Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Good column on Obama

From Nicholas Kristof in the NYT:

Here’s a sad monument to the sleaziness of this presidential campaign: Almost one-third of voters “know” that Barack Obama is a Muslim or believe that he could be.

In short, the political campaign to transform Mr. Obama into a Muslim is succeeding. The real loser as that happens isn’t just Mr. Obama, but our entire political process.

...

What is happening, I think, is this: religious prejudice is becoming a proxy for racial prejudice. In public at least, it’s not acceptable to express reservations about a candidate’s skin color, so discomfort about race is sublimated into concerns about whether Mr. Obama is sufficiently Christian.

The result is this campaign to “otherize” Mr. Obama. Nobody needs to point out that he is black, but there’s a persistent effort to exaggerate other differences, to de-Americanize him.


Comments suggesting that Obama is, in fact, Muslim, a terrorist, the Antichrist, or anything else so stupid will not be published.

... Noting, of course, that it would be perfectly OK if Obama was Muslim.

h/t cnd

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/racial_incident_rattles_george.html

What's wrong with Oregon.

Anonymous said...

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/racial_incident_rattles_george.html

What's wrong with Oregon.

Anonymous said...

That is no different than the many who said they could never vote for Romney because he is a Mormon (except, of course, he actually is a Mormon and Obama is not a Muslim). Vote for or against someone because of the issues. Not how he or she looks or practices religion.
I have enough that I don't like about either McCain or Obama just sticking with the issues! Where is my true third party???

 
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