(Kimball's Unauthorized Perversion)

During last year's presidential campaign, I tried to give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt, when he said he was not a Moslem. He seemed nicer than Hillary Clinton, anyway.  However, I knew that supporters like Colin Powell weren't telling the truth when they said he was never a Moslem, because when he attended school in Indonesia, under the name of Barry Soetoro, school records stated his religion as "Muslim," so at least he was one then, if not a very observant member of that creed. Now, judging from his actions since becoming president, I have a nagging suspicion that he never really left Islam. Or perhaps I should say he did leave Islam, but Islam didn't leave him. Here are forty-two reasons why I suspect that in his heart, he's still a Moslem:

1. Certifi-gate: Despite the efforts of several attorneys to have his real birth certificate disclosed, the one that lists the hospital and the doctor who delivered him, the state of Hawaii has kept it under lock and key. Why are they doing this? When questions arose concerning John McCain's birth, he released his birth certificate without hesitation, and the questions stopped. If Obama has nothing to hide, why is he doing this? If he is hiding something, what is it? That he wasn't born at all? That he was born, but not in Hawaii? That his father wasn't really the Kenyan man we all heard about? Or could it be that his middle name is really "Mohammed"?

2. His official Kenyan father, most of his Kenyan relatives, and his adopted Indonesian family were all Moslem.

3. From his book, Dreams Of My Father:
    "The person who made me proudest of all, though, was my [half brother], Roy . . . He converted to Islam."
    "In Indonesia, I spent two years at a Muslim school . . . I studied the Koran."

4. From his other book, The Audacity Of Hope:
    "Lolo (Obama’s step father) followed Islam . . . I looked to Lolo for guidance."
    "We are no longer just a Christian nation, we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers."

5. He can recite the Moslem call to prayer perfectly, and described it as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset."

6. There doesn't appear to be any record of when--or if--he left Islam. At least I never heard any biography of him mention it. For most of us, switching religions would be a life-changing event.

7. Before running for president, Obama was a champion of civil rights for Moslems. He once said, "In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

8. Moslems abroad see Obama as one of them. Aside from Al Qaeda supporters claiming that the US elections won't make any difference, most of the Islamic world wanted Obama to win. What do they know that we don't?

9. To Moslems abroad, a baby born to a Moslem father is automatically a Moslem, and a Moslem who joins another faith is an apostate. We know from the "honor killings" in Africa, the Middle East and Pakistan that the penalty for renouncing Islam is death, and it is usually an apostate Moslem's family who gets rid of him. Yet while Obama appears to be an apostate Moslem, he has received no more death threats than any other president. Again, what do Moslems know that we don't?

10. During the 2008 primaries, a phone bank of Palestinians in Gaza made calls to the United States, urging Americans to support Obama. Why would they do that, if they can't vote for him?

11. In 2008, the Rev. Louis Farrakhan said in a sermon that he thinks Obama is the Messiah. Would he have done that, if he thought Obama was an apostate?

12. When Obama decided to go to church, he did not choose a Baptist, Catholic or Episcopal church, something that most Americans can identify with. Instead, he chose the Trinity United Church of Christ, which follows the heresy of "Black Liberation Theology," and thus got sermons that were far more political than spiritual.

13. The pastor of the above church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was originally a member of the Nation of Islam, before he went out and got his own congregation. In college, Wright's major was "Islamic studies."

14. After word of that church's teachings got out and raised a big stink, Obama left. He has not joined another church since then.

15. His longstanding friendship with Rashid Khalidi, a notorious pro-Palestinian professor.

16. His private meeting in May 2008 with Imam Hassan Qazwini, an agent of Hezbollah and the Iranian government.

17. Campaign gaffe #1: his claim during the 2008 primaries to have visited "fifty-seven states," and that there was one state left that he hadn't been to, besides Alaska and Hawaii. Of course, the USA doesn't have 57 states. Some sharp-eyed conservatives have pointed out that the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has 57 members, with three permanent observers. Was he really thinking of that?

18. Campaign gaffe #2: the slip-up where he mentioned "my Muslim faith." What was he thinking when he said that?

19. A lot of the folks who hang around Obama are anti-Semitic. In November 2008 he got most of the anti-Semitic vote. Islam is violently anti-Semitic. Another coincidence?

20. After becoming president, Obama's first phone call to a head of state was to Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority (January 22, 2009). Because Abbas is Yasser Arafat's successor, it reminded me of how frequently Arafat visited the White House during the Clinton years.

21. One of his firsts act as president was to announce he would close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, also known as "Club Gitmo." Never mind that he has no idea where to send most of the prisoners. Or that compared with Afghanistan, Cuba must look like a tropical paradise, even when seen from a prison. Or that we probably treat the prisoners better than their Al Qaeda and Taliban masters did. Or that most of the interrogation techniques the media is calling "torture" would be considered "hazing" by the typical college fraternity. Heck, in 2006, when I was living in Kentucky and my wife was living in Florida, the Gitmo prisoners had better food than I did! Of course he wants to close Gitmo because it's a hot issue with liberals, but the prisoners are also Moslem. Would it be a priority for him if the detainees were Hindu or Christian?

22. He ordered that Gitmo detainees stop being called "enemy combatants." Likewise, in the doublespeak of Washington, an act of terrorism is now a "man-caused disaster," and the "Global War on Terror" has become "overseas contingency operations."

23. His first interview as president was given to the Arabic language network Al-Arabiya.

24. Though we are deep in an economic recession, Obama pledged $900 million in aid to Gaza. Anyone with any sense knows that money will eventually end up in the hands of Hamas. A few years ago, I heard foreign aid defined as transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.

25. On his first foreign trip as president, he didn't get very excited about meeting the queen of England, but he bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia, who is the official caretaker of Moslem holy places. Even the French didn't do that! And remember my essay which proposed that the Saudis are Satan's chosen people.

26. His energy policy, which calls for cutting back on drilling for oil, and reducing consumption of all fossil fuels in favor of "green" energy sources, may be motivated by a desire to protect the environment, but it plays right into the hands of the Saudis and other OPEC nations, whose policy is to keep Western nations dependent on their oil forever.

27. In Turkey he declared that the United States is not a "Christian nation."

28. He told Moslems in Turkey and elsewhere that his "job" was to communicate "that the Americans are not your enemy." Apparently he forgot that in Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States fought on the side of a Moslem faction. That's every war involving American forces since 1990. He also forgot that it was Moslem extremists who declared war on us.

29. He refused to meet with Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu at the first opportunity, but is still willing to meet Iran's mad leaders without preconditions.

30. In March 2009 Obama called his educational plan "Five Pillars of Education." Where did he get that name, if not from the "Five Pillars of Islam?"

31. When he visited Georgetown University, a Catholic school, all religious symbols near the stage where he spoke were removed or covered up. Let's see if that happens the next time he visits a mosque or madrasa.

32. Moslem holiday preference #1: From 1952 to 2008, every president observed the National Day of Prayer. Obama was the first to do otherwise. He did not bother to take part in any National Day of Prayer events--but he held a dinner in the White House for several Moslem leaders during Ramadan.

33. For the Cairo speech on his June 2009 apology tour, Obama compared the three monothestic religions by mentioning their founders (Moses, Jesus and Mohammed), followed by the expression "peace be upon him." No non-Moslem would say that, even if he was sympathetic to Islam.

34. In the same speech, he said, "I also know that Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco." Well, the statement about Morocco is true, but before the founding of the Black Muslim movement, the only role Islam played in American history had to do with the wars against the Barbary Pirates. Some slaves may have remained true to Islam after they were brought over from West Africa (e.g., Kunta Kinte of Roots fame), but the evidence for that is questionable. At best, the president needs to study more American history.

35. Later on the same tour, Obama criticized the French for not allowing Moslem girls to cover their heads in school ("I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal."), but did not say a word about the appalling record of Iran and Saudi Arabia towards women.

36. When talking about US demographics, Obama said that "If you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." Later he was asked to prove it, and he cited the CIA Factbook, saying that it reported 7 million Moslems in the United States. Nope, not even close. What the CIA Factbook really said was that an estimated 0.6% of Americans are Moslem. In a population of 318 million, that works out to 1.9 million, not 7 million. But even if the 7 million figure was correct, there would still be at least 32 countries with more Moslems than the United States: Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, Iran . . .

37. In the summer of 2009, Obama's hand-picked general declared that he needed 40,000 more troops to win in Afghanistan. Obama took three months to make a decision, and ended up sending only 34,000. Is the idea of victory against Moslem extremists that distasteful to him? By contrast, Bush did not hesitate when he was faced with the same situation in Iraq.

38. In a rambling speech at the United Nations (the one that went on for nearly two hours and caused the translator to quit after screaming "I can't take it anymore!"), the Libyan dictator, Muammar el-Gaddafi, called Obama "my son." I hope he didn't mean that literally! After all, Gaddafi is both a Marxist and a Moslem. Hmmm, do we know anybody else like that?

39. He has hired several devout Moslems with ties to radical Islamic groups for security posts. Not a good idea in the current conflict. By the way, how many Russian immigrants did we hire for important security jobs during the Cold War years?

40. He tried to curb criticism of Nidal Malik Hasan, and refused to call the Fort Hood massacre a terrorist act. Does anybody think that anything would be different if Al Qaeda had told Hasan to do it? I wish Obama showed as much restraint on other issues, like the economic stimulus package.

41. Moslem holiday preference #2: As far as I know, he did nothing to observe Thanksgiving; he didn't even pardon a prize turkey, the way previous presidents had done. However, he gave his blessing to Moslems who were traveling to Mecca, or observing Eid al-Adha. Maybe it's just another coincidence, but Eid al-Adha is a holiday where the main event is animal sacrifice; did the idea of pardoning a turkey offend him for that reason?

42. I don't think he wanted to observe Christmas, either. He tried to put away the fancy Nativity display that the French gave to the White House thirty years ago, to avoid offending anybody, only to change his mind when he learned that not showing the display would offend an even larger group of Americans.

A few years ago I heard this saying about a person's behavior: "Once is a fluke, twice is a pattern, and three times is evidence." Do we have enough examples here to consider them as evidence?