Barack Obama is a Muslim

I’ve lived my life one consonant short of being a dickhead, so I sympathise with Barack Obama’s problems over his name. If a simple misspelling could help the Republican cause this autumn, I’m sure Fox News would be happy to have him down as Osama as often as they can get away with it.

There are some in the Obama camp who believe there is a deliberate attempt to make people think their candidate is a Muslim. In a country where the arts of black propaganda managed to persuade a substantial number of voters last time around that a decorated war hero was a coward and a documented draft dodger a hero, this is far from incredible.

Media commentator Roy Greenslade gives an example in his blog today of what he says is ‘just one of the examples of the way in which the US media is helping to relay the “Obama is a Muslim” lie to American voters’. He describes as a ‘disgraceful oversight’ an MSNBC Live report that ran for 25 seconds with the caption ‘Obama Is a Muslim & He Will Not Win Because of That’ over a discussion about what people think of him in Baghdad. The caption was a ‘purported quote from an Iraqi engineer’, though you can tell from the ‘purported’ that Greenslade isn’t convinced.

There’s no doubt that branding Obama/Osama a Muslim, even subliminally, would cost him votes. Polls suggest that while being black is now less of a problem than being a woman, about as many people would vote for a Muslim in the US as for an atheist, which is as low as it gets before you start asking about crack heads and child molesters. But is there a concerted right-wing conspiracy – or, to put it more mildly, campaign – as some of Obama’s supporters are suggesting?

Well, there are certainly plenty of far-right anti-Obama people out there in the blogosphere who are doing their best to create one. Greenslade himself has attracted one or two. I am reliably informed that the following post in the comments section of his blog is not satire:

‘It's not a big lie – Obama bin Osama IS Muslim – probably a Wahabiest, as it were. He and his radical spouse first will award “reparations” to blacks – per capita annuities of many tens of thousands of dollars. Then they will begin slowly to institute Islam. How will they overcome a Christian congress? With their Democratic allies, basically an anti-American party, they will pack the supreme court with radicals who will then see to it than Islam becomes the state religion in all but name. Muslim countries will receive gobs of military assistance and other aid. Unbiased observers won't recognize America after the first two years of an Osama bin Obama administration. Be afraid, Europe. Be very afraid. We're in danger of becoming Muslim even before you achieve pure socialism and adherence to Allah.’