The Next Big Obama Tape (We Are Breathless)

The Dreaming Team at No Quarter unveil their latest attack fantasy against Obama:

It is being reported today that Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times has in his possession a tape recording of an interview he once had with Barack Obama that may be very damaging to the latter’s campaign for the presidency.

The tape (and the transcript of it) stem from a February 27, 2007 visit Kristof paid to Obama’s senate offices. A column Kristof wrote based upon this interview appeared in the New York Times on March 6, 2007.

...

What may be damning about the interview, the transcript of it and—especially—the original tape recording is that Obama allegedly provided Kristof with a recitation from memory of the Muslim call to prayer in Arabic. One of Obama’s cousins in Africa has stated in the recent past that Obama was, indeed, once a Muslim. Kristof’s interview records may prove this more definitively.

Oh, we are big-timing it here.  Is there such a tape?  Could it be?  Of course, if the author had burdened us with a link to the Kristof column in question we might have been given an opportunity to ponder this:

“I was a little Jakarta street kid,” he said in a wide-ranging interview in his office (excerpts are on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground). He once got in trouble for making faces during Koran study classes in his elementary school, but a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics — and more likely to be aware of their nationalism — if he once studied the Koran with them.

Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

If you believe that Kristof tapes his interviews than you can believe he has a tape of Obama reciting the opening to the call to prayers on tape.  With a first-rate accent.  And No Quarter is on it.

Go with QandO on this one.

Comments

[Toby Petzold]

Kristof's loyalty to the Democrat Party will keep any such tape buried deep until after the Rapture.

[whiskey]

There's already enough stuff on record to make a devastating attack ad:

1. Kristof's text while a narrator voices it in "serious" mode.

2. Latest "Death to America" chants from Iran, rioting Muslims, Embassy hostage footage, 9/11 planes hitting the WTC towers.

3. Rev Wright "God Damn America!" and Obama's hem-hawing about Wright and Trinity for 20 years.

4. Narrator: Obama, who's side is he on, America's or THEIRS?" as images of bin Laden at prayer, Zawahari, various jihadis making Martyrdom videos play on.

Mission Accomplished!

[Topsecretk9]

I wonder if Kristof has a tape of his breakfast interview of Wilson and Plame?

[Toby Petzold]

Larry Johnson's batting average lately has been pretty lousy. I wouldn't trust him until he comes up with something solid.

Still, it's interesting to see how Obama's gotten under his skin.

[MayBee]

Ah! We are witnessing the birth of the latest right-wing smear.

How long until it's blamed on National Review and Rush Limbaugh at fightthesmears.org?

[SAM]

What am I missing? Sounds as if he was raised, at least for a time, as a Muslim. He certainly wasn't raised in those bedrock Kansas values I've been hearing about on the ads he's running in Ohio. He had about as much contact with Kansas as the Munchkins in "The Wizard of Oz."

And, honestly, this supposed "conversion" to Jeremiah Wright's version of Christianity doesn't pass muster. Even his admitted beliefs about universalism contradict his claims about being a Christian. Whatever he is he should come out and admit it. But don't tell me he's a Christian.

I hope the 527s are merely marking time so that they achieve maximum effect after Labor Day. Obama is the scariest candidate I've ever seen. What is the problem with these journalists?

[bgates]

a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics — and more likely to be aware of their nationalism — if he once studied the Koran with them.
Huh. It's my understanding that Koran "study" often takes place in schools which "may breed fundamentalists who have learned to recite the Koran in Arabic by rote", an understanding I developed from talking to non-Arabic Muslims and reading fairly widely (including Kristof's paper, which is the source of that quote.) I would think memorization of a book written in a language you don't speak is a sign of fanaticism. It's interesting to see that the Times can forgive people for both religiosity and nationalism, so long as they're neither Christian nor American. Imagine Kristof writing this instead:

a president is less likely to stereotype Christians as fanatics — and more likely to be aware of their patriotism — if he once studied the Bible with them.
Unthinkable, isn't it?

[Jane]

I'm pretty bored with Larry Johnson, all things considered. But I will say it's funny when democrats turn on themselves.

Oh and Good Morning everyone!It's the weekend!

[pagar]

Good morning to all!

It's not just Larry Johnson that is against Obama on the left. Here is another Stop-Obama
blog post by Jeff Gold.

"My personal take on the fall of the West, is that Liberals are a Trojan Horse against Civilization." -................................

"What the likes of the Obama’s share with the likes of the Ossamas, is a cultural hatred and malaise, with the very concepts of Civilization, and the West."

LUN

[Elliott]

Matinal greetings, gang.

[clarice]

Good morning. Bgates get his starring role today--something well-deserved. In D.C. it's a beautiful morning. I hope it is , too, wherever you are.

[Cecil Turner]

I think it's funny that Scary Larry is such an incompetent at smearing (and I'd suspect him of doing it on purpose, a la Wilson's feckless African adventure, if I wasn't pretty sure he's too dim to sustain such a good front). But he's entirely missing the point on the "Muslim 'smear.'" The issue isn't whether Obama secretly keeps a Koran in his closet, it's whether the prospective CinC's religious views might lead to him having our enemies' best wishes at heart . . . and for that, a qualified "yes" seems the most logical answer.

Although Obama recently saw the light and distanced himself from TUCC, his longstanding relationship implies some commonality of thought. And the BLT that forms the basis for TUCC explicitly blames the white oppressors for pretty much everything. As Wiki puts it:

Overview
Black theology is a form of liberation theology that has its center in the theme of oppression of black people by white people.[1]

Not surprisingly, when extrapolated to the war on terror, the BLT types side with the terrorists, regularly expressing sympathy and even promulgating their propaganda.

Personally I don't see much difference between Wright's brand of Christianity and Louis Farrakhan's brand of Islam (and, apparently, neither do they). I suspect some who use "Muslim" to describe Obama's views in the various polls do so as a form of shorthand for what they consider an oddball cult. And if so, I'm not going to argue with them on the terminology.

[Sue]

a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics

And when did a president do that? Stereotype Muslims? Hasn't Bush turned himself into a pretzel to avoid that? Kristof, the objective journalist. ::eyeroll::

[hit and run]

And...good morning!

It's a quiet morning around these parts.

[Rick Ballard]

Why would anyone think Barack Hussein was muslim? Not one of you can prove that Ann of Red Gables actually had second wife status under shariah to support the claim that Obama was technically legitimate and without such proof there is little reason to doubt Obama's full acceptance of the dogma espoused at every sermon which he attended over his twenty years at that Marxist black separatist church in Chicago.

His study of the Koran and ability to recite the muslim call to prayer in beautifully accented Arabic is just a smokescreen. I don't know why people don't just take Obama at his word.

[centralcal]

"I suspect some who use "Muslim" to describe Obama's views in the various polls do so as a form of shorthand for what they consider an oddball cult."

Ah, yes, Cecil - a cultish mishmash.

His Hollowness, the Dope has readied his Dopemobile for a grand European Hajj, calling out to and welcoming the faithful. And latter day Magi - Brian, and Katie, and Charlie - will follow his shining aura and record for posterity the Hollowness and Dopiness of it all.

[kim]

This is a man of so little faith that he must place it in a lesser vessel, himself.
======================

[kim]

It is lilting, and projects well and far. It means 'Allah is the One and Only God, and Mohammed is his prophet'. Here it is, my transliteration:

La Illahah Il Lala, Mohamudah, Rasull L'Allah.

Now what have I done?
===============

[kim]

Best said all in one breath, after which, one should be breathless.
========================================

[cathyf]

C'mon, the fundamental accusation is absurd. Muslims do not use church bells, but instead voices over speakers singing at the appropriate hours. If you live within speaker range, then you are going to hear this every day, over and over. This is about as significant as someone who has lived in London being able to sing all the notes of Big Ben chiming.

[RichatUF]

kim-

Now what have I done?

It's the sha'hada-probably don't want that little bit to come out...

[narciso]

I'm a little confused, this is back in the early years of the Suharto regime, and he wasn't particularly inclined toward Islamism
back then; what would later become Gemaa Islamiya was in its infancy back then. Maybe Obama was trying to impress Kristof
who was trained as an Arabist at Cairo U, yet ended up a Soviet and Chinese expert; which is kind of doubtful anyways. I thought he only had a working knowledge of Bahasa anyways.