Bigotry in the blogosphere: Barack Obama and the anti-Muslim paranoia of the right
Debbie Schlussel seems to be one of the leading bigots of the right-wing blogosphere, so much so that she should be an embarrassment to the thoughtful and sensible conservatives (Ed Morrissey, Andrew Sullivan, James Joyner, Steven Taylor, Stephen Bainbridge, Sister Toldjah, etc.) who inhabit that region of our medium.
What is her problem now? Barack Obama’s middle name, which happens to be Hussein, and his familial ties to Islam:
[W]hile Obama may not identify as a Muslim, that’s not how the Arab and Muslim Streets see it. In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he’s a Christian, but they do not.So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian, and even if he despised the behavior of his father (as Obama said on Oprah); is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father’s heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?
Astonishing. He may think he’s a Christian? What is that supposed to mean? That, no matter his beliefs, he isn’t a Christian because his father was Muslim? Is this not clear and present bigotry?
What this is really about is Schlussel’s paranoid hatred of Muslims, a hatred presumably shared by others on the right (see Coulter, Ann). She doesn’t want Obama to be anywhere near the presidency not just because of his middle name and his familiar ties to Islam — and her attempts at psychological analysis are truly pathetic — but because she evidently thinks that all Muslims are terrorists who cannot possibly be loyal to America. She claims, after all, that “we” are fighting a war not just against Islamofascists or jihadists or whatever else they may be called but against Islam, against the entire religion.
To be fair to Morrissey et al., I realize that thoughtful and sensible conservatives do not hold this view. And Bush and his White House don’t hold it either. However much I may disagree with the president on policy, I commend him for stressing that the war on terror is not a war against Islam but a war against a certain renegade element of Islam that is waging war not just against the West, including Israel, but against the majority of its own religion.
But people like Schlussel apparently didn’t get the message. Their hatred runs deep. Thoughtful and sensible conservatives would do well to distance themselves from them as much as possible lest they be tainted by their bigotry.
And I notice that many of them are. See, for example, an excellent post by Baldilocks. She calls it what it is: bigotry.
18 Responses to “Bigotry in the blogosphere: Barack Obama and the anti-Muslim paranoia of the right”
I read the Schlussel post yesterday. Although I disagree with her post, I don’t think you understood what she said.
Not just of the right wing blogosphere, but of the right wing media.
This woman has been published in the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Detroit Free Press, has appeared numerous times on Fox News and the Sean Hannity show.
And Holly, I understand exactly what she said.
So Obama has a “psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father’s heritage”.
Leaving aside the well known fact that neither of Obama’s parents were practicing Muslims, even though it totally destroys her ludicrous claims, how does she derive all of this information about Obama’s “psychological needs”?
And let me just add that reading the comments to her post depressed the hell out of me.
Is it not sufficient for as many of us as possible to express a benign ridicule of her ideas, xenophobia and simplistic overgeneralization.
Obama is not his father, and Bush is not his father.
Sometimes that’s too bad.
And just a tip guys. You might want to remove Alabama Liberation Front from your blogroll.
You can click the link to see why, but don’t do it at work.
Yes…some things are being liberated there, but not Alabama. But perhaps the Virgin Islands. I removed it. I have to try to find the guy because he ran a post that I linked to in a roundup and he had some good thoughts from the right. It’ll be back up there again..if he has moved onto another site. I saw that and at first thought it was political consultants doing their work on the political process.
I don’t have nearly enough faith to think he will ever be elected president. Frankly, his name is enough. If “Tsongas” was a liability, “Hussein Obama” is a death knell.
I’ve read that several conservative bloggers have come out against this bigotry and slammed her for her post. She was totally trashed by them for it.
The extreemists are going to try to paint the radical islam on Obama but, the general public know he is an amazing person who would make a great president.
And I have seen him rise above the trashing of him enough times to know this latest attempt will not slow him down or stick.
Its very important that he not allow bigotted attacks like this to slow him down. The more people he meets, the less this trash talk will work. I feel strongly enough about this type of mischaracterization of a patriotic American with an Arabic middle name that I am tempted to write her a an e-mail and complain. There is a certain segment of the population that this type of bigotry appeals to, but it cannot be allowed to spread or bring a good man down. (BTW, I’m not even sure if I’d vote for Obama- but am condemning this in principle)
Sister Toldjah is reasonable? Couldn’t prove it by the one time I read something of hers, read the comments and posted something. Not as whacked out as Schlussel, but reasonable isn’t how I’d describe her or her commenters.
The fact that muslims are perpetrating war and violence on a massive scale worldwide is no reason to be paranoid about muslims.
This place is beginning to sound increasingly like dailykos or democratic underground, or any number of far left blogs. They also have their heads in the sand and believe the problems with the world are American conservatives, not fanatical muslims.
…once again Laura is talking out of her a*$
“The fact that muslims are perpetrating war and violence on a massive scale ”
I’m reminded of one of the great lines from our soldiers in Iraq.
A marine patrol asked an old Iraqi man if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area. He replied “just you guys”.
I for one would like to apologize for the segment of the population of Alabama that thinks like Laura.
Happy Holidays Laura.
I did the happy holidays to set off your O’reilly war on Christmas gland.
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