Category Archives: Obama Administration

Barack Hussein Obama: We can say it now

Election 2008, Islamophobia

If it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, it’s over at last. Yes, he did it. The next President of the United States, it is finally safe to say with a loud voice, is Barack Hussein Obama. Not just Barry for the ESPN fans, nor Barack H. for those frightened of prejudicial backlash from the Bible Belt, but a candidate who won decisively despite a middle name of Hussein. There is no reason why President Obama should use his middle name. Bill Clinton resonated without a Jeffersonian middle and Jack Kennedy marched into Camelot without his Bostonian f-word on the lips of reporters. But neither is there any need to disguise the fact that a name like Hussein, or even Muhammad, is as American as Tom, Dick, Harry, Mario, Chang, Hideki, Prideep or any of the myriad names that grace American passports.

Names do matter, but nothing matters more than getting over the name blame game that highlighted the Islamophobia in this tense, mercifully past tense now, presidential campaign. Continue reading Barack Hussein Obama: We can say it now →

Guilty of Befriending Muslims

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Election 2008, Islamophobia, Taliban


Professor Rashid Khalidi

by Mark LeVine, Tikkun, October 30, 2008

With less than a week left before the most important Presidential election in at least a generation, the McCain campaign has decided that, having failed to convince most Americans that Barack Obama is actually a closet Muslim, its best hope for winning undecided voters is to accuse Obama of having Muslim friends.

Not just Muslim friends, Muslim Palestinian friends. Apparently there are few more fearful combinations in the American ethno-religious lexicon.

And so a McCain spokesman has accused the Los Angeles Times of “intentionally suppressing” a video that would “show a clearer link” between the Democratic candidate and Professor Rashid Khalidi, the most important scholar of Palestinian history in the world, who at the time the video was shot, was a neighbor of Obama and a colleague at the University of Chicago. Continue reading Guilty of Befriending Muslims →

Pay Dirt for the RNC

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Election 2008, Luke R. E. Publican, Palestine, Terrorism Issue


Where the RNC found Joe the Plumber

Yesterday the RNC (also to be known as Really Nasty Condemnations) slid out yet more mud trying to fearmonger Senator Obama yet again as a terrorist. Since they cannot find any smoking guns from Obama’s record, the exit strategy has come down to throwing smoke-filled room stink bombs around Obama’s Chicago neighborhood. The latest mudpie comes at the expense of Professor Rashid Khalidi, who holds the Edward Said Chair of History at Columbia University. When Obama taught at the University of Chicago he was a colleague, neighbor and friend of Khalidi. For the RNC all it takes to be labeled terrorist these days is to be Palestinian. But they have chosen an individual who is a recognized international scholar and who is admired across a broad spectrum of the academy. His most recent book, The Iron Cage, attacks the excesses of Zionism on the Palestinian quest for statehood, but is also critical of the PLO and Palestinian violence. He writes as a historian, not a polemicist only interested in political spin. Continue reading Pay Dirt for the RNC →

The Endorsement from Hell

Election 2008, Iraq War, Osama Bin Laden, Somalia, Terrorism Issue

The Endorsement From Hell
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, The New York Times, October 25, 2008

John McCain isn’t boasting about a new endorsement, one of the very, very few he has received from overseas. It came a few days ago:

“Al Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” read a commentary on a password-protected Islamist Web site that is closely linked to Al Qaeda and often disseminates the group’s propaganda.

The endorsement left the McCain campaign sputtering, and noting helplessly that Hamas appears to prefer Barack Obama. Al Qaeda’s apparent enthusiasm for Mr. McCain is manifestly not reciprocated. Continue reading The Endorsement from Hell →

Muslim Americans for Obama

CyberOrient, Election 2008, Islam in America

[The website Muslim-Americans for Obama was created by Zeba Khan and welcomes members who share their goal of electing Senator Obama President. Here is their mission statement]

Although there is only a short period of time until the election on November 4th, there is much work to be done for supporters of Barack Obama’s candidacy. Muslim-Americans for Obama (MAFO 2008) was formed to offer a vehicle for Muslim-Americans to mobilize quickly and effectively so that our community turns out in great numbers for Barack Obama on Election Day. Given the role that “being a Muslim” has played so far in this campaign (most frequently as a slur or ‘allegation’ that Obama is himself a ‘secret’ Muslim), we also wanted to create a space that rises above such sophomoric and hateful rhetoric, in order to assert the following core beliefs:

• That we support Barack Obama because, among other reasons, he rejects the politics of fear, challenging our nation to embrace its collective identity, where each American has a stake in the success and well-being of every American.

• That we have a duty both as Muslims and Americans to organize and vote.

• That our role and responsibility as concerned American citizens in this or any election should not be to silence our voice, out of fear of being ‘spoilers’ or of being identified as a Muslim: this succumbs to anti-Muslim fear-mongering that will only fester in continued ignorance.

• That we have the same rights to petition and assemble endowed by the Constitution as do the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Agnostic, or Atheistic communities, or any community for that matter.

• That, until the Muslim-American community is effectively organized in the United States, it will continue to be vulnerable to slurs and misperceptions and our many contributions and service to this country we love will go unnoticed.

While we are taught like every American to respect and embrace freedom of speech, we will not tolerate hate speech on MAFO 2008. Our goal is as serious as it is urgent: to register our voice and support for Barack Obama in this historic election. We do not have the luxury of time to engage those who stoke the politics of fear to divide our country and marginalize hard-working Americans who happen to be Muslim.

From the Gates of Hell: Dear John …

Election 2008, Iraq War, Terrorism Issue

On Al-Qaeda Web Sites, Joy Over U.S. Crisis, Support for McCain

By Joby Warrick and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Al-Qaeda is watching the U.S. stock market’s downward slide with something akin to jubilation, with its leaders hailing the financial crisis as a vindication of its strategy of crippling America’s economy through endless, costly foreign wars against Islamist insurgents.

And at least some of its supporters think Sen. John McCain is the presidential candidate best suited to continue that trend.

“Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” President Bush.

The Web commentary was one of several posted by Taliban or al-Qaeda-allied groups in recent days that trumpeted the global financial crisis and predicted further decline for the United States and other Western powers. In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting credited al-Qaeda with having lured Washington into a trap that had “exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy.” It further suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world. Continue reading From the Gates of Hell: Dear John … →

Sour note for American Muslims in election campaign

Election 2008, Islam in America, Islamophobia, Journalism and Media

Sour note for American Muslims in election campaign

By Michael Conlon, Religion Writer, Reuters, October 21, 2008

CHICAGO (Reuters) – These are uneasy times for America’s Muslims, caught in a backwash from a presidential election campaign where the false notion that Barack Obama is Muslim has been seized on by some who link Islam with terrorism.

The Democratic White House candidate, who would be the first black U.S. president and whose middle name is Hussein, is a Christian. Son of a Kenyan father and white American mother, he spent part of his childhood in largely Muslim Indonesia.

The idea Obama is Muslim has circulated on the Internet for months, presented by some as a fact to reinforce the position that Obama is not a suitable candidate for the White House.

Not since the election of John Kennedy as the first Catholic U.S. president in 1960 has the faith of a White House hopeful generated so much distortion, said about 100 “concerned scholars” and others who have signed an October 7 proclamation aimed at countering Islamophobia they say is on the rise. Continue reading Sour note for American Muslims in election campaign →