The Wonk Room

Gaffney: The President ‘May Actually Still Be’ A Muslim

Proving once again that, for conservatives, there is no foreign policy scenario which does not merit a Munich analogy, Frank Gaffney looks at Obama’s Cairo speech and accuses the president of having “engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain over Czechoslovakia at Munich.”

Here’s Gaffney in 2007, comparing the Annapolis conference to — can you guess?

It is fitting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chose the U.S. Naval Academy for the venue of today’s so-called Mideast peace conference. The reputation of that extraordinary institution in Annapolis has been sullied in recent years by a succession of rapes of young women.

Despite official efforts to low-ball its significance, Miss Rice’s conclave is shaping up to be a gang-rape of a nation on a scale not seen since Munich in 1938, when the British and French allowed Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini to have their violent way with Czechoslovakia.

This time, the intended victim is Israel. As with the effort to appease the Nazis and Fascists nearly 70 years ago, however, the damage will not be confined to the rapee. The interests of the Free World in general and the United States in particular will suffer from what the Saudis and most of the other attendees have in mind for the Jewish State — namely, its dismemberment and ultimate destruction.

So, Munich, but also: Gang rape.

Having established that Frank Gaffney — who previously assured us that Gov. Sarah Palin had acquired her foreign policy expertise “by osmosis” — is not to be taken seriously, let’s get to what’s really special about today’s item. Gaffney insists that “there is mounting evidence that the president not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself.”

Consider the following indicators:

• Mr. Obama referred four times in his speech to “the Holy Koran.” Non-Muslims — even pandering ones — generally don’t use that Islamic formulation.

• Mr. Obama established his firsthand knowledge of Islam (albeit without mentioning his reported upbringing in the faith) with the statement, “I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.” Again, “revealed” is a depiction Muslims use to reflect their conviction that the Koran is the word of God, as dictated to Muhammad.

• Then the president made a statement no believing Christian — certainly not one versed, as he professes to be, in the ways of Islam — would ever make. In the context of what he euphemistically called the “situation between Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs,” Mr. Obama said he looked forward to the day “. . . when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.”

Now, the term “peace be upon them” is invoked by Muslims as a way of blessing deceased holy men. According to Islam, that is what all three were — dead prophets. Of course, for Christians, Jesus is the living and immortal Son of God.

This is fever swamp stuff. Particularly pernicious is how Gaffney arrogates to himself the role of arbiter and interpreter of the world’s religions — this debate with conservative American Muslim Suhail Khan, in which Gaffney condescendingly presumes to lecture Khan about the tenets of Khan’s own faith, is typical — in order to produce a jumble of innuendos that clearly add up to “The President of the United States is a Muslim Sleeper.”

As I said, Gaffney’s own past work strongly argues against taking him seriously as an analyst. As someone willing to cast deeply irresponsible and transparently bigoted accusations against the president, however, he should be taken very seriously.