Obama Perturbed by America

Obama dismissed a recent poll showing that a third of Americans do not believe that he is a Christian--and of course he blamed an online campaign of misinformation by his conservative enemies for perpetuating the myth that he’s a Muslim.

Obama, speaking with NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Sunday afternoon, was equally dismissive of conservative talk show host Glenn Beck. He must have been glued to reports and he is concerned that Beck is mobilizing a religious and non–political audience against his regime.

Williams, sitting under a tent in a rain-soaked New Orleans, where the First Family commemorated the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, asked Obama why so many people were uncertain about something so fundamental as his faith.

“I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead,” quipped Obama, who took a deep breath to gather his thoughts when asked if the poll reflected his inability to communicate with voters.

“The facts are the facts. We went through some of this during the campaign — there is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly,” said a visibly annoyed Obama, referring to “birthers,” who have waged a guerrilla campaign questioning either the existence or the validity of his Hawaiian birth certificate. He is being coy here; the issue is not his birthplace but the fact that he is not a natural born citizen and thus not eligible to hold the office.

A stunning 18 percent of Americans identify Obama as Muslim, according to a Pew poll released earlier this month. Only a third identified Obama as a Christian. The issue is that Americans can not recognize the brand of Christianity that Obama espouses. His spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, does not reflect the religion of a majority of Americans. It is an alien creed.

His odd mixture of support and throwing others under the bus were clear with his comments on the Victory mosque on sacred ground in New York.

Obama doubled down on his support for a mosque planned and he denied reports that he tried to back away from backing the controversial project.

“I didn’t walk it back it all,” he said. “I was very specific with my team… The core value and principle that every American is treated the same doesn’t change… At [a White House Ramadan celebration], I had Muslim Americans who had been in uniform fighting in Iraq… How can you say to them that their religious faith is less worthy of respect?... That’s something that I feel very strongly about.”

The president, a harsh critic of the Bush administration’s sluggish response to Katrina, bristled when asked if the BP Gulf oil spill was his administration’s Katrina – because of a failure to act quickly enough.

Obama has a huge credibility gap.