Racism Investor's Business Daily

Investor's Business Daily: "Would Obama put African tribal or family interests ahead of U.S. interests?"
 Racism rears its ugly head. We thought that the Obama campaign was saying that we are now different in America. But clearly there is much more progress yet to be made. Received this message from Media Matters yesterday:

Media Matters recently has documented the media making false claims about Sen. Barack Obama’s church, accusing it of “racial separatism” and “African nativism.” A Townhall.com column went as far as to compare Sen. Obama to David Duke. Please take a moment to look this over. I welcome any questions or comments.

Erikka Knuti

Deputy Director of External Affairs

Media Matters for America

eknuti@mediamatters.org

(w) 202.756.4135

(c) 202.420.9299

Media Matters for America is a not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Media Matters is the first organization to systematically monitor the media for conservative misinformation every day, in real time.  For more information, visit www.mediamatters.org.

Investor's Business Daily: "Would Obama put African tribal or family interests ahead of U.S. interests?"

A January 16 Investor's Business Daily editorial claimed that "the core" of Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) "faith -- whether lapsed Muslim, new Christian or some mixture of the two -- is African nativism" and that Obama's familial ties to Africa "have potential foreign policy, even national security, implications." The editorial also asked what it called a "valid question": "Would Obama put African tribal or family interests ahead of U.S. interests?" The editorial's claims about Obama's faith being "lapsed Muslim, new Christian or some mixture of the two" echo widely debunked allegations that Obama is or ever has been a Muslim. Investor's Business Daily also cited "the issue" of Obama's "Muslim past," pointing to recent claims by Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes that Obama "had a reasonably Muslim upbringing" and that Muslims may "consider him a 'murtadd' (apostate), that is, a Muslim who converted to another religion and, therefore someone whose blood may be shed." As Media Matters for America noted, however, Pipes' claims were based largely on a Los Angeles Times article from March 2007, key portions of which were later challenged by the Chicago Tribune.

Additionally, Investor's Business Daily claimed that Obama "already has heeded his church's 'nonnegotiable commitment to Africa,' spending an inordinate amount of his campaign time on the Kenyan crisis, for one," but offered no explanation as to why the paper considered Obama's attention to the recent violence following Kenya's disputed presidential election "inordinate." The editorial also said that "Obama interrupted his New Hampshire campaigning to speak by phone with [Kenyan opposition leader Raila] Odinga, who claims to be his cousin. He did not speak with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki." However, the editorial did not note that according to a January 12 Economist article, Obama "has apparently tried to get in touch with Mr. Kibaki, too, but without success."

Full text here: http://mediamatters.org/items/200801160003?f=h_latest
Columnist Prelutsky: Obama "sort of reminds me of David Duke"

In a column posted January 14 at Townhall.com and January 16 at conservative news website WorldNetDaily about the role of religion in presidential campaigns, former Los Angeles Times humor columnist Bert Prelutsky said of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL): "To be fair, I acknowledge that he has a pleasant smile and speaks better than most politicians. The truth is, he sort of reminds me of David Duke." Duke is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and former Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives.

In the column, Prelutsky asked, "Why is it, I wonder, that nobody is asking Barack Obama about his religious convictions?" and, referring to Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, asserted that Obama is a "member of a black church that apparently feels it owes greater allegiance to Africa than to America." The latter statement echoes a January 11 entry on the Media Research Center's NewsBusters blog, in which Media Research Center director of communications Seton Motley questioned Obama's allegiance to the United States and claimed that Obama's membership in Trinity -- which is predominantly African-American and professes to "remain 'true to our native land' " -- "seems to stand in diametric opposition to ... the oath to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States," as Media Matters for America documented.

Full text here: http://mediamatters.org/items/200801160004?f=h_latest