American Muslims are fierce patriots, Obama says
President Barack Obama can duck a question with the best of them, but when he was asked about the arrest in Pakistan of five allegedly home-grown U.S. jihadists, he seized the opportunity to damp down a potential backlash against American Muslims and praised the community for its “fierce patriotism.”
“What has been remarkable over the course of the last eight, nine years since 9/11 is the degree to which America has reaffirmed the extraordinary contributions of the Muslim American community,” he told a brief press conference during his Nobel Peace Prize visit to Oslo.
Pakistani officials said the five young men, students in their 20′s from northern Virginia who were detained in a city called Sargodha to the southeast of the capital Islamabad, appear to have been intent on “jihad.”
The arrests follow repeated warnings by U.S. intelligence officials of the potential risk of U.S. citizens being recruited by militants. U.S. authorities have also recently charged 14 people with recruiting, training and funding young Somali-American men to join and fight with an al Qaeda proxy on the Horn of Africa.
“Now, the Muslim American community is vast, so we have to constantly be mindful that some of these twisted ideologies are available over the Internet and can affect our young people. But I think we’ve got a good story to tell here and one that we need to build on,” Obama said.
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Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Obama with Nobel prize)
Dear Laura, Thanks, from Michelle
NEW YORK - Michelle Obama wrote a thank-you note to Laura Bush after the first lady spoke up in defense of the wife of the Democratic presidential candidate, Obama said on Wednesday.
Obama, who is married to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, created a controversy on the campaign trail in February when she said, “For the first time in my adult lifetime I am really proud of my country.”
After critics questioned her patriotism because of the remark, Obama has frequently said she is proud of her country.
During an appearance on ABC Television’s “The View” on Wednesday, she re-stated her pride in the United States and said her controversial comment was referring to being proud of the political process this year.
Laura Bush came to Obama’s defense earlier this month, telling ABC’s “Good Morning America”: “I think she probably meant, ‘I’m more proud.’ You have to be very careful in what you say. Everything you say is looked at and in many cases misconstrued.”
Obama said she appreciated Bush’s comments and concern.
“I was touched by it and actually I sent her a note,” Obama said on “The View.” “It took me a while to write it. Like, how do I address her? I sent it to ‘Madam First Lady.’ I don’t want to talk about it because she might not have it yet.
Laura Bush was doing what all of us have had to do… make diplomatic excuses for Michelle Obama’s stance and bitterness.
Obama says don’t judge him by ex-pastor’s comments
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Barack Obama sought to distance himself further Friday from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, telling a North Carolina rally that comments by his former pastor that have been described as ”crazy” should not be used to judge his candidacy.
Obama has said his presidential bid was damaged by a recent series of public appearances by Wright, in which the pastor repeated earlier charges the Sept. 11 attacks were retribution for U.S. foreign policy and that the U.S. government had a hand in spreading AIDS to blacks.
But the Illinois senator, locked in a battle for the Democratic nomination with Sen. Hillary Clinton, said earlier on Friday in Indianapolis he would leave it to the pollsters to analyze the extent of the impact from the Wright flap on his campaign. Obama broke publicly with his longtime pastor earlier this week when he called a news conference to criticize Wright’s remarks as “outrageous” and “appalling.”
“As we’ve done well in this election, as we’ve been successful, increasingly my opponents have spent their time talking, not about the issues, but about me,” Obama told a rally of about 9,000 people at Charlotte’s Cricket Arena.
“They’ve been saying, ‘Well, look at those crazy things his former pastor said or he’s not wearing a flag pin or he’s got a funny name, sounds like he’s Muslim,’” he said. “Those are strategies to divide us. We’ve seen those strategies before.”
Obama said his critics were out of line in questioning his patriotism.
“You want to understand my patriotism? I owe everything to this country,” he said.
i think it is a shame that people would listen to the Rev. and use that against Senator Obama. It’s evident that the Rev. is a sick man. I wouldn’t want anybody to judge me on my mothers flaws who I’ve known all my life. Nor my best friend who I’ve known almost all my life.
It is totaly unfair.
