Things are falling to pieces in Albany, the capital of my home state, as we witness one of the most spectacular political downfalls in recent history. But I’m posting a quick comment on a different scandal — far less important, but worth noting.
I’m speaking of Congressman Steve King’s convoluted remarks on the middle name of Barack Obama. King plays the old “I’m not a racist, but” card, yet his comments are the real unfiltered stuff. And under the gun, he stands by it:
[Obama’s] middle name is the name of the grandson of Mohammad. It’s used many, many times throughout the Muslim world and it associates itself with the religion and with the heritage and with the struggle and with some of the violence that’s over there as well.
Leave it to Americans — or should I say Republicans — to conclude that a presidential candidate’s firsthand knowledge of other cultures, including Islamic culture, is a liability, not an asset, at a time when the U.S. is embroiled in conflict in the Muslim world.
But that’s not all. King’s understanding of “the violence that’s over there” appears to be nearly nonexistent. He doesn’t realize that the people he’s alluding to would cut Barack Hussein Obama’s throat just as quickly as they’d cut King’s. They’ve already slaughtered a great many people bearing the name Hussein. The car bombers and assassins of al-Qaeda reserve their most gruesome violence for Muslims, especially Muslims who betray their cause. Obama is an American who has pledged to use force against al-Qaeda. A lot less than that would make him an al-Qaeda target.
But for King, all that matters is Obama’s middle name, his identity. And because King is a racist, he wrongly assumes that Muslims feel the same way.
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