Error Theory

It looks like USA Today (and Anne Althouse) need to issue corrections. USA Today claims that Obama's Kenya photo (right):

...sparked snarky headlines in many conservative blogs about the supposed "Muslim" outfit (which it was not)...

But the outfit is Muslim (verified yesterday by Sweetness and Light, Astute Blogger, and the accused Gateway Pundit).

Anne Althouse, subbing for Instapundit, swallows the USA Today disinformation and incorporates it into her editorial line:

SHAME, SHAME, SHAME. The Clinton campaign stooped so low circulating a picture of Barack Obama in African dress.

What makes the story significant is that the garb is Muslim, not just African. Althouse was not calling it shameful to circulate the photo. Her "SHAME, SHAME, SHAME" headline is facetious, making fun of both the Obama and Clinton campaigns for accusing each other of shameful behavior. Althouse's error is in buying the USA Today cover-up of the one fact in the story that needs to be taken seriously, and on that basis presenting the whole thing as much ado about nothing. I don't visit Instapundit to find whitewashes of important information. Protect the brand!


The Muslim garb DOES matter

Obama's early childhood was Islamic. His father and his step-father were both Muslim . Obama was taught Islam with the other Muslim children at the Catholic school he attended, and he attended mosque. Today, Obama's nominally Christian pastor and spiritual advisor is a supporter of Nation of Islam leader and militant racist Louis Farrakhan. In return, Farrakhan enthusiastically supports Obama. At the same time, Obama wants to hold unconditional talks with Iran and Syria, without telling us what he wants to talk about.

[Obama's explanation for unconditional talks:

If we think that meeting with the president is a privilege that has to be earned, I think that reinforces the sense that we stand above the rest of the world at this point in time.

He is talking specifically about meeting with our enemies. It is Ahmadinijad and Assad who Obama does not see America as standing above at this point in time. My take on this is severe.]

In this context, the Muslim garb DOES matter. Obama most certainly knows that, in the Islamic world, there is no such thing as playing at being Muslim. A Muslim can play at being a Christian. Strategic dissimulation is allowed in Islam (Koran, verse 16.106). But having been raised Islamic as a child, if Obama is not still a Muslim, then he is an apostate, which is a death penalty crime under Sharia law. This is very serious stuff in the Islamic world, and Donning Muslim garb is a serious statement indeed. To pretend otherwise is to say that Obama knows nothing about Islam.

So who told USA Today that the Obama's costume is not Muslim? Did the Obama camp issue this disinformation? Did USA Today concoct it on their own? I sent an email to USA today reporters Mark Memmott and Jill Lawrence asking for their source. Will update on any response.


UPDATE: Got an answer from Mark Memmott at USA Today:

We've followed the lead, at this point, of the AP -- which is referring to the garments as "traditional" and "local," and not as Muslim. But I probably should not have said it defintely is "not" Muslim apparel.

Either AP reporter Jim Kuhnhenn did not know that the dress was Muslim, or he was trying to cover it up by describing the dress as “traditional” and “local” instead. If he was trying to fool people, it seems he succeeded in fooling Memmott, who adds in a second email that he has posted an update. Here it is:

Clarification at 3:15 p.m. ET: Earlier, we said the garments were not Muslim. To be fair, though, many Muslims in Somalia would certainly wear such clothes. Obama, however, is a member of a Christian church in Chicago.

That is a pretty half-hearted clarification. This is the costume of a "Somali Elder," and Somalis are 100% Sunni Muslim. The correct statement, from the information that Memmott has at his disposal, is that this is specifically Muslim garb, unless he is just waiting to verify that non-Muslim Kenyans and Somalis (if there are any) don't go around dressed as Somali elders.

The costume of a “Somali Elder” would seem to be a mark of high Islamic status. This is not mufti (civilian clothes), though it might be the dress of a mufti (an interpretter of Islamic law). That ought to be easy enough for a newspaper to clarify (if they just avoid the word "mufti").


UPDATE 2: Realipundit reminds that we have seen this headress before. There really isn't much excuse for reporters not knowing that this is symbolically Muslim attire:


Kind of amazing that no one noted the similar headress back in September 2006. The Obama picture was first published just one day before Adam Gadahn's "Convert or Die" video was released (9/2/2008).

Of course there is an argument to be made that donning this costume was an innocuous courtesy, and Obama makes it, but only in the context of this being some generic "traditional" garb, completely eliding the fact that this is Muslim garb:

Everybody knows that whether it's me or Senator Clinton or Bill Clinton that when you travel to other countries they ask you to try on traditional garb that you have been given as a gift.

But Islam is not just any "tradition." It is a tradition that regularly erupts in paroxysm of violence (against which dissenting voices are vanishingly rare) over the merest symbolic gestures. The ascendant claimants to this tradition (the "revivalist" Wahhabists and Kohemini-ists) regularly commit acts of war agianst the United States. Can this really be ignored? Obama does not even have to face the fact of his donning Muslim garb?

Presented with the opportunity to wear traditional Islamic dress, Obama could have said:

I am sorry. Though my father was Muslim, I am a Christian. I don't want to mislead anyone. So thank you for the offer, but it would not be appropriate for me to wear Islamic dress.

If he were confronted today with the fact that he did put on the Muslim garb, he might tell us that something like this is what he should have said. Or maybe he would say that he was being ecumenical, and we would learn that he does not see a big gap between Christianity and Islam. Or maybe he would deny that he saw any religious connotation to the costume at all.

Whatever he would say, we all deserve to hear it. He is running for president after all. It is absurd to say that Obama wearing Muslim garb is not newsworthy.


AP reporter Kuhnhenn engages in other whitewashing as well

Faced with conflicting claims about whether Obama was raised Muslim (Obama denies it, while lots of evidence suggests that he was), Kuhnhenn declares that the muslim ties are "false rumors," without citing any source but Obama himself:

Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ and says he has never been a Muslim, but false rumors about Islamic ties are circulating on the Internet.

That looks like a clear cut case of shilling for Obama instead of sticking to the facts. At the very least, Obama would seem to be differing with traditional Islam on what makes a person a Muslim. He seems to be saying that since he did not practice Islam up to the age of competency, he does not consider himself as ever having been a Muslim. But traditional Islam certainly does. Children raised Muslim, who on reaching the age of competency choose Christianity instead, are threated with death.

In his second email to me, Mark Memmott opined that Kuhnhenn was just being conservative when he only described Obama's dress as "traditional":

I doubt AP was trying to cover up anything or fool anybody. More likely, it was being conservative and only saying as much as it knew.

This "conservative" explanation does not hold up when it comes to Kuhnhenn's blanket dismissal of Obama's Muslim ties. The consistent explanation is that Kuhnhenn is just a typical left-wing hack, filtering the news for maximum partisan advantage.


UPDATE 3: Obama wearing another Muslim hat:


The man holding the photo of Barack Obama in this AP shot is supposedly Barack's older brother Malik Obama. The Fez like hats that both are wearing are identified by Sweetness and Light as Muslim "topi or kopiah." This suggests a test for Obama's explanation that:

...when you travel to other countries they ask you to try on traditional garb that you have been given as a gift.

Are there any pictures of Obama wearing traditional garb that is not Muslim?

Phyllis Chesler over at Pajamas Media has heard from Bat Ye'or on the sea change that an Obama presidency would create:

Bat Ye’or told me that if Obama is elected, America will become dhimmified even faster than Europe.