Fox news and conservative Glenn Beck reported the supposed rumor that Obama went to a fundamentalist Muslim school when he was young. They plant the seed, let the likes of foxnews and Glenn Beck repeat it, and then the naive pick it up as fact. Gotta love the smear machines. Also love how they get two birds with one stone by claiming Clinton's camp leaked this.

 

CNN debunks false report about Obama

 

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- Allegations that Sen. Barack Obama was educated in a radical Muslim school known as a "madrassa" are not accurate, according to CNN reporting.

 

Insight Magazine, which is owned by the same company as The Washington Times, reported on its Web site last week that associates of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, had unearthed information the Illinois Democrat and likely presidential candidate attended a Muslim religious school known for teaching the most fundamentalist form of Islam.

 

Obama lived in Indonesia as a child, from 1967 to 1971, with his mother and step-father and has acknowledged attending a Muslim school, but an aide said it was not a madrassa.

 

Insight attributed the information in its article to an unnamed source, who said it was discovered by "researchers connected to Senator Clinton." A spokesman for Clinton, who is also weighing a White House bid, denied that the campaign was the source of the Obama claim.

 

He called the story "an obvious right-wing hit job."

 

Insight stood by its story in a response posted on its Web site Monday afternoon.

 

The Insight article was cited several times Friday on Fox News and was also referenced by the New York Post, The Glenn Beck program on CNN Headline News and a number of political blogs.

 

 

School not a madrassa

But reporting by CNN in Jakarta, Indonesia and Washington, D.C., shows the allegations that Obama attended a madrassa to be false. CNN dispatched Senior International Correspondent John Vause to Jakarta to investigate.

 

He visited the Basuki school, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971.

 

"This is a public school. We don't focus on religion," Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told Vause. "In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."

 

Vause reported he saw boys and girls dressed in neat school uniforms playing outside the school, while teachers were dressed in Western-style clothes.

 

"I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Vause said on the "Situation Room" Monday. "I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that."

 

Vause also interviewed one of Obama's Basuki classmates, Bandug Winadijanto, who claims that not a lot has changed at the school since the two men were pupils. Insight reported that Obama's political opponents believed the school promoted Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam, "and are seeking to prove it."

 

"It's not (an) Islamic school. It's general," Winadijanto said. "There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian. ... So that's a mixed school."

 

The Obama aide described Fox News' broadcasting of the Insight story "appallingly irresponsible."

 

Fox News executive Bill Shine told CNN "Reliable Sources" anchor Howard Kurtz that some of the network's hosts were simply expressing their opinions and repeatedly cited Insight as the source of the allegations.

 

Obama has noted in his two books, "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope," that he spent two years in a Muslim school and another two years in a Catholic school while living in Indonesia from age 6 to 10.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/22/oba...assa/index.html

I'm glad CNN did something useful for once.

I'm glad CNN did something useful for once.

Yeah, ok....

ya know call me crazy...but im more much likely to vote for someone who has some experience in teh world...living in a cave in texas does not count as world experience...mr. hussein, if you can change this world for the better, than you have my attention

I would sue Fox News if I was him

The Clinton camp will use similar tactics. You are deceiving yourself if you think otherwise.

 

I have done some reading on Obana.

 

This is what I learned:

- his father was Muslim, but turned atheist before Obana was even born

- His mother raised him (christian background), with her parents (Baptist, and the other Methodist)

- his former stepfather (Indonesian Oil Exec) was a Muslim, Obana describe him as "nonpracticing"

- Obana has been a practicing Christian since his College days

 

The following is what is in play on the primary. I'm begining to think Obana is un-electable and the Hillary camp would destroy him easily

- He practice his Christian religion on a Trynity United Church. . . The church describes itself as "unshamely black", holds classes in "African-centered Bible study", honor the "Black Value System", and they put the "black community first". Basically it preaches the gospel of blackness and black power. That kind of stuff is too pollarizing and I don't see how Obana would be able to win in a primary

The Clintons sure know how to run a good campaign.

What evidence do either of you, baldeagle or freshfish, have that the Clinton's did this? Like I said, Foxnews either gets people thinking that Obama is a fundamentalist or that the Clintons smeared him. Fair and balanced right?

What evidence do either of you, baldeagle or freshfish, have that the Clinton's did this? Like I said, Foxnews either gets people thinking that Obama is a fundamentalist or that the Clintons smeared him. Fair and balanced right?

 

Yeah, politics are played faired. The Clinton camp would never do something like this.

 

I believe Obana is not even on the Republican's radar.

What evidence do you have that they did not? The Clintons are smart people they certainly are not stupid! CNN We Report The News? Its all about ratings CNN would love to see FOX News decline in ratings. Did CNN smear Fox news? Hmmm?

 

Flying Mollusk I do not want to see Obama get smeared.

What evidence do you have that they did not? The Clintons are smart people they certainly are not stupid! CNN We Report The News? Its all about ratings CNN would love to see FOX News decline in ratings. Did CNN smear Fox news? Hmmm?

 

Flying Mollusk I do not want to see Obama get smeared.

 

Do you realize how silly the whole "what evidence do you have that they did not?" argument is? There is no evidence that you didn't do this. That doesn't mean you did. Hell by that logic, marlinsbaseball.com is responsible for aliens spying on us...what evidence is there that they aren't? The burden is on you to back up a claim, it isn't on me to exonerate someone.

 

Second, Im no fan of CNN. But foxnews reported something based on an extremely dubious source and CNN proved how baseless it is. It's not a smear when it is true.

What evidence do you have that they did not? The Clintons are smart people they certainly are not stupid! CNN We Report The News? Its all about ratings CNN would love to see FOX News decline in ratings. Did CNN smear Fox news? Hmmm?

 

Flying Mollusk I do not want to see Obama get smeared.

 

Do you realize how silly the whole "what evidence do you have that they did not?" argument is? There is no evidence that you didn't do this. That doesn't mean you did. Hell by that logic, marlinsbaseball.com is responsible for aliens spying on us...what evidence is there that they aren't? The burden is on you to back up a claim, it isn't on me to exonerate someone.

 

Second, Im no fan of CNN. But foxnews reported something based on an extremely dubious source and CNN proved how baseless it is. It's not a smear when it is true.

 

I have read many of your posts and you are always the first to say what evidence do you have to back it up. You don't think that the Clinton camp would not have something to do with this? I am just telling you to be open about that possibility. You already have a biased opinion that the Republicans have something to do with this. Obama at this stage of the game is a very popular candidate. Madame Clinton would be the only one that would stand to gain from this tactic. Former Clinton aide (Dick Morris)has already suggested that she would possibly do something like this and then blame the republicans for it. In regards to Fox news I do not see where they said all these horrible things about Obama. What I do see is what CNN is saying what FOX news said. Big difference.

Dick Morris? Why don't you just say Karl Rove says the Clintons did it. You should read up on Dick Morris a little.

"Madrasa" simply means school in Arabic, basically any traditional school that isn't run by the state is madrasa, its a nuetral term over there.

The Clinton camp will use similar tactics. You are deceiving yourself if you think otherwise.

 

I have done some reading on Obana.

 

This is what I learned:

- his father was Muslim, but turned atheist before Obana was even born

- His mother raised him (christian background), with her parents (Baptist, and the other Methodist)

- his former stepfather (Indonesian Oil Exec) was a Muslim, Obana describe him as "nonpracticing"

- Obana has been a practicing Christian since his College days

 

The following is what is in play on the primary. I'm begining to think Obana is un-electable and the Hillary camp would destroy him easily

- He practice his Christian religion on a Trynity United Church. . . The church describes itself as "unshamely black", holds classes in "African-centered Bible study", honor the "Black Value System", and they put the "black community first". Basically it preaches the gospel of blackness and black power. That kind of stuff is too pollarizing and I don't see how Obana would be able to win in a primary

 

Please. Hillary isn't going to attack his religion, that's about the worst thing she could do. I'm not saying he'll win but if he doesn't it sure isn't going to be because he's religious.

The Clinton camp will use similar tactics. You are deceiving yourself if you think otherwise.

 

I have done some reading on Obana.

 

This is what I learned:

- his father was Muslim, but turned atheist before Obana was even born

- His mother raised him (christian background), with her parents (Baptist, and the other Methodist)

- his former stepfather (Indonesian Oil Exec) was a Muslim, Obana describe him as "nonpracticing"

- Obana has been a practicing Christian since his College days

 

The following is what is in play on the primary. I'm begining to think Obana is un-electable and the Hillary camp would destroy him easily

- He practice his Christian religion on a Trynity United Church. . . The church describes itself as "unshamely black", holds classes in "African-centered Bible study", honor the "Black Value System", and they put the "black community first". Basically it preaches the gospel of blackness and black power. That kind of stuff is too pollarizing and I don't see how Obana would be able to win in a primary

 

Please. Hillary isn't going to attack his religion, that's about the worst thing she could do. I'm not saying he'll win but if he doesn't it sure isn't going to be because he's religious.

 

Not directly. but I can guarantee you this will come out and be an issue. That's how politics are played

I have done some reading on Obana.

 

This is what I learned:

- his father was Muslim, but turned atheist before Obana was even born

- His mother raised him (christian background), with her parents (Baptist, and the other Methodist)

- his former stepfather (Indonesian Oil Exec) was a Muslim, Obana describe him as "nonpracticing"

- Obana has been a practicing Christian since his College days

 

The following is what is in play on the primary. I'm begining to think Obana is un-electable and the Hillary camp would destroy him easily

- He practice his Christian religion on a Trynity United Church. . . The church describes itself as "unshamely black", holds classes in "African-centered Bible study", honor the "Black Value System", and they put the "black community first". Basically it preaches the gospel of blackness and black power. That kind of stuff is too pollarizing and I don't see how Obana would be able to win in a primary

Please, for the love of God, it is O-b-a-m-a!

 

It will be interesting to see if the Dems play the race or religion card during the primaries or if the issue is manufactured by the media. Recent history [pertaining to Presidential primaries] points to Alan Keyes and Joe Lieberman as examples...

Well Dick Morris knows the clintons pretty damn well. In fact, Morris deserves a lot of the credit for Former President clinton's popularity, with the poll based approach.

This is what happens when you have too much time and too little information. Obama needs to start putting out substanceful message or Hillary will ram him out of the race.

This is what happens when you have too much time and too little information. Obama needs to start putting out substanceful message or Hillary will ram him out of the race.

 

Correction: that's substantive, not substanceful.

This is what happens when you have too much time and too little information. Obama needs to start putting out substanceful message or Hillary will ram him out of the race.

 

Correction: that's substantive, not substanceful.

Thanks....I have not had my grammar cap on for a while.

This is what happens when you have too much time and too little information. Obama needs to start putting out substanceful message or Hillary will ram him out of the race.

 

Correction: that's substantive, not substanceful.

Thanks....I have not had my grammar cap on for a while.

 

:thumbup