Al Qaida’s racist insult

What Osama bin Laden's No. 2 hoped to accomplish by calling Obama a 'house Negro'

Al Qaida is doing our work for us, said Spencer Ackerman in The Washington Independent. The terrorist organization’s deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, appeared in a new video calling Barack Obama a “house Negro” who would continue what he said was a U.S. war against Islam. It’s hard to imagine a better way to discredit al Qaida in the heart of the diverse Muslim world than broadcasting the racism of its “intellectual architect.”

And “it doesn’t exactly harm” Obama politically to be insulted by Osama bin Laden’s No. 2 man, said Michael Tomasky in Britain’s The Guardian online. Clearly, this call for more attacks against the U.S. shows that “the al-Q boys are pretty panicked not to have a president of the United States the rest of the world despises. Bush was their hole card. Now there's a president who might render them marginal.”

“This insult will backfire,” said Michele McGinty in BeliefNet. “Bush was an easy target; he's pretty unpopular abroad and here at home, but Obama is much more popular among Muslims given that they believe he'll be much more sympathetic to the Palestinians.”