Obama's 'Muslim roots'

last updated 8 January 2015

President Obama has changed his tune about his relationship with Islam, said Robert Spencer in Jihad Watch. A blog post by ABC's Jake Tapper and a colleague—"The Emergence of President Obama's Muslim Roots"—spells out how the Obama camp went from "downplaying" his "Muslim roots" on the campaign trail to spotlighting them now that he's in office. The rumor that Obama was a "closet Muslim" wasn't true, but his roots explain his "consistently anti-Israel line" and "his favoring of Muslim countries."

Shame on Jake Tapper for doing the bidding of right-wing, anti-Obama "wingnuts," said Gawker. He "regurgitates a slew of widely known facts about Obama's family's Muslim faith"—including the fact that Obama's father was a Muslim—"slaps a provocative title on the piece, and repackages the whole thing" as breaking news during Obama's trip to the Middle East. What a pathetic attempt to get a link from Matt Drudge.

"Wow, that's pretty harsh," said Tommy Christopher in Politics Daily. And totally unfair. Tapper's thesis—that Obama downplayed his Muslim background during the campaign and is "bragging" about it now as he tries to repair U.S. relations with Islamic countries—is "100 percent true." And he calls the Obama-as-secret-Muslim rumors "crazy"—hardly the thing he'd say if he were a "right-wing tool."