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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (33897)	1/25/2007 8:41:54 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541344

Obama-bashing a new low for Fox _____________________________________________________________ By John P. Gamboa Contributing Columnist Posted: 1/25/07 media.www.thedailyaztec.com. On Jan. 19, Fox News' morning show "Fox and Friends" took a turn for the worse when one of the most recent, inexcusable examples of yellow journalism and "Islamophobia" occurred by an attempted exploitation of presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama's childhood. Obama, D-Ill., a converted Christian, was smeared as a potential covert anti-American terrorist with the announcement that Obama had attended an Islamic madrassa more than 35 years ago while living with his Muslim stepfather in Indonesia. Madrassa literally means "school" in Arabic, but Fox took this news as if Obama is a potential threat to America's security as a potential president while continually announcing that Obama's middle name is Hussein. Fox reportedly took this unconfirmed information from the conservative online magazine, InSight.com, which didn't even attempt to verify if it's true or if the madassa story came from Sen. Hillary Clinton's, D-N.Y., campaign headquarters, according to www.MediaMatters.org. It's quite dizzying when a Democratic hopeful and an often-conservative news channel both jump in on the smearing of a candidate. Given the unconfirmed nature of the report, it's even possible that the Republican Party is attempting to divide and conquer the steady steam of Democrats for the 2008 race by planting false information. "Fox and Friends" host Steve Doocy said the first thing they teach in madrassas is to "hate America" and said that Obama's first 10 years of his life were spent in Indonesia hating America. There are several publications with information that might lead to misguided beliefs, such as in Obama's autobiography, "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" in which he writes, "Without the money to go to the international school that most expatriate children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools." Doocy also claimed madrassas "teach this Wahhabism, which pretty much hates us." Wahhabism is a type of conservative Islam that's taught in Saudi Arabia, the Middle East and parts of Pakistan. There is no known indication that such ideals even made it as far as Indonesia 35 years ago. "Fox and Friends'" claim that Obama was taught anti-American Muslim extremism more than 35 years ago is ridiculous. The last year that Obama would've been in a Muslim school would be 1971. This is before the alleged support of the Six-Day war, the first American energy crisis and invasion of Iraq. This was before eastern Muslim extremists had even a reason to hate America. Fox News is grievously hinting at the fear and hatred of Muslims with Obama in the middle, simply by association of being formerly Muslim. In Obama's books, he never even uses the word "madrassa," but simply states he went to a predominantly Muslim school. "Fox and Friends" hosts claimed the ideological knowledge and beliefs handed to Obama between the ages of 6 to 10 will affect him now. What's even worse about this unjust ridicule is that Obama is no longer Muslim. He had converted to Christianity many years ago, and he and his family are currently part of the congregation of Chicago's United Church of Christ. Obama even attended a Catholic school early in his life, but no claims or questions of Catholicism are raised. America's irrational fear of the second largest religion in the world is being perpetuated by Fox and Doocy. One caller on the show even claimed that Obama will "not consider terrorists the enemy" if elected. Obama's image is being wrongfully smeared as if he is an anti-American politician. This low political blow was accentuated even more so by shoddy journalism at Fox and is being used as a fear tactic by the Republicans to scare people. "Fox and Friends," should be ostracized by the public for both spinning this information, written in Obama's own autobiography, as something negative, as well as preying on the irrational fear of Islam by Americans.