Facts people facts.
Spare me your fake outrage. Spare me bogus attacks on Bob Kerry.
Obama has talked up his heritage and his time overseas. He says it is a strength that qualifies him to be President. Kerry COMPLIMENTS him here, not slanders him.
In fact Kerry spoke on the record about a number of issues back in October, long before he endorsed Clinton, and said basically the same thing back then (to the 'Economist'), that he thinks Obama's background is a positive thing.
More from Ben Smith at 'The Politico':
"I wouldn't jump to conclusions about the motives of the former Nebraska Senator, who isn't exactly known for being devious -- or for carrying the Clintons' water. Indeed, an eagle-eyed reader points out, he said the exact same thing to the Economist on October 30, so if this is some sort of plot, it's quite a slow roll-out.
*(An Arabic-speaking colleague says you can have a secular madrassa, which is neither here nor there but seemed worth correcting.)"
The Economist link:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracy inamerica/2007/10/bob_kerrey_discusses_l eadershi.cfm
Obama and his supporters are trying to twist this around and make it appear as some sort of dirty trick. That isn't very different. It is a longstanding Republican tactic. Republicans have twisted Al Gore's words, John Kerry's, Dick Durbin's and now Obama's campaign is twisting Bob Kerry's.
That is lower than low and Bob Kerry deserves better.
One thing that the Obama supporters don't realize is that they are reinforcing the belief that his background will be a big problem in the general election by their reactions.
The thing about what Bob Kerrey said that bothers me is he said Obama attended a secular madrassa. That is not true. He attended a public school. Fox News lied, CNN called them out on it, and now Bob Kerrey is picking up where Fox left off. It's rather despicable on his part.
He attended a secular school.
What is the problem again?
Of course there is no different interpretation or slang for the word madrassa.
Madrassa is Arabic, a language not spoken in Indonesia.
Allah is also Arabic. Do you think Muslims in Indonesia have a different word for him?
It took me just a couple of hours to contact Southeast Asian experts well-versed in the history of religious extremism in Indonesia to pin down a few points. Incidentally, in Indonesia, a "madrassa" by definition is an Islamic school with a curriculum that is 70 percent academic and 30 percent religious, according to Terance Bigalke, director of the education program at Honolulu's East-West Center, which specializes in research on the Asia Pacific. Faith-based studies are emphasized more, Bigalke said, in the traditional Islamic boarding school or "pesantrens." Fundamentalist madrassas and pesantrens do exist in Indonesia today, he said, but came into being only after the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s. Obama had left Jakarta by then. So in theory, even if Obama had attended a madrassa -- which he didn't -- he wasn't taking Romper Room-style terrorist-in-training classes. "In 1967-69 (When Obama was a primary school student) I think it is accurate to say that Salafist or radically fundamentalist Islamic institutions in Indonesia were basically nonexistent," Bigalke said. "They certainly were not prominent." Bigalke added, "There are thousands of madrassas in Indonesia today ranging from tiny to very large, and they span the spectrum from very modernistic and future-oriented to very conservative. "Overall, however, Indonesian madrassas generally would be viewed in the Muslim world and outside of it as largely moderate and tolerant in their religious orientation." link
Incidentally, in Indonesia, a "madrassa" by definition is an Islamic school with a curriculum that is 70 percent academic and 30 percent religious, according to Terance Bigalke, director of the education program at Honolulu's East-West Center, which specializes in research on the Asia Pacific.
Faith-based studies are emphasized more, Bigalke said, in the traditional Islamic boarding school or "pesantrens."
Fundamentalist madrassas and pesantrens do exist in Indonesia today, he said, but came into being only after the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s.
Obama had left Jakarta by then.
So in theory, even if Obama had attended a madrassa -- which he didn't -- he wasn't taking Romper Room-style terrorist-in-training classes.
"In 1967-69 (When Obama was a primary school student) I think it is accurate to say that Salafist or radically fundamentalist Islamic institutions in Indonesia were basically nonexistent," Bigalke said. "They certainly were not prominent."
Bigalke added, "There are thousands of madrassas in Indonesia today ranging from tiny to very large, and they span the spectrum from very modernistic and future-oriented to very conservative.
"Overall, however, Indonesian madrassas generally would be viewed in the Muslim world and outside of it as largely moderate and tolerant in their religious orientation."
link
Let's at least get our facts straight here. Obama didn't go to a madrassa, as far as I know, but that hardly means there are no madrassas in Indonesia.
On this subject, I found the following comment, from Yglesias' comment thread, to be kinda interesting (only partially excerpted):
Vanya is correct, in Indonesian the word for school is sekolah, a term which derives from Dutch and English. Indonesian, also called Bahasa Melayu, has borrowed many Arabic words; this is not surprising given the volume of trade in the Indian Ocean over the past 1000+ years. I lived in Indonesia at about the same time as Obama; I attended what was usually called the International School while he did not. For those who know little about the Muslim world, the key is that Obama lived in SEAsia, Indonesia specifically. Indonesia's Muslim parties have all supported a secular state since the early 1950s; this goes back to Masjumi. There have been schools associated with Mosques--usually called pesantren or perhaps sekolah musjid, but not madrassa--but these schools offer both religious and non-religious subjects (sciences, math etc) and have done so in many cases for over a century, even the schools founded by Arabs (mostly from what is now Yemen) or those which sought to bring in Arab teachers (a common phenomenon during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in both Indonesia and Malaysia, and one opposed by both English and Dutch authorities) to enhance the curriculum. . . . .
I lived in Indonesia at about the same time as Obama; I attended what was usually called the International School while he did not.
For those who know little about the Muslim world, the key is that Obama lived in SEAsia, Indonesia specifically. Indonesia's Muslim parties have all supported a secular state since the early 1950s; this goes back to Masjumi. There have been schools associated with Mosques--usually called pesantren or perhaps sekolah musjid, but not madrassa--but these schools offer both religious and non-religious subjects (sciences, math etc) and have done so in many cases for over a century, even the schools founded by Arabs (mostly from what is now Yemen) or those which sought to bring in Arab teachers (a common phenomenon during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in both Indonesia and Malaysia, and one opposed by both English and Dutch authorities) to enhance the curriculum.
. . . .
by commenter djeri
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/a rchives/2007/12/stay_classy_bob_kerrey.p hp#comments
It's amazing that Bob Kerrey (a non-Muslim I believe) is the first person is the world to use madrassa to just mean school.
Really...how could everyone else be so wrong.
If there is one thing the Democrats (should) have learned by now, it is that you must hit back on all real and perceived disinformation. I take this as a sign that Obama is ready to do just that. You cannot hope that people will see through smear jobs, you have to constantly repeat that such things are untrue and are misrepresentations.
Now, it could be that Bob Kerrey (correct spelling) was not actually smearing Obama. In many ways this is beside the point. If Obama let this go now, just imagine the time Sean Hannity would have with it a few months down the road.
Remember, there is no truth, only narrative.
Please cite me to where the Obama campaign has "pushed back" against this Kerrey thing in any way. All I have seen is a bunch of bloggers complaining.
but I was responding to the statement that this somehow shows that there are real problems with Obama's background. The real issue is that smear campaigns (again, real or perceived) must be responded to. It does not show thin-skinned vulnerabilities to respond to these things.
You can and should respond to a smear by pointing out the facts, each and every time.
Whether you play the race card is a much more delicate issue. Obama is a smart politician and he surely knows that you can't just go around accusing anybody and everybody of engaging in racist dog-whistle politics like they do on the blogs.
None of this is particularly fair, but it's how the country is. The last thing Obama can afford to do is get a reputation for touchiness concerning his background.
I'm not sure just "pointing out the facts" always works though. I keep going back to the 2004 Swiftboating. It wasn't enough for Kerry to say that his record stood for itself. He really should have thrown the whole thing into George Bush's lap and said "you, someone who couldn't even make it to the national guard physical, are going to question my record which earned me three purple hearts and the Navy's silver star?" Instead, Kerry allowed Bush to have a double victory by first having the smear out there and second by acting as the voice of reason saying that the third-party attacks should be less vicious.
You are correct that it is a fine line between responding and appearing to have "thin skin". But I think people respond to emotion and retort better than politicians give them credit for.
Everything depends upon the individual facts and circumstances.
When Fox News first ran with the madrassa smear earlier this year, Obama hit back very hard, and I think everyone would agree he was entitled to.
Is he similarly entitled to hit back hard against Bob Kerrey's comments? I guess that's a matter of judgment. But there's most definitely a limited number of times you can play the race card before people will start to say "my God, this guy thinks everything is racist."
Certainly. As far as I know the campaign has not responded to them only bloggers who are screaming "racism" everytime someone says anything they don't like about Obama even if it is true like his middle name. All this gives me the impression that even his supporters think that his background is deadly in a general election.
Yeah, that could be. But look at it this way. If Obama does win the nomination, there are a slew of ways that the Right will attack him. It would be counterproductive, I think, for the Right to do anything blatantly racist. So the next best thing is to plant doubts about Obama based on his upbringing and certain other qualities such as his middle name. It would be naive to think that those attacks are not coming.
Obama supporters all want their shot at responding to those things so you get a pile-on every time something like this comes out. I don't see this as qualitatively different from responses from the HRC or JRE crowd either.
Yeah, it makes some of us look petty, but that seems inevitable in this type of forum.
