The Muslim "Smear"

The picture of Obama in a turban; the idea of Obama attending a madrassa; the middle name Hussein that means "good" or "handsome;" are items, when taken as individual events are interesting, a little bit enlightening, or kind of like looking at a friend's photo album and scrapbook. In a political campaign however it would be an understatement to say that they become ammunition for attack ads.

Placed in the hands of radical conservatives who truly fear their perceived enemies, they become news items, paid political advertisements, and published innuendo that serves as a smoke screen to obscure, distract or smother a campaign. In the words of a local Republican Party operative and active blogger:

The tools of our trade aren't for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture.

A culture which evidently now includes the entire Muslim community. The idea of using a religious affiliation as racist propaganda, sadly, is not new or unique in history. It is however a current manifestation in our nation and in our community.

Barack Obama, the subject of this racism, is getting a lot of heat from the left for not speaking out more strongly against this blatant political profiling. There is an entire article by Naomi Klein in a recent edition of The Nation magazine about this problem.

The turban "scandal" is all part of what is being referred to as "the Muslim smear." It includes everything from exaggerated enunciations of Obama's middle name to the online whisper campaign that Obama attended a fundamentalist madrassa in Indonesia (a lie), was sworn in on a Koran (another lie) and if elected would attach RadioShack speakers to the White House to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer (I made that one up).

Klein goes on to say that

Occasionally, though not nearly enough, Obama says that Muslims are "deserving of respect and dignity." What he has never done is ... denounce the attacks themselves as racist propaganda, in this case against Muslims.

The central idea of the candidacy of Barack Obama is to try and heal the wounds of the Bush Administration and to mend the reputation of America in the eyes of the world, especially in the eyes of the Muslim world. While I'm sure that Obama will address the Muslim "smear" in more depth and with more passion as the campaign continues, it is an appropriate time right now to call out those locally who would try and use the Muslim religion as a political bludgeon. Those who would seek to use religious affiliation as a weapon of political "war," are using racist propaganda and fear mongering in its basest form. In an issues dominated campaign, to pull the Race/Religion Card is a simplistic attempt to hijack the debate, distract the electorate, and use fear to manipulate the elective process.

Be wary of any rhetoric that seeks to

use our powerful tools of conservatism for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of our Conservative Tenets, meeting every loose fact and distortion and unethical practice with the truth of our Conservative convictions.

especially when those "Conservative Tenets" include racism, religious bigotry, and character assassination by association.