin Rezko.
Since Obama's record of accomplishment is so thin (his CV does not boast a single real positive accomplishment as community organizer, Annenberg Challenge Chairman, State Senator or U.S. Senator, other than repeatedly speaking and voting in favor of making infanticide legal) we have to understand his associations and his associates in order to try to understand what kind of person and politician he really is.
It is not that Obama is a jihadist himself that is troubling, it is that the adoption of his anti-American worldview by the U.S. government will make life so much easier for the jihadists. Obama is a jihad facilitator, rather than an active participant, but the results for the west will be bad if he is elected.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Oct 05, 02:33:00 PM:
A holy script that just happens to be heretical?
Right.
The Prophets and Patriarchs are held to be Islamic prophets. Not Jewish prophets. What the world knows as Judiasm and the Judaic tradition is simply a corruption of original Islam. So to Muslim theologians, they are not Jewish prophets at all; they are Muslim prophets. And, noting the poor treatment and obedience that many prophets received at the hands of the Israelites, the Quran has some choice words about Jews, particularly in the earlier Suras. Such as the infamous 'apes and pigs' verse referred to earlier.
By modern standards, Islam is not and never has been a tolerant religion. It spread by the sword, (conquests of Persia, Egypt and North Africa, Iberia, Naples) was enforced by the sword, (rigid codes of behavior, a caste system based on religion with Muslims on top) and maintains itself by the sword even now (death to apostates and proselytizers).
How many other tolerant religions execute members of their faith who change their minds? Or don't even change their minds, but had the misfortune of being born into a faith in which they don't believe and are still considered apostates? Or have in them a divine command to beat your wives if they don't obey you?
"At least that is my understanding of what some of the estimated 7 million Muslims living in the United States believe."
That wasn't the belief system of Adam Gadahn; one of those 7 million American Muslims. Or John Lindh, (the American Taliban) another. Or John Allen Williams. (DC Sniper) Or Mohammed Taheri-azar. (the guy who ran over people at UNC who said, ''I did not act out of hatred for Americans, but out of love for Allah instead.") Or Ahmed Muhammad and Yosef Megahed. (the USF students arrested for possession of explosives and later determined to have been planning on targeting a Naval base) Or the Fort Dix Six.
Et cetera.
There are plenty of nice, tolerant Muslims in the US. The majority, even. I met plenty when I was in the Army. But they do not represent their faith as it exists elsewhere, especially the Middle East. They are nice and tolerant because they downplay or ignore those aspects of their religion that are at odds with life here. But those aspects are still there, and there are plenty of Muslims who take them deadly serious.
By , at
Sun Oct 05, 06:49:00 PM:
If, indeed, Islam is purely spread by the sword, was enforced by the sword, and maintains itself by the sword even now (and Obama is some sort of "jihadist facilitator"! Wow.) . . . I'm interested to hear views on what this is about:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1670291,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-bottom
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Oct 05, 08:23:00 PM:
Yeah, you're totally right. A Jordanian royal sponsored forum absolutely wipes out the last 1400 years of bloody Islamic history.
How could I possibly hold it against them that they condone honor killings and executions of Christian converts in that very same country? Why would anyone hold Islam to be a warlike and intolerant faith? They held a forum.
Well, perhaps you could explain what all this is about.
From Milestones Along the Way, by Sayyid Qutb. (considered one of the most influential Islamist tracts in history)
'..."There is no god but God," was a challenge to that worldly authority which had usurped the greatest attribute of God; sovereignty. It was a rebellion against all modes of behavior which have been devised under this usurpation and was a declaration of war against that authority which legislates laws not permitted by Allah.'
and
[referring to the time of early Islam] "Mankind was uplifted in its social order, in its morals, in all of its life, to a zenith of perfection which had never been attained before and which cannot be attained afterwards except through Islam."
There's this gem, from Power, Faith, and Fantasy, by Michael Oren.
"It was... written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their [the Muslims'] authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise." - Abd al-Rahman, Ruler of Tripoli, in peace negotiations with representatives of President Thomas Jefferson
From The Legacy of Jihad, edited by Andrew Bostom, p.59-60.
"The Almohads wreaked enormous destruction on both the Jewish and Christian populations in Spain and North Africa. This devastation - massacre, captivity, and forced conversion - was described by the Jewish chronicler Abraham ibn Daud and the poet Abraham ibn Ezra. Suspicious of the sincerity of the Jewish converts to Islam, Muslim "inquisitors" (antedating their Christian Spanish counterparts by three centuries) removed the children from such families, placing them in the care of Muslim educators. Maimonedes, the renowned philosopher and physician, experienced the Almohad persecutions and had to flee Cordoba with his entire family in 1148, temporarily residing in Fez - disguised as a Muslim - before finding asylum in Fatimid Egypt. Indeed, although Maimonedes is frequently referred to as a paragon of Jewish achievement facilitated by the enlightened rule of Andalusia, his own words debunk this utopian view of the Islamic treatment of Jews: "The Arabs have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us... Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they."
Same source, different topic.
"Paul Witeck, citing the oldest known Ottoman source, the versified chronicle of Ahmedi, maintains that the fourteenth-century Ottomans believed they, too, "were a community of ghazis, of champions of the Muhammadan religion; a community of the Moslem march - warriors, devoted to the struggle with the infidels in their neighborhood." The contemporary Turkish scholar of Ottoman history, Halil Inalcik, has also emphasized the importance of Muslim religious zeal - expressed through jihad - as a primary motivation for the conquests of the Ottoman turks: "The ideal of gaza, Holy War, was an important factor in the foundation and development of the Ottoman state. Society in the frontier principalities conformed to a particular cultural pattern imbued with the ideal of continuous Holy War and continuous expansion of Dar al-Islam - the realms of Islam - until they covered the whole world."
And did you know that Iran didn't become majority Shi'a until after the 16th century, because of forced conversions of other Muslims?
Examples of continuous jihad against and oppression of infidels in theory and practice from the 11th century to the 20th.
But Islam is a tolerant religion, because the Kingdom of Jordan held a religious forum.
By , at
Mon Oct 06, 08:08:00 PM:
Say it ain't so, Joe . . . there ya' go lookin' backward again. *wink*
Anyway, I still don't know what to think about it. Minimally, I think it's interesting. As is this: http://www.acommonword.com/index.php?lang=en&page=newcontent
