Taking Up Marhsall's Challenge, Just For The Fun Of It

Getting back in to the whole blogging thing, slowly but surely, I decided to peruse old fave Marshall Art, who issued some kind of challenge about reading an article over at American Thinker, then arguing against it, or something like that. I'm really not sure, but I went over and I picked this article about Obama's father's religion, about as politically relevant as Reagan's father's alcoholism, or Clinton's father's death, or any other factoid about any candidate's father. The point was to pick an article relating to Barack Obama (whom Marshall refers to as "Barry"; it's so childish, but in an unfunny way), and this one struck me right away as perhaps the silliest piece of "political writing" I came across since reading Jonah Goldberg, I thought I'd run with it. Out of a sense of fairness, I'll offer some snippets from the article here, and allow you, dear readers to be the judges, to whit, am I wrong that this is about as relevant as a discussion of Nixon's mother's obsessive-compulsive disorder or Woodrow Wilson's sister's illegitimate child (I don't really know if either of these claims are true; from this article, however, I don't know what the religious beliefs of Obama's father were, and I am still perplexed as to why I should care).

When it comes to Barack Obama, only one subject infuriates the swooning mainstream media more than his father's race -- and that's his father and stepfather's religion. Why, the very mention of Barack's early Islamic training -- or even his Muslim middle name -- has become more sacrosanct a PC no-no than disclosing the race of a non-white crime suspect.[Please note the subtle racism in the last sentence. These folks have it down to an art form]

--snip--

Accordingly -- while it's unclear at exactly what point in life Obama forsook the tenets of Islam, are questions pressing the presumptive nominee's positions on such topics as Shari'a in America or Palestinian right of return any less justifiable?

The stakes just don't allow such sophistry.

I have quoted the beginning and end of the article; the middle is a jumble of nonsense that has been disproved - Obama attended a "madrasa" in Indonesia; he's an apostate Muslim facing the death penalty in Muslim nations; his middle name is "Islamic"; we are at war with Islam - that really doesn't deserve to be aired again, but if you wish, be my guest, click the link and read the article. I'm still not sure what the whole point was. Obama's father was a Muslim, who took his family with him when he traveled to a Muslim country, where he educated his son at a religiously-affiliated school. This means that, uh . . . that, um . . . What does it mean?

This is just ridiculous nonsense. The periodical is called American Thinker, but I see no evidence of it here. I do hope there is something, somewhere that deserves to be listed under such a title.

So, I guess I didn't answer Marshall's challenge, because there is just no arguing with people who parade disproved allegations that are really racially and religiously biased personal attacks as if they had any relevance. This isn't serious stuff; it's middle school name calling, no more no less.