Are Americans Barking up the Wrong Tree?

You haven't seen many conspiracy theories at Roncesvalles yet. Well, question asking time has come. Here are some and with them a -- yes -- conspiracy theory.

Newsmax.com reports yesterday that Obama's overseas money might total $3.3 Mio. The donors, so Newsmax.com says, did not list a home state at all or identified their state by an abbreviation that did not match one of the 50 states or U.S. territories and most of those contributors identified themselves as living abroad in foreign cities. Under federal law, foreign citizens cannot make political contributions, but U.S. citizens living abroad can.

The Federal Election Commission provided The Associated Press on Monday with an incomplete spreadsheet of potential overseas donors that did not include those who had left their state designation blank.

Also, the $3.3 million total does not include donors who have given less than $200, contributions that do not have to be itemized, and some of which may, it is fair to assume, may have also come from overseas. About half of Obama's $455 million in contributions are unitemized so far, so Newsmax.com informs us, while McCain's campaign lists all donors, even those who have given less than $200, on his Web site. The Obama campaign has begun now, too, to request passport numbers from donors to verify their citizenship.

But why should the fact of an unaccounted huge amount of money at Obama's disposal be specifically disquieting? Almost all of Obama's opponents see him as either a leftist liberal commie, or as a charismatic, seducing his followers in either Stalinist or Nazi spirit (depending on the respective bogeyman), an anti-white racist, which is all pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, or as an honest Muslim apostate whose main problem as a president will be increased security, which is not. You don't believe me? A serious scholar like Daniel Pipes suggests that it is fair to say that Obama had, at one point in time, been a Muslim:

Summarized, available evidence suggests Obama was born a Muslim to a non-practicing Muslim father and for some years had a reasonably Muslim upbringing under the auspices of his Indonesian step-father. At some point, he converted to Christianity. It appears false to state, as Obama does, "I've always been a Christian" and "I've never practiced Islam." The campaign appears to be either ignorant or fabricating when it states that "Obama never prayed in a mosque."

To go on:

One must assume that some Islamists would renounce him as a murtadd and would try to execute him. Given the protective bubble surrounding an American president, though, this threat presumably would not make much difference to his carrying out his duties.

To resume:

...how would more mainstream Muslims respond to him, would they be angry at what they would consider his apostasy? That reaction is a real possibility, one that could undermine his initiatives toward the Muslim world.

While for an expert like Dr. Pipes Obama's possible conversion/apostasy is a mere matter of an increased need for security and some political embarrassment, the problem seems to be non-existent for most other Americans and nobody at all discusses in all seriousness the possibility that Obama might have never converted at all.

Why is that?

That is first, because the American nation is hosting a relatively small and relatively well adjusted Muslim-minority, second, simply because of the geographic distance to and an ocean between themselves and Muslim hardcore-countries. From Lincoln, Nebraska, it's 7738 miles to Makkah, from Luxemburg 2674 miles, and, third, Americans have no everyday-experience whatsoever of what it means to live with a NOT well-adjusted strong Muslim minority. The fourth and maybe most important reason is that Americans are straightforward people with a conscience who do not understand cynicism and who act helpless and disbelieving in the face of a possible less-than-noble hidden agenda. (Notabene that I am going out of my way here to avoid the term "naive".)

Interestingly, the issue of Obama being a Muslim or rather not, marginal as the interest in it may be, has been fuelled by Obama himself to fit his grandiose, and incredibly successful, agenda of minority status and victimology. Now he has brought it up himself, who would dare to touch The Untouchable Candidate, Obama Messiah, Obama the Minority Redeemer, Obama, the Great Deliverer from White Guilt, and cheekily demand that he answers uncomfortable questions.

And exactly that leads us to Obama, the Clever Schemer who, in that brilliant maneuvre of pre-emptive victimology, said in an incredible interview a month ago that he feels like a victim because neither McCain nor anybody from the McCain campaign was accusing him of being a Muslim -- or something to that effect. Why should a man, who clearly is no idiot, have said something so plainly idiotic? Well, what about: Now we have the somewhat predictable result that even a few hardcore Islam-sceptics who may have indeed nurtured unchaste thoughts regarding The Candidate's history hastily unthought them. Forty-Love for Obama!

Dear Americans, all of you who do not want Obama to be the next president, go on discussing whether he is a leftist liberal commie, a charismatic seducing his followers in either Stalinist or Nazi spirit (depending on the respective bogeyman), an anti-white racist, or an honest Muslim apostate whose main problem as a president will be increased security and some slight embarrassment. Should, dear Americans, the undeclared money for the Obama campaign come from where it shouts it comes, then all your bellyaching will be -- to ask a last question -- what?

Hat tip: Gudrun Eussner!