Obama’s Growing Problem

Barack Obama has a growing problem on his hands, and it’s not Iran. It’s much closer to home, but it’s not unemployment either. It’s more personal – a matter of faith to be precise.

A new poll by the respected Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life finds that after 19 months on the job, more Americans now think Obama is a Muslim. That’s a big problem – one that suggests the president is grossly disconnected from the American people.

If this disconnect -- or as one commentator suggested, this sense that Obama’s “default setting is in opposition to the general sensibilities of the American people” -- is allowed to grow, it risks undermining the president’s legitimacy much like the Left’s claim that “Bush lied” about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq undermined the previous administration.

But what amazes me is the media’s astonishment that many Americans would question the president’s professed faith. The talking heads denounce this as an example of bigoted and extremist fringe thinking. But it is a much bigger problem than they care to admit.

How bad is this problem? Here’s a clue: a plurality of Americans don’t know what the president’s faith is! According to the Pew poll, 18% of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim, up from 11% in 2009; just 34% believe he is a Christian, down from 48%; while 43% have no idea what Barack Obama believes.

This comes in spite of all the fawning and sympathetic press Obama received over the past several years. Why is this problem getting worse, rather than better, the longer we are exposed to Barack Obama? It is a problem entirely of Obama’s making. For example:


Obama gave his first television interview as president not to an American network, but to an Arab language satellite network, Al-Arabiya. In that interview, Obama said he felt his “job” was to communicate “to the Muslim world … that the Americans are not your enemy.”


He has apologized for America’s “arrogance,” repeatedly reached out to the Muslim world, including the Holocaust-denying regime in Iran, and even pressed NASA into his Islamic outreach mission.


He bowed to the Muslim king of Saudi Arabia, but made the Dali Lama exit the White House through the back door.


He wrote fondly about his Muslim cultural background in his two autobiographies. In a 2007 New York Times interview, he “recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. …Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as ‘one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.’”


Yes, Barack Obama says he is a Christian, but he attended a church whose pastor routinely condemned America, gave Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan an award and permitted the distribution of Hamas propaganda.


He condemned the construction of homes for Jews in Jerusalem but endorsed the construction of a mosque at Ground Zero.


His administration dismissed charges against the Muslim New Black Panthers, but it prosecutes the state of Arizona.


He cancelled National Day of Prayer events at the White House but hosted an Iftar dinner to celebrate Ramadan.

Given all this and more during the past 19 months, the average American could be forgiven for thinking that Obama is at least deferential, if not predisposed, toward Islam.

So while the media elites may see the Pew poll as evidence of right-wing bigotry, it should be more worrying to them that not even a majority of the president’s staunchest supporters -- Democrats (46%) or blacks (43%) -- could say that Obama is a Christian.

For its part, however, the White House seemingly recognizes the problem and felt compelled to issue a statement reaffirming the president’s Christian faith. Here is an excerpt:


“President Obama is a committed Christian, and his faith is an important part of his daily life. He prays every day, he seeks a small circle of Christian pastors to give him spiritual advice and counseling, he even receives a daily devotional that he uses each morning. The President's Christian faith is a part of who he is, but not a part of what the public or the media is focused on everyday.”-Gary Bauer