Clintons slime Barack Obama with Muslim smears

Hillary Clinton and supporters spread lies and rumors about Barack Obama and supposed Muslim connections. -------------------------------------------- To the Editor: Like the Jewish legal tradition, Islamic law is a conversation represented in dynamic and diverse schools of thought. Edward N. Luttwak speaks of an essentialized Islamic law that does not exist. Nevertheless, there is no dispute among Muslims that Islam is not an ethnic affiliation, nor is it passed through the gene pool. A Muslim parent is morally responsible for raising his or her child within Islam; children, for their part, have no legal culpability. There is no legal obligation by a child to affiliate with the Muslim community. Islam does not consider Barack Obama ever to have been part of the Muslim community. Apostasy has no relevance here. Ingrid Mattson Hartford, May 12, 2008 The writer is president of the Islamic Society of North America, the largest umbrella Muslim group in the country. Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/opinion/lweb14muslim.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin In Obama's case--given his mixed-race lineage, his Kenyan father, his experiences growing up in Indonesia, his middle name (Hussein)--questions about his devotion to America carry a special potency, as xenophobia mingles with racism to create a poisonous brew. The toxicity is further heightened in this post-9/11 atmosphere, in which an image of Obama in Somali dress is understood as a slur and e-mails claiming that he is a "secret Muslim" schooled in a madrassa spread virally, along with rumors that he took the oath of office on a Koran. The madrassa and Koran canards have been thoroughly debunked, but still they persist--and few have been willing to stand up and say, So what if he was a Muslim? For her part, Clinton, asked on 60 Minutes whether Obama was a Muslim, said, "There is nothing to base that on, as far as I know." Full article: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080519/betsyreed [Mike Huckabee was asked] Do you think Obama is an evangelical? I don't know that I would call him an evangelical, but I think he's certainly a Christian, he openly declares his Christian faith, and I think some Republicans who try to dismiss that are making a big mistake, and they'll be very naïve if they think they can just assume that all of the faith vote is going to automatically go Republican this year. It is not. A lot if polls are showing that there are a number of evangelical white voters who are willing to go shopping this fall. They're not necessarily just sold. [Look at the special election in Mississippi, where Republican Greg Davis lost to Democrat Travis Childers.] That was a very, very telling election. The Democrat ran as a pro-life, pro-family, conservative Democrat. The Republican painted his opponent as a liberal and ran on economic issues alone. He ran a good campaign -- he is pro-life -- but he didn't focus on that. He focused more on "my opponent is a liberal" ... and people we're looking at this Democrat and they're saying, "Well, he's pro-life, he's pro-gun, he's pro-God, that's not 'liberal." And so it hurt the credibility of the Republican and the Democrats are winning all over the country. [The Democrats have recruited] "middle-of-the-road, right-of-center Democrats. They're going after people that don't scare the daylights out of traditional conservative people, and they're running on the very platforms that the Republicans have had to themselves for the past 20 years It's a wake-up call to Republicans. Where we're making a mistake is a lot of Republicans are saying "we don't want to talk about these family issues anymore." Well, guess what? You're going to keep getting beat, because that's what got these people voting for you. Twenty years ago, these were Democrats who went Republican when the Democrats made a sharp left turn, and the Republicans were the only place pro-life people could be. Now the Democrats are beginning to come back to [the] center, and the Republicans are becoming libertarians. We're losing elections in a grand way. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-mari/huckabee-on-the-next-repu_b_103556.html

YouTube | May 11, 2008

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