The Rich Irony of the Obama-as-Muslim Confusion

He promised us the “most transparent Administration in American history.” Yet, after 18 months in office, the public is more confused than ever about who their president really is, right down to his religious beliefs. How can this be?

A recent survey showed that about one-fifth of the respondents believe that Obama is a Muslim, despite his well-documented claim to profess Christianity during his triumphant presidential campaign. How did these people come to that erroneous conclusion? Well, apparently more than half of them indicated they heard that informational tidbit from a media source! Seriously? They heard this seemingly not-so-helpful factoid from Obama’s friends in the media? That doesn’t seem to compute.

More believable are the far fewer numbers who stated they came to their conclusion based on the president’s behavior and actions. Never since the re-establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 have we had a president who is so clearly unsupportive of our heretofore strong alliance with the Jewish state. Alternatively, we have never had a president so clearly supportive of Muslim nations, including his ridiculous assertion that the madman in Tehran can be reasoned with simply by pouring on the Obama charm. Taken on its own, Obama’s statements about the New York City mosque, or worship center, don’t seem all that unreasonable. However, taken with so many other actions over the last 18 months—bowing to the Saudi monarch; making NASA’s primary mission a Muslim outreach before public outrage forced him to pull back; humiliating Netanyahu during the Israeli president’s first state visit; playing the moral equivalency game, and then some, when assessing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the mosque support is really a continuation of support for all things Muslim. For one who claims not to be a Muslim, he sure seems to bestow an extra measure of favor on them, doesn’t he?

The other side of the coin is that in the same survey, the percentage of respondents who believe Obama is a Christian plummeted just as the percentage who believe he is a Muslim increased. Again, why should this be a surprise? This goes far beyond his memorable statement early on in his presidency that “America is not a Christian nation.” Obama is the first president in memory who did not attend or support the National Day of Prayer. This is a president who hasn’t even tried to fake an outward faith by any semblance of regular church attendance or other mentions of his faith in public.

Somehow, I think that this flap is happening because there is so much deceit in this president’s presentation of himself and the media’s presentation of him, and, as his mentor Reverend Wright would say, those chickens are coming home to roost. Some of our progressive friends would call that “karma.” By whatever name, this Muslim controversy is just further evidence that when it comes to living a life of deceit, what goes around will eventually come around. Who knows, maybe all those so-called nut cases otherwise known as “birthers” might just have the last laugh about this guy after all. Only trouble is, the crumbling of this presidency and what it will do to the country is no laughing matter.