Why Won't Any Republicans Condemn the "Obama Is a Muslim" Myth?

This post originally appeared on Slate.

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AP

With so much traffic on the low road in American politics, you'd imagine a politician or two might take the high road simply to beat the congestion. Sunday on Meet the Press, Mitch McConnell was asked about the Pew poll that showed 31 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a Muslim. He said, "The president says he's a Christian. I take him at his word. I don't think that's in dispute." If you only paid attention to his first two sentences, as some pundits did, you might think McConnell was trying to keep doubt alive by suggesting the matter was one of debate. If you were patient enough to listen to the last sentence, you heard him say that the matter is not one of debate at all.

If McConnell wasn't trying to stir the pot, he also wasn't trying to lower the boil. What you didn't hear McConnell say was that the whole notion that Obama is a Muslim is ridiculous because by any standard we use to evaluate the religious beliefs of our leaders, President Obama is a Christian. Nor did he go on to say that any politician who tries to benefit from this urban legend--by courting either Islamophobes or conspiracy nuts who think Obama is engaged in some kind of systematic deception--should be ashamed of himself.

He also did not produce a baby unicorn. That is to say, expecting the events of the previous paragraph would ever happen in real life is a fantasy. We can define our politics by the outrageous things people say. Rep. Joe Wilson yelled, "You lie" during a presidential address to Congress. Newt Gingrich called Sonia Sotomayor a racist, and Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson said, "Republicans want you to die quickly." But the shamelessness of our politics can also be measured by silence. It's just as embarrassing that in a case like this, no politician will take the high road against their political interest.

Fine. If we can't have Boy Scouts in office, let's try it another way. Shouldn't there be someone taking the high road if for no other reason than it is unoccupied? Often in politics, doing the one thing no one else is doing usually gets you air time and exposure. But it's harder to tread the high road in an election year. For Republicans whose constituents dislike the president, there's no advantage in going out of your way to stick up for him. That's why McConnell kept trying to get back to talking about the economy. He was trying to stay on the issue voters care about.

Why is the burden on Republicans? They benefit from the misinformation, and the poll shows the myth has taken hold most sharply among their supporters. A soul might want to speak up lest the view get around that the party is willing to let any untruth flower if it helps them.

Republicans and conservatives aren't the only ones who don't bother to do the right thing. During the primaries, Hillary Clinton's campaign staffers passed around Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mails. Hillary Clinton gave a McConnell-esque response when asked whether she thought Obama was a Muslim. And Clinton's campaign strategist Mark Penn talked about making Obama's otherness the central pitch of the Clinton campaign. That's part of what the Muslim charge is about--making the president seem like something foreign, mysterious and unfamiliar to Americans.

Evangelical Christian leader Franklin Graham bypassed the high road too. Though his father made a career out of sudden conversions to Christ and he has continued that tradition, the younger Graham seemed rather lukewarm about whether Obama's Christian rebirth (described at the end of Dreams From My Father) really took. Saying Obama was "born a Muslim" (in fact, Obama's Muslim-born father and Christian-born mother were both areligious), Graham seemed skeptical of Obama's Christian identity. "That is what he says he has done," said Graham. "I cannot say that he hasn't. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said."

Those who doubt Obama's faith practice selective hearing in its highest form. It requires real discipline to hear only Obama's remarks that might identify him in any way with Islam and miss all of the others that refer to his Christian faith. So when the president spoke in Cairo, people heard him say how his father's Kenyan family included generations of Muslims but went la,la,la, la seconds earlier, when Obama declared, "I'm a Christian." (A Republican national committeewoman, Kim Lehman, who says she believes Obama is a Muslim, seemed almost religious about her refusal to inform herself about this speech,)

During his political career, Obama has been quite comfortable talking about his faith and the particularities of his Christian beliefs. Inviting discussion about this aspect of his life has not always benefited Obama. Two years ago he faced a crisis over connections to his Christian pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Earlier, in 2006, Obama gave a high-profile speech about his faith and received a wave of criticism from progressives, many of whom compared him to George Bush.

It's hard work to sustain doubt about the president's faith or to believe he doesn't express it enough. At one point, Politico reported that Obama had actually invoked Jesus more than Bush. He often talks in personal terms. "I found myself drawn--not just to work with the church but to be in the church," Obama said at Notre Dame in May 2009. "It was through this service that I was brought to Christ." Search for Christ on the White House Web site and the first item you'll find is the president's remarks at an Easter prayer breakfast. He didn't just welcome his "brothers and sisters in Christ," but also talked at length about why Christ's resurrection and the power of redemption meant so much to him. Previous presidents may have attended church, but Obama was doing something more. He was witnessing. Different churches may have different practices, but the ones I've attended don't usually greet such expressions of faith with scorn. The usual response is to say Amen.

More from Slate:

Rick Scott asks Republicans to Look Past a Scandal and Put Him in Charge
Why the Candidate of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express is Losing in Alaska
The "Ground Zero Mosque" Debate is About Tolerance -- and a Whole Lot More

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John Dickerson is a CBS News political analyst. He is also Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. You can also follow him on Twitter here.

[sunnyinttown]

Listen rmw15, he HAS told the nation what his faith is - He is a Christian. Do you have a hearing problem or are you just stupid? And if you want to know where and when he was born, well that is on the internet. Just do a google search.

[sunnyinttown]

Sharona613, you twit. Obama was not born to a Muslim father - father's do not give birth. He was born to an American Christian woman - his white mother. And he was not registered as a Muslim in the Indonesia school he attended. The school was not a Muslim school. Get your facts straignt. Further more, he was a young child at that time and did not even know his father. And if you want to get into what ministers/preachers say in church, you are spreading a very large net. There are many church leaders in all faiths that preach hate, not just black churches. Who are you to judge if a person is a Christian? The last time I checked my Bible it still read "judge not lest you be judged". Muslims do not smoke, drink alchol or send their children to Christian schools, as President Obama has. You don't like the President - in fact it sounds like you hate him. Just say so and let it be done instead of trying to make him into something you wish he was but isn't and you just cannot admit to it. Even George Bush changed his religious affiliation because it was more politically convenient and acceptable, as did many others. Frankly, his religious beliefs really are none of your business. Get a friggin life - it is too short to waste on such trivial issues and hating someone you have never met.

[rmw15]

Why won't the president tell the nation what his faith system is and in the same respect why won't he prove he was born (anywhere).

[Sharona613]

Obama was born to a Muslim father. Per Islam that makes him a Muslim whatever he says. He was registered in school in Indonesia as a Muslim. In some Muslim countries and areas controlled by Muslim terrorists it is a crime punishable by death to convert to a faith other than Islam. In high school Barak called himself Barry. More convenient. Now he is Barak again. Just because he attended the most vicious anti-American and anti-Semitic church in America doesn't make him a Christian. He says he didn't listen to the sermons which is just like Clinton not inhaling pot smoke. It is much more convenient to be a Christian even a nominal one in American politics. Obama seems to change whenever it is convenient. Kind of like a cameleon. He said he wants his girls to learn about Islam. I suggest that he send them to Taliban controlled areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan and see what Islam means for women!!

[karek40]

Perhaps the reason they do not condemn (Obama is a muslim as a myth) is his actions and who he has appointed as advisors. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck!!!!!!!

[documemts]

Build the dang mosque!

[heavynne]

I would not want to be a Christian or attend church with any of these so-called Christians on here. I do believe in God and Jesus but I don't attend church every Sunday. There are more demons and sinners sitting in the churches every Sunday than on the street corners. I find it more fulfilling to pray in private at home. You people are definitely not the best examples of Christianity.

[Cattzen]

Islam is based on a visionary conviction belief system. Hence, Sahara Palin is able to see Russia from her house! She's a Muslim?

John Boehner looks Muslim too...

[abbe91]

She often speaks about "God," which, as we all know, is just the western word for "Allah".

[abbe91]

"Sarah Palin" is an anagram of "Iran has Pal" and "Sharia Plan". Mere coincidence or is there more behind it ?