Just Who In The Hell Is He? U.S. Election Notes By Uncle Monty.

Just Who In The Hell Is He?

U.S. Election Notes

By Uncle Monty.
***

By Michael Conlon,

Reuter Religion Writer.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - These are uneasy times for

America's Muslims, caught in a backwash from a presidential

election campaign where the false notion that Barack Obama is

Muslim has been seized on by some who link Islam with terrorism.
The Democratic White House candidate, who would be the first

black U.S. president and whose middle name is Hussein, is a

Christian. Son of a Kenyan father and white American mother,

he spent part of his childhood in largely Muslim Indonesia.

***

The idea that Obama is a Muslim has circulated on the

internet for months, by some as a fact to reinforce the

position that Obama is not a suitable candidate for the

White House.

***

Not since the election of John Kennedy as the first Catholic

U.S. president in 1960 has the faith of a White House hopeful

generated so much distortion, said about 100 "concerned

scholars" and others who have signed an October 7

proclamation aimed at countering Islamophobia

they say is on the rise.

***

In recent weeks:
-- More than 20 million video disc copies of a film called

"Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" were

included as advertising supplements in newspapers across

the country, many in battleground states where Obama

is in a close fight with Republican candidate John McCain.

The film, distributed by a private group unaffiliated with

the McCain campaign, features suicide bombers, children

being trained with guns, and a Christian church said to

have been defiled by Muslims.
-- A city council candidate in Irvine, California, who

is a Muslim convert, said he got a telephone call saying

"I want to cut your head off just like all the other Muslims

deserve," the Los Angeles Times reported.
-- A mosque in a suburb of Chicago, Obama's home city,

was vandalized four times in less than two months, with

anti-Islamic messages left on its outer walls, and windows

and doors broken.
-- An account of an Ohio rally for McCain running mate

Sarah Palin, filed by Al Jazeera and posted on YouTube,

shows a woman saying "he is not Christian, and this is a

Christian nation," and a second woman saying she opposes

Obama because of "the whole Muslim thing. A lot of

people have forgotten about 9/11 (the September 11,

2001, attacks). It's a little unnerving."

***

It is frightening to see at this point the label 'Arab'

or 'Muslim' being used de facto as an insult," said

Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago office

of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (C.A.I.R).
There is a feeling, he said, that hate crimes increase as

Islamophobia rises in public discourse, including that

going on peripherally in this election campaign.

***

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican crossing

party lines to endorse Obama on Sunday, made a demand for

tolerance when he referred to Obama-is-a-Muslim rumors.
"Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this

country?" he asked on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something

wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid be-

lieving that he or she could be president? Yet I have heard

senior members of my own party drop the suggestion

'he's a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists.'

This is not the way we should be doing it in America,"

Powell said, while making clear such sentiment was

not coming from McCain himself.

***

Muslims make up less than 1 percent of the U.S. population

of 305 million, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and

Public Life, though some believe that number is low. About a

third of the world's population is Christian, another 21 percent

Muslim. Daniel Varisco, anthropology chair at Hofstra

University, said he wrote the "statement of concerned

scholars" after seeing Islamophobia on the rise.

***

"The attempts to label Senator Obama a terrorist or

rhyme his name with Osama (bin Laden) or accent his middle

name (Hussein), as well as false claims about his being sworn

into (U.S. Senate) office on a Koran, demonstrate how near

to the surface anti-Islamic sentiment is in the United

States," he said. Circulating such falsehoods "avoids

playing the race card directly but at the expense

of Muslims," he said.

***

The Clarion Fund, which distributed the film "Obsession,"

through a huge newspaper advertising buy, says it is an

independent education group focused "on the most urgent

threat of radical Islam" and that placing the film in the hands

of readers in battleground election states was an attempt

to grab attention. Spokesman Gregory Ross said, "we have

no political or religious affiliations to any group whatsoever."

***

The Islamic Circle of North America has meanwhile

opened an offensive of sorts -- a campaign promoting

Islam and seeking converts. It said it placed advertising

signs inside 1,000 cars in New York's subway network.
In Chicago the group had a number of city buses adorned

top to bottom with pro-Islam advertising, headlined

"Islam: The Way of Life of Noah, Abraham, Moses,

Jesus and Muhammad."

***
Rehab of the Chicago C.A.I.R. office said that kind of

approach may work to a limited degree, "but really the

crux of the issue is not learning about the details of a

religion but rather interacting with and understanding

that the average Muslim is no different than yourself."
(Reuter Editing by Andrew Stern and Frances Kerry)
***

U.S. Election Notes By Uncle Monty.
To me, there's something strangely wrong

when I see American Republican Colin Powell,

the former U.S. Secretary of State, coming out

to politically-back Obama. And then to see a

British Tory and Mayor of London like Boris

Johnson do the same, sounds to me like they're

gone bonkers about ultraliberal Obama. How

conservatives on either side of the pond can

unashamedly back any radical leftist like

Obama shows how politically unconservative

they really are. Yes, Obama is a charmer and

he's an handsome devil and very gifted, too.

But the caption cartoon above asks: Just Who

In The Hell Is He? Do you know? I really

don't, aside from all the media bowing and

swansong they're been giving Barack.

^^^

Obama's personal faith is his business and

I would not condemn him for whatever

faith or non-faith he may or may not hold.

As an avid Anglican, I believe strongly in

interfaith endeavours in order for us all to

be freer to practice whatever our faith or

creed may be. As for political Obama, my

concern is who is he really? Is he a political

wolf dressed like a lamb? And, I always

wonder, too, why no white man is elected

president in any majority black African

country? While an African-American black

can be elected to rule in basically a majority

white country like America, save for about

13% of her non-white population. Those who

may be opposed to Barack Obama on race

are dubbed 'racists.' But blacks in Africa

opposed to say a white candidate would

be viewed as politically correct by the

global news media and political pundits.

That's strange, too, to me.

^^^

With just a week and half to go before

the U.S. Presidential Election, all the

polls pretty well say Obama is already

the winner. But is he? I don't think so,

yet. Only after a very long Nov. 4th night,

will we then really know if Barack Obama

is the presidential winner that will rock

and impact America and the rest of the

world like nothing since America's 9/11.

^^^

That's if he should win. Talk of a landside

and/or an election tie between him and

John McCain has also been thrown about.

^^^

If there is a tie, then all bets are off that

Obama will win. Thousands of lawyers

have been hired by both candidates to

monitor the least little thing that may go

wrong on America's Election Day. Such was

also done at the 2000 and 2004 elections by

then candidates George Bush, Al Gore and

John Kerry. Bush won both times either by

fair or foul, depending on your own political

love for either candidates at that time.

^^^

What my fear is that the high expectations

that Obama will win could lead to street

violence or social unrest by leftist radicals,

Muslim believers, and/or street-wise

African-Americans if Obama should in

fact lose his race to become America's

first black president. Allegations of

election fraud, among other things, will

be rip raw and rife as the bloody streets

become the national arena for all

those disaffected voters of the

then loser Barack Obama.

***

And while he could well win

the popular vote, he could still lose to

to John McCain by electoral college votes.

That's what is the most important - not popular

votes per se, but rather those electoral votes

from key states - like California, Pennsylvannia,

Ohio, New York, Florida, etc -- that hold massive

electoral power on the night of the election. If

McCain can garnish more electoral votes than

Obama at the day's final reckoning, then John

McCain becomes the next President of the

United States. Obama will then be banished

as the would-be first African-American

President for at least the next four years

or until the next 2012 presidential race

in America.

^^^

My final 2oo8 election notes will come just

days before the actual votes take place. I will

also probably write a post-election story on

whoever wins after I've stayed up all night

on the internet to follow the results of the

2oo8 Presidential contest. It should be a

rivetting night for those who like Yankee

politics like I do ... After that, we'll ask again

"Just Who In The Hell Is He?" That's if he,

Barack Obama, should in fact win or lose.

I'm betting, however, that he won't win ...

Anxiously, Uncle Monty.

+Crispin and Crispinian, 2oo8.

^^^

The above caption poster of Obama is taken

from one of the many cartoons websites of him.

Many portray him rather negatively, I must say.

^^^