Half-African by Birth? Born a Muslim?

Yesterday's NY Times featured this Op-Ed page smear of Barack Obama by Ed Luttwak, expert on military strategy and apparently a malicious purveyor of FOX News-style cheap shots:

Senator Obama is half African by birth and Africans can understandably identify with him. [snip]

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. [snip]

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder [snip]

...most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known

I am disgusted.

This kind of crap belongs on FOX or in the Post, not in the pages of The New York Times.

If the great cultural institutions of our nation will not hold the line against the know-nothing barbarism of the Roves, Murdochs, Hagees and O'Reillys, then where will people see the possibility of something better, something fine and worthy of a great nation?

Barack Obama is an American. He was born in the United States of America. He is not half-African, anymore than John McCain is an aging ill-tempered leprechaun. Obama is a Christian and has never been a Muslim.

Who could have imagined that the New York Times, and not FOX News, would be the vehicle for such a nasty and dishonest attempt to smear a decent man?

Technorati Tags: Gray Lady, New York Times, Barack Obama, Ed Luttwak, Cheap Shot Journalism

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