With Colin Powell now repeating the lie that Barack Obama has "always been a Christian," despite new information further confirming Obama's Muslim childhood (such as the Indonesian school registration listing him as Muslim), one watches with dismay as the Democratic candidate manages to hide the truth on this issue.
Instead, then, let us review a related subject – Obama's connections and even indebtedness, throughout his career, to extremist Islam. Specifically, he has longstanding, if indirect ties to two institutions, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), listed by the U.S. government in 2007 as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding trial; and the Nation of Islam (NoI), condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for its "consistent record of racism and anti-Semitism."
Pipes goes on to cite a plethora of sources documenting Obama's ties to both Islamist organizations and the Nation of Islam specifically (read the whole thing). He then states (emphasis added):
That Obama's biography touches so frequently on such unsavory organizations as CAIR and the Nation of Islam should give pause. How many of politicians have a single tie to either group, much less seven of them? John McCain charitably calls Obama "a person you do not have to be scared [of] as president of the United States," but Obama's multiple links to anti-Americans and subversives mean he would fail the standard security clearance process for Federal employees.
In other words, the only way Barack Obama can get a job in the White House is by being elected to it, because he'd fail the background check if he applied for any job there.
It's infuriating that McCain, in his ongoing quest to campaign as "Mr. Nice Guy," dismissed the legitimate concerns many people have about Obama (and others would have if the McCain campaign gave them the facts). McCain's "charitable" statement stupidly insulated Obama from questions and criticisms that are entirely legitimate and that McCain himself ought to be raising. Is this fool not on his own side, or what?
I really wish I didn't have to vote for John McCain. But the alternative is so frightening and dangerous, I have no choice. So I'll hold my nose and do it. Please … you, too.
