Quote:

---

August 19, 2010
White House strikes back at 'Muslim' tag
Posted: August 19th, 2010 02:26 PM ET

From CNN White House Correspondent Dan Lothian


The White House on Thursday responded to new polls which indicate Americans do not know what religion President Obama practices.
Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts (CNN) - The White House is responding to new polls Thursday that show an increasing number of Americans believe that President Obama is a Muslim.

"President Obama is a committed Christian, and his faith is an important part of his daily life," Deputy White House Communications Director Jen Psaki told CNN. "He prays every day, he seeks a small circle of Christian pastors to give him spiritual advice and counseling, he even receives a daily devotional that he uses each morning. The President's Christian faith is a part of who he is, but not a part of what the public or the media is focused on everyday."

Psaki added that "the President's strong Christian faith is what guides him through the challenges – a recovering economy, bringing troops home from Iraq, putting healthcare and financial reform implementation in place - but he doesn't wear it on his sleeve."

According to a poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released Thursday, nearly one in five Americans believe Obama is a Muslim, up from around one in 10 Americans who said he was Muslim last year.


While most of those who think Obama is Muslim are Republicans, the number of independents who believe he is Muslim has expanded significantly, from 10 percent last year to 18 percent now.

The number of Americans who express uncertainly about the president's religion, meanwhile, is much larger and has also grown, including among Obama's political base. For instance, fewer than half of Democrats and African-Americans now say that Obama is Christian according to the Pew poll.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AnthonyT:
That kind of unrelenting repetition has to have an impact.

---

Quote:

---

Victory of the Loud Little Handful
by Mark Twain


The loud little handful - as usual - will shout for the war. The pulpit will - warily and cautiously - object... at first. The great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it."

Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

Before long, you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men...

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.

Mark Twain, "The Mysterious Stranger" (1910)

---

Quote:

---

Would I rather have a church-going Christian? Yes. Is it my business what he is? No. Man says he's a Christian, thats good enough for me. If he said he's a Muslem, thats ok too.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Niki2:
If you see Obama's respect for others as kissing ass, then you must view Bush's egocentric attitudes that America should decide what's best for the world and the way he went about it as bullying, which it was...well, except the Saudis, to whom he did appear to cow tow and be overly familiar with.

Bush showed little respect for anyone, as evidenced by his trying to be overly familiar with the German Chancelor, to everyone's disgust. Either he spoke in bullying rhetoric or he showed inappropriate intimacy; he didn't seem to understand the concepts of decorum and diplomacy. That Obama understands these things seems to you to be kissing ass; you're entitled to your views, but I see them as blindness.

I answered your question about tolerance and why it is a good thing in my opinion. Given "most of the population" went along with the Iraq war, I don't think it shows particular intelligence on their part and should not have been tolerated. the same with his TRULY stomping on our civil rights and the Constitution, but the majority of the country went along with that, too. It was fine with the majority of the country and you, apparently, whereas you view virtually everything Obama has done or tried to do as abhorrent, so I find the dichotomy illogical.

Presidents for a long time have yammered about health care but done nothing. What the Congres (NOT Obama or the Dems, who were initially in favor of the public option) did on healthcare pleases few now; the same was true of many things in the past which the majority of Americans wouldn't want taken away now. Only time will actually tell, and hopefully, just like with other measures, it's only a first step and better things will come.

Presidents for a long time have decried our dependence on oil but done nothing. Obama is at least trying to impact that, whatever you think of his efforts orachievements.

Wall Street has run amok for decades with little or no curb by administrations; again, Obama and the Dems are TRYING to do something about it.

Gys in the military was abhorrent to many, if not most, of the country at one time; in fact it was unthinkable. Now the majority of the country believes it is appropriate. DADT was a bad idea at the time, but has turned out to be the first step toward allowing homosexual citizens to serve without harrassment or ending of careers. Bear in mind that the majority of the military was ALSO against allowing Jews to serve, something few today know or would consider right.

Everything they have tried to do would have turned out better if the Repubicans has worked WITH them, rather than being determined to obstruct on everything. If our legislators actually behaved in a manner which brought about improvements in these things and others, it would be good for everyone. But that seems to be impossible at this time. Doing what the "majority" wants increases the chance of election or re-election; politicians know this and it often has more to do with their opposition than what is truly right, or what they might even believe. Bear in mind that the Republicans proposed and/or backed a number of the things the Dems have tried to implement, prior to a Democrat being in office.

What you are ignoring is the fact that change comes slowly, so things which "piss off" the American people right now might well be found to be things they approve of later. Bearing in mind that equal rights, interracial marriage, Jews in the military, etc., were all things that "pissed off" the majority of people at the time, but are now accepted as good things, there is a longer view to take on everything; nothing is static and people and countries evolve.

Right now the Dems and Obama are trying to change things which have been in place for a very long time. Resistance is natural; talk to us in a couple of decades and we'll see how pissed off people are then. The long view is something of which Americans, and probably people in general, have difficulty conceiving.


Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

---