While I don't go so far as saying it's a clear advantage for foreign affairs in general, I happen to agree with the underlying premise of the following statement.
A president with a Muslim grandfather will go a long way to restore trust in the Muslim world. Maybe this is unfair to all the white candidates running for president, but it’s the truth: Obama will have a clear advantage in foreign affairs by virtue of who he is.
The above is quote from
a diary from right here on DKos. It was posted on December 11th, a mere week ago, praising Obama's trip to Africa, his heritage, and the positive influence it could potentially give him in the Muslim community.
Just look at that smear. Also, look at the list of recommenders for the diary. It's enlightening, I tell you. Who knew that racism inherent in mentioning Muslim and Obama in the same sentence was so accepted on DKos? So much so that it passed without one single protest from anyone. Let's see what another supporter had to say in that diary:
I can just imagine Osama bin Laden's reaction when a black man by the name of Barack Hussein Obama is elected President of the United States. Much of the rhetorical basis for his "jihad" will evaporate in that very moment.
Wow. Amazing. Smearing your own candidate. Stressing that his middle name is Hussein, and mentioning Osama Bin Laden and jihad in the same breath. And it happened right here on Dkos. And passed utterly unnoticed for the nasty, slimy, dirty racist type of attitude that it supposedly is. As a matter of fact, it was rec'd by 11 people.
Everything I just said above is completely stupid, of course. The diary was a celebration of Obama's connections to both Africa and the Muslim community, and rightly so. These are the very things that many people think are a positive about the man, whether he is your candidate of choice or not. These are the things that his own supporters argue make him uniquely able to reach out. This is one of the things about him that is appealing to me.
So let's move on to Bob Kerrey. Here's Kerrey from October, smearing Obama as far back as two months ago by saying what a big psychological advantage he would have in speaking to hearts and minds in the Muslim world:
I love that his name is Barack Hussein Obama; that he was educated for a while in a secular madrassa.He can speak like no other candidate to a billion Muslims on this earth and say we’re not your enemy unless you make us so.
There was no outrage then, despite the use of the word "madrassa". Why? Maybe because Kerrey was careful to specify "secular", so as to distinguish from the crazy religious fundamentalist schools. Maybe because it was evident from context that he was being complimentary, not smearing, regardless of whether his choice of word was technically correct. The only thing that has changed between now and then is that Kerrey has endorsed Clinton. His verbiage is no different.
Oh, wait, it didn't begin even as recently as October. Here's Kerrey from the NY Observer way back in May, long before he endorsed anyone at all:
Mr. Obama, he says, is “inexperienced,” but “on the foreign policy side, his big strength is that his name is Barack Hussein Obama.” He argued that Mr. Obama’s foreign-language skills, connection to Muslim countries and personal background uniquely qualify him to send the message that “we are not your worst enemy, unless you make us so. And then we’re your worst enemy.”
So Kerrey agrees with Obama's fans. His heritage is a plus for him, not a minus. And It's not only Kerrey.
This was a UN Peace Fellow by the name of Saleem H Ali, who said similar in February
In his recent book The Audacity of Hope, Obama presents a more secular cadence about his early years: “During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighbourhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin’s call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables.”
While such a resolute commitment to objective knowledge on his mother’s part may well be commendable, the exposure to foreign cultures and traditions which Obama experienced should always be considered an asset by all. Indeed, his connections with Islam could be a means of improving America’s strained relations with the Muslim world through empathy and erudition.
How is this much different from what Kerrey said? Was Saleem H Ali a secret Clinton operative back in February?
Or maybe Andrew Sullivan was smearing Obama when he said this
Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.
So why is it suddenly racist now to use Obama's full name, or to say his Muslim connections are an advantage he ought to be proud of? Yes, he ought to be proud of it. Of course he should. When I read his first book, this was exactly my thought, that it would be a good thing. I have had conversations with Obama supporters agreeing with them on this - that it's a plus for him, not one of his negatives.
Why have the rules changed? Where was the outrage when statements very similar to, or even the same as, what Kerrey said this week have been all over the place for months? Often out of the mouths of Obama supporters themselves?
If it is such an obvious and unquestionable example of racism, why has it passed completely unnoticed and unchallenged when uttered for months now? Was there an outcry? Were there angry calls and blogs denouncing his and others words? Nope.
Has what has been widely accepted for months as a generally complimentary approach to Obama's childhood abruptly morphed into bigotry of the most heinous variety? Is it racist now, when it wasn't then?
The answer is simple. It's not. Some just want to make it so, because they want to work it to their political advantage. It's reached the level of ridiculous. And most people aren't biting. Like or dislike Kerrey, this was not some example of terrible bigotry. If it was, it would have been easily recognized as such the first time it came out of his mouth.
Obama is not my choice in the primaries. But his name, and his connections to a partly Muslim heritage are one of the things I think are most appealing about him. Why not take that and run with it, instead of howling when someone mentions it? The bigots aren't voting for him anyway, so if not this excuse they'll find another. And the rest of us thinking and reasoning people tend to rank it in the "advantage" column for him, not the "disadvantage".