This is happening in discussion with my own (veddy veddy right) relatives. Once a Muslim, always a Muslim, to them. I won’t say they think Obama will collude with Al-Qaeda to bomb us again but the idea of having a “Muslim” in power really gets some peoples’ goats. But then there’s McCain … who said that Wash., DC was the “City of Satan” … so pick your poison.

Relatedly, I feel honor bound to mention that I take exception to Matthew’s comment above which lumps everyone in my professed faith (including, I suppose, myself) as bonkers. It’s mild exception, since it’s no worse than what everyone else says,. but there you are. And now off to read everything else.

Thing is, & this has been lost by the throng’s gritting of teeth & entirely misunderstanding where I am coming from, I don’t give a monkey’s torn arsepipe whether he is Muslim or not — my point was that the religious right (i.e. populated, usually, by the likes of the evangelical element originally cited in the original post topic) are going to have a fucking field day (i.e. get all chest beating & vocal on self-funded cable TV shows & CNN/Fox News, etc.) if he gets to Presidential candidate stage. What with a certain war or 2 going on right now there’s going to be a huge split (albeit internally for the most part) in the likes of backseat Govt. & the Senate & so on, & then eventually be played out in the media.

As soon as the nominee stages are over with & it’s a straight fight between Republican Vs. Democrat (because, let’s face it, no camp wants to get bogged down with politically suicidal naming & shaming exercises until they actually know who’s going to be running against who; & the Democrats aren’t going to even raise the issue themselves because that would go against everything they publically say they stand for – & we know what happened when someone was ‘daring’ enough to bring class/cultural status into the argument i.e. Obama receiving a more cotton wool-based ride because of his skin colour etc.*), & let’s say for arguments sake Obama is the Democrat runner, that’s when the published press will start, via the usual conduit of party ‘spin’ & allegiance, using anything they can to dislodge the tragectory of either candidate.

For all intents & purpose, regardless of evidence for or against lapse/practising/read a book once/inhaled outside a mosque while in college status, Obama IS a Muslim in the eyes of his opponents & political obstacles. Americans, & I apologise for the broad sweep of the tar brush, tend to take this kind of thing (whether substantiated or supposed for political/whatever gain) far more seriously & to heart than us Brits will ever do**. The ‘right’ factions operating in the States (whether industrial, political, religious, or media-based) WILL, regardless of what we think the cultural pigeonhole Obama neatly or messily slots into, hammer home Obama’s religious orientation & take the line (as they do with anything concerning the governing of their towns/cities/states/country) once a enter any accepted counter-culture tag/stereotype always a repeat said accepted counter-culture tag/stereotype.

There’s a lot at stake for these factions – like it or not, the war brings a ton of wedge to the US & the people who currently have a financially motivated grip on US politics (in terms of policy creation & overseas commericial ‘interests’) are shitting themselves at the prospect at Obama getting in — they see a Muslim (whether you like it or not) running a country at war with Muslims (not a fact as we know it, but a misguided evaluation of current affairs by said factors).

Privately, & to some extent publically, it is widely known Obama wants to pull the troops out (for many honourable & rational & upright reasons, & not least because the public swing of opinion is decidely, almost resoundingly at this stage, against the war) as soon as convenient i.e. with as little feet dragging & backlash as possible.

The Clinton camp are more inclined to consider a timetable of withdrawal over, say, a couple of years, rather than surgically extracting the grunts & leaving the private US security bodies to fend for themselves. Blackwater, for example, has some 3,000 personnel (probably more, but figures aren’t publically available) ‘officially’ in place right now &, despite a healthy independent working operation – on both financial & weapon/in-theatre based training/insitu levels – would be left with their dicks in the wind if the so-called legitimate*** back up of the US Army evaporates. Therefore, even though the Clinton withdrawal policy would be attacked should she become the Democrat candidate, her/their stance on this isn’t, at this stage, as bothersome as the perceived threat of an Obama Presidency.

This is why I think/say this will be the most interesting political period for the USA for years – there’s a lot at stake right across the board & it genuinely has massive implications the world over.

Word from the inside, i.e. security intel from both political camps, has it that there is a genuine fear that Obama will be a walking barrel of fish should he become President & will be lined up in the crosshairs within months of election purely on the basis of his religious past (real or otherwise). The perceived damage his perceived sympathy & actioning thereof, within his term might bring to the money machine (indebted to the war/military effort), once he starts implementing the withdrawal of troops, is that great to some of the more, shall we say, fervent war-mongers in the industrial strangle hold gripping US politics, that there is already across the board security plans blueprinted for attempted assasination scenarios****.

Okay, off on a tangent a little, perhaps, re: Muslim or Not Muslim, but whether we as observers think our personal perception/experience is on far sturdier ground than the very real (misguided or otherwise) presumption that once a Muslim, always a Muslim, the real test (as per my original point) is whether the factions to the far, money-indebted right (& let’s face it, the religious aspect is fucking drenched in bunse) will react as they nomally do (i.e. like deranged fucking nutbags) or step back & embrace their ‘new’ political allegiances (which, as Toad rightly pointed out, is partly based on vanity & partly based on survival amongst the sharks) with alacrity & genuine maturity.

Frankly, that’s all I’m going to spout on this matter. But, Muslim or not, I’m very interested in this year’s election because I believe it is going to get very dirty indeed should Obama rise to the occasion.

*by ‘daring’ I mean that’s how it was democratically (ha! ironic) perceived & reported in some of the non-Democrat press; it’s meant tongue in cheek, not as a direct opinion

**remember the Christian/who goes to church/what’s your denomination kafuffle in British politics a few years back? Who really gave a shit? The public didn’t. Even now Blair has ‘come out’ & is calling for a (thinly veiled call to arms to re-establish a fast disappearing CofE presence in the UK) return to the embracing of ‘faith’, no one is really listening because in the UK.

***I use the word ‘legitimate’ purely to express the views of the private ‘security’ concerns, & is not an expressio of my personal opinion of the presence of US/UK troops deployed in Iraq.

****yes, I know they generally exist as a rule of thumb for any new/incombent President, but the variety of reasons that exist for someone wanting to ‘off’ Obama is so extensive they have produced one of the highest levels of domestic security briefings/activity/planning for many, many years.

If anyone remains sceptical as to how I might know any of the above, apart from legitimate connections within all the States’ anti-terrorist/Homeland Security branches, I have a close friend who is a ranked security detail to the current incumbent. So there.

Ultimately, this is the continuation of a great long tradition. The foundations of Western-style partisan politics – including its structures like constituency associations and fundraising committees – is rooted in the ancient Roman Blue and Green factions. Chariot racing fan clubs! Yet over time people started attaching political ideological significance to them. Just another great example of the human skill for re-writing the script as we go along.

Another example I like to cite is the origins of those great old party nicknames, Tories and Whigs. Turns out both phrases are variations on “cattle thief”, probably one of the worst things you could call a person in Stuart England. No ideological significance at all, just a good ol’ fashioned political insult match. I expect that if the names were modernized to the Ass-lickers and the Cunt-heads, people would see the silliness for what it is.

I always try to take a collegial view of partisanship. I’m loyal to my party but I have close friends in other parties. I respect where they’re coming from; no one can understand a partisan better then another partisan, of any sort. Ideologies, really, are such bullshit. You can’t put people’s ideas in neat little boxes like that. I have socialist friends who are to the right of Attilla the Hun on some issues and right-wing friends who are total bleeding hearts on other issues.

To keep things straight in my own head, I like to think of political parties as though they were fraternal organizations, like the Masons, the Lions, Elks or Oddfellows. They all try to appeal to a broad demographic but each tends to be more attractive to certain demographics. They’re all just trying to be helpful and have a good time, but they all have their little quirks, funny traditions and favourite causes. I think if we had an election to try to decide if the Lions or the Oddfellows were going to run the country for four years, people wouldn’t get so bent out of shape about things.

Finally, please don’t call us humans pathetic. Silly, yes, but not pathetic. Hell, we’ve been to the moon. Have the dolphins been to the moon? No, they haven’t, stupid fucking dolphins

Now, I would query the religious convictions of any presidential candidate simply because it is impossible to be elected president of the United States without being a Christian, but that applies to pretty much all of them (maybe except Huckabee and Romney, who are just bats). So I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that either he or any of the rest of them practises Christianity out of political expediancy, but calling him a Muslim because of his childhood is daft.

The thing about it that irritates me about the whole business is that it is fucking irrelevant. So what if the guy actually is a practising Muslim – Romney is a fucking Mormon for Christ’s sake, and they really are bonkers – and all this heckling is about is trying to get him to duck and dive and hence appear either suspicious by not denying it strongly enough, or a closet bigot by denying it too vociferously. It’s a game of political banana-skinning and is irrelevant to the truth which is, in itself, also irrelevant.

I apologise if my ‘explanation’ in my previous comment for the phrase “Muslim tradition” is a little loose on substance & seemingly devoid of any substantiated background, but it was just a quick way of saying he was a practicing Muslim for a long period of time from very early on in his youth to an unspecified . Surprisingly, on the basis of the household, his father, from Indonesia, was a non-practising Muslim, but his Mother, a convert, was a practising Muslim. Despite going to a Catholic School Obama & Mama still practiced & followed the Muslim faith for many years. He is, to all intent & purpose, currently a lapse Muslim.

It has been reported in the US press, quite widely in fact, in print + TV + Internet, but he has since played it down, i.e. refused to talk on the subject, because of an alleged family conversion to Christianity (which itself has recently blown up in his face) a few years back.

I’m surprised this has got so many people’s backs up BUT I think it’s a little more than people reacting to a supposed/remotely-imposed naivite on my part; I suspect the very mention of the word Muslim has freaked people’s liberal spine donor sensibilities out &, incorrecly fearing some cultural or race-related motive, entirely settled into a collective gasp of PC disapproval.

Whatever it is, whatever the point of anything anymore, this Presdiential campaign will be very interesting indeed especially if this tiny incident has sparked this kind of follow through.