Obama’s aversion to public displays of religion was particularly in evidence on April 14, 2009, when the president appeared at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall to speak about the economy. Though the administration wanted to use the backdrop of a Catholic university to lend some spiritual heft to the president’s address, the symbols of faith displayed in the hall made someone at the White House very uncomfortable. The Washington Times reported that Obama officials asked Georgetown to cover all Catholic signage and symbols, and specifically that a pediment on the stage bearing the carved gold letters IHS (an abbreviation for Jesus’s name) be obscured. So black painted plywood was shoved in front of the pediment and—voilà!—no more Jesus. I suppose the stage was big enough for only one Messiah.
The president’s religious indifference is so pronounced, he routinely attempts to downplay the obvious religious majority in America. During a visit to Turkey on April 6, 2009, he proclaimed, “One of the great strengths of the United States is—although as I mentioned, we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”
I’d like to know exactly what “values” the president believes binds us as a people. Open hearts, open minds? The fact is, numerically speaking, this is a Christian nation. Upward of 76 percent of the population is Christian. Even the Supreme Court in 1892 referred to America as a “Christian nation.” Obviously the United States allows all her citizens to freely practice the faith of their choice, but to downplay America’s Christian majority and its Christian heritage is ludicrous.
Not that Obama cares. In fact, he attempted to make the case that we are a Muslim country. During an interview on Canal Plus, a French TV outlet, in June 2009, before a trip to Cairo, the president told Laura Haim: “One of the points I want to make is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. And so there’s got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.”
This is, of course, nonsense. The CIA World Factbook reports that there are roughly 1.8 million Muslims in the United States, representing 0.6 percent of the population. The St. Petersburg Times’ Politifact.com did a rundown of the top sixty Muslim countries in the world. The United States came in at number fifty-eight. Hard as it might be for the president to accept, the United States is virtually tied with Israel as being the largest Jewish country in the world—and we are the largest Christian country based on population.
In February 2009, the president went out of his way to appoint a special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. With member nations including Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, and Libya, the group is committed to spreading sharia law around the world, and according to its website, has “the singular honor to galvanize the Ummah [Muslims around the globe] into a unified body.” Just the kind of group the United States needs to send an envoy to engage, right? The president didn’t choose just anybody for the job. He chose a thirty-one-year-old attorney already working in the White House: Rashad Hussain. Hussain’s only real qualifications were that he was a Muslim and “a hafiz of the Qur’an,” someone who has committed the whole Koran to memory. Hussain, a graduate of Yale Law School, participated in a Muslim Student Association meeting in 2004, where he said that the case against Sami Al-Arian (the North American head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad) was one of many “politically motivated persecutions,” according to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. This is just the sort of individual who—in between Koran recitations—will no doubt vigorously argue the American perspective before the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
While the president went out of his way to reach out to Muslims, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu got the cold shoulder during a visit to the United States in March 2010. Obama wanted written assurances from Netanyahu that he would cease building settlements in East Jerusalem, which the president viewed as an obstacle to peace talks. Netanyahu refused. According to some reports, the meeting was cut short and the White House withheld any photographs of the two leaders. In what was seen as another snub, the president did not dine with Netanyahu. This offended Israelis and many prominent American Jews.
Presumably to blunt the fallout, the always reliable New York Times featured a front-page story the following Sunday titled “Next Year in the White House: A Seder Tradition.” It explored the Obama Seder, a tradition coined by the president and some of his Jewish staff on the campaign trail. The first dinner took place in 2008, during a dark time in the campaign—the days leading up to the Pennsylvania primary, when the Reverend Wright controversy was dominating headlines.
At the end of a seder, it is traditional to cry, “Next year in Jerusalem.” But Obama had to add his own spiritual capper: “Next year in the White House,” he said. And the tradition has since continued in the executive manse.
“The Obama Seder seems to take on new meaning each year, depending on what is happening in the world,” the Times reported. Susan Sher, Michelle Obama’s chief of staff, suggested that the 2010 seder would focus on “taking care of people who can’t take care of themselves and health-care reform.” On the surface this seems like a nice gesture to the Jewish community, until you read the fine print. “No one considered inviting prominent rabbis or other Jewish leaders; it is a private event,” according to the Times. This makes perfect sense. Why ruin Obama’s secularized version of a religious ritual by inviting religious people?
The president has truly made history with his religious outreach. In addition to hosting the first seder in the White House, his administration is also the first to invite atheists in for a sit-down. That’s right; on February 26, 2010, several high-ranking Obama officials attended a special meeting at the White House with a group of some of the most rabid antireligious bigots in America. The Secular Coalition for America, including groups like American Atheists and the Council for Secular Humanism, attended the meeting. According to ABC News these “nontheists” came to express their opinions on “faith healing on children, which the coalition describes as a form of ‘child abuse’; the ‘pervasive’ religious atmosphere in the US military; and faith-based initiatives.”
Clearly, the most dogmatic thinkers in America—activist atheists—had found a friend in Barack Obama.
THE DIARY OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
AIR FORCE ONE, EN ROUTE TO GHANA
July 10, 2009
Went to the Vatican today. Frankly, I wasn’t impressed. I brought the pope some kind of liturgical shawl from Philadelphia. They tell me that this religious accessory was part of some saint’s wardrobe. In return, I thought he’d give me something I could use: Vatican cuff links or a piece of furniture or something. But for all our trouble, all I got was a mosaic of the Vatican. I told Reggie in the car after the meeting, had I known I’d be given some souvenir from the Vatican gift shop, I would have brought the German shepherd (I came up with that nickname—pretty good, huh?) a picture of the White House with Bo and me in the foreground.
While I was meeting with His Holiness Colonel Klink, Miche, Mother Robinson, and the girls went on a tour of the Sistine Chapel. After the meeting, Reggie and I were taken underground to see St. Peter’s Crypt. This archbishop kept going on and on about the history of the Church and how “this is the rock of the faith” . . . To be honest, I don’t care much about history. I’m a man of the here and now. What I do becomes history. Who cares where St. Peter’s bones are? Where will St. Barack’s bones be?—that’s what I’m worried about.
This German pope just didn’t do it for me. He kept blathering about “the sanctity of human life” and “protecting human life.” As a throwaway, I told him that I would work to “reduce the number of abortions.” (What I didn’t share with him was that I’ll reduce them by distributing free contraceptives!) You can tell this guy was a professor. On the way out, he actually gave me home
work: a Vatican pamphlet titled “An Instruction on Certain Bioethical Questions.” I’m sorry, but I don’t need schooling in ethics from a man in a dress.
Though I will say one thing for Catholicism: I didn’t realize that the pope is a monarch. He rules without a popular election. I’m friendly with a couple of the progressive cardinals in the U.S.—most of them even supported me during the campaign. If I can ingratiate myself with a few more of these red hats, the pope thing might not be a bad follow-up to the presidency. Of course, I’d have to convert to Catholicism to pave the way. But this wouldn’t be the first time that I joined a church for political reasons. I’ll also have to figure out what to do with Michelle. I’ll make Reggie a cardinal, and Gibbs is already Catholic so he can come along. But before I move in, I’d have to get Desiree to redecorate those private quarters. The pope’s crib is a little plain for my taste.
POLITICIZING GOD
In a 2006 speech to the liberal Christian group Called to Renewal, Obama disparaged the use of the Bible as a tool to weigh or direct public policy.
“Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy?” Obama asked in the speech. “Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is okay and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount? . . . So before we get carried away, let’s read our Bible now. Folks haven’t been reading their Bible.”
Jim Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, reacted quickly to Obama’s theology lesson: “I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology . . . dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”
Obama falls back on the oldest trick in the liberal playbook when it comes to religion, one usually deployed by atheists. In this talk, he attempted to create disparity between the Old and New Testaments as a way to undermine the authority of the Holy Scripture and the faith of those who hold it dear. By casting general aspersions on the Bible itself, Obama seeks to discredit his critics, particularly those concerned about the taking of innocent human life and the sanctity of marriage. Interestingly enough, the president never dares to stand before a Muslim audience to point out conflicting passages in the Koran.
In June 2008, Obama shot back at Dobson with a familiar refrain: “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal rather than religion-specific values,” Obama said. “It requires their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason.”
He reflexively tries to portray faith and the faithful as being opposed to reason: wild-eyed lunatics flipping through the Scriptures for their every thought or political conviction. But if you listen closely to Obama as he tries to explain his own position on certain issues, he begins to buckle under the weight of reason and retreats to his purportedly religious convictions for cover.
For instance, when asked by Rick Warren at the Saddleback Forum in August 2008 to “define marriage,” Obama said: “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian—for me—for me as a Christian, it is a sacred union. God’s in the mix.” He then added that he would not support a constitutional amendment defining marriage, but would support same-sex civil unions: “I can afford those civil rights to others even if I don’t have . . . that view.” Translation: I believe as a Christian that marriage is restricted to one man and one woman, but other people take another view and that’s fine, too.
Faith is something entirely private in Barack Obama’s mind, a thing to be sealed off from public policy concerns—except when it can be used to further his own political ends.
THE DIARY OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE
March 15, 2010
We’re going to pass this health-care bill yet. Kathleen Sebelius came up with a great idea to break the Catholic bishops’ hold on Stupak and that gang of “pro-life” Democrats. Without their votes, we’re sunk. Kathleen suggested that I invite Sister Carol Keehan, the president of the Catholic Health Association, in for a private meeting. She’s been a cheerleader from the start and is a sucker for a little attention. Sister Carol’s also not hung up on this abortion thing—she’s got an open heart and an open mind.
To be honest, I didn’t even know she was a nun. I was expecting more of a Sally Field playing Sister Bertrel look. When she walked into the Oval, I thought, “She could pass for Rachel Maddow’s grandmama.” From the polyester blazer she was wearing, it looked like she’d just won the Masters. They don’t make nuns like they used to . . . But right off the bat, I knew she’d be an easy touch. The woman just wanted to touch the hem of my garment.
The moment we sat down in the Roosevelt Room, I got real solemn and told her that her bishops were getting in the way of reform. “Sister Carol, you can’t serve two masters,” I said. She got real quiet, closed her eyes, and then looked over at me. “Mr. President, speak. Your servant listens,” she said. Together we came up with a plan: she’s going to endorse the bill and say that no federal funds go toward abortions; then later in the week, a group of more sisters who wear blazers are going to issue a letter backing her up. It will appear that there’s a split in the Catholic Church and that’ll give Stupak and his gang of pious Annies enough cover to vote for the reform package.
On the way out, Sister Carol asked for my blessing. I’d never done anything like that, but I had seen my friend Father Pfleger trace a cross on people’s foreheads. So I leaned down, traced an “O” on Sister Carol’s head with my thumb, and sent her on her way. She slobbered all over my hand and practically genuflected as we parted (she needs to work on her bowing). If she pulls this thing off, I’m giving her one of the pens I use at the signing ceremony—along with a few million dollars for her hospitals, and thirty pieces of silver for all her trouble.
When in early 2010, it became obvious that health-care reform would not pass without the Democrats getting some serious religious cover, President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi pulled out all the stops to find any Catholic with name recognition and a title to support the bill. The Catholic bishops, generally supportive of universal coverage, were not going to budge on opposing the final bill because of its abortion funding provisions. In fact, a number of prominent bishops were personally telephoning “pro-life” Democrats in Congress, urging them to stand by their principles and vote against the bill. Nevertheless, in the end, a group of vocal left-wing nuns came out of the woodwork to express their support for the bill, and checkmated the bishops. Game over. After all, who could argue with a flock of selfless, sweet nuns? Now that Nancy Pelosi had a sisterhood supporting her, there was no stopping her massive new entitlement program.
THE DIARY OF SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE THE HONORABLE NANCY PELOSI
THE U.S. CAPITOL
March 19, 2010
At my press conference, I marched right up to the microphone and proudly announced that today was the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. Then, just to smear it in the faces of those smug bishops and the right-wingers, I said, “We’re praying to St. Joseph to benefit the workers of America. And that’s exactly what our health-care bill will do.” Take that, you holier-than-thou SOBs! And abortion funding will be in the bill!!
I’m just as good a Catholic as any other. That dear Sister Carol and her other women friends in drab clothing encouraged me to stand firm. How dare that pope lecture me about the sanctity of life? Back in February of last year, in the Vatican itself, after I saluted his leadership on global warming and reducing poverty, he had the gall to lecture me in front of Paul and the entire delegation. I’ll never forget the way he put it: “You have a moral obligation as a legislator to create a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.” Some nights I wake up hearing that wispy, German voice and I just want to scream . . .
As an ardent, practicing Catholic, I can vote
my conscience and my conscience says it is perfectly fine to offer women choice! And they will have that choice, so help me God! Once I flip a few more pro-life holdouts, we’re home free. It looks like Stupak will go for a meaningless executive order, but there are others who will need more attention.
I just got off the phone with dear Father Hesburgh at Notre Dame. He’s promised to call Joe Donnelly, a Notre Dame grad and the congressman in South Bend. I know Father Hesburgh can get him to drop his anti-choice position and support our bill. I told Father to just keep telling Joe to “vote his conscience.” He’ll know what to do.
This bill will “protect human life”—at least the lives of those who are already with us and in relatively good health.
For Barack Obama, faith and talk of faith is not so much rooted in personal conviction as in political necessity. On January 4, 2008, he told the Concord Monitor, “We know that ninety percent of Americans believe in a higher power, we know that huge chunks of voters in swing states consider religion a really important part of their lives. If we aren’t speaking to those issues, then I think we’re missing a huge part of the electorate . . .”
He would use his campaign to build bridges to religious-minded voters who had long been estranged from the Democratic Party. At least Obama was a Democrat willing to acknowledge that faith was central to the American character and had a role in shaping the destiny of the country—even if he did twist that faith to accommodate his own policies.
In a speech to a national meeting of the United Church of Christ on June 22, 2007, Obama explained his vision of faith and politics. “People are coming together around a simple truth—that we are all connected, that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper,” he said. “And that it’s not enough to just believe this—we have to do our part to make it a reality. My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want, but I won’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I go out and do the Lord’s work.”
The Obama Diaries Page 19
