Posted by
fiddler on Saturday, August 09, 2008 10:00:00 AM
The Arab-American Outreach Coordinator for Barack Obama's presidential campaign has resigned after a previous link with a radical Muslim cleric was revealed (
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_liaison_asbahi/2008/08/07/119889.html?s=al&promo_code=677E-1). A member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations chalked it up to "Islamophobia."
These days, one can't make an unfavorable or dissenting comment about any political group or point of view without being accused of having a "phobia." If one disapproves of homosexual behavior (even on religious grounds) one is a "homophobe. If one worries that radical Muslims in the US are planning another 9/11-type attack, one is an Islamophobe. Now the dictionary definition of a phobia is "a fear or anxiety that exceeds normal proportions or that has no basis in reality, as obsessive or irrational dread," (Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language; dilithium Press, Ltd, 1989, New York). Given that radical Muslim clerics have preached jihad, even at mosques here in the US, and given the 9/11 attacks, and the fact that many young American Muslims see nothing wrong with suicide bombings done to defend Islam (
http://200milesup.new.newsvine.com/_news/2007/05/23/735044-poll-one-in-four-us-muslims-ok-with-homicide-bombings-against-innocent-civilians-) is concern about an Obama associate's connections with radical Islam really irrational? Or is it prudent? Let's see: is fear that if I put my hand into a flame it will be burned irrational or prudent? Hmmm. I'll have to think about that.
But of course, all this goes back to questions about Obama's judgment and allegiances. Questions about his associations with Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky, and Jeremiah Wright to allegations that he is a closet Muslim himself, as well as questions about what he means by "change," have received no answers. All we hear about is "phobias" (remember how Obama warned that the Republicans were trying to make us afraid of him), racism and hate speech; in short, the only answers proffered by the Obama campaign have been ad hominem attacks.
The ad hominem attack is the last hope of a desperate man who knows he doesn't have an argument. I can only hope that the American electorate will see through this flimsy reasoning and insist on real answers to legitimate questions.