Texas Republican Party Chair Cathie Adams isn’t the only right-winger to attack President Obama’s personal faith and make other bizarre charges about the nation’s chief executive. Plenty of other political figures and commentators on the fringe right continue to suggest (or claim outright) that the president is a closet Muslim, that he hates white people and that he’s a Marxist (or Nazi). But usually elected officials are little more careful. Not so in the case of the mayor of the Memphis-area city of Arlington, Tenn.
Arlington Mayor Russell Wiseman is charging that “our muslim president” deliberately chose the date of his nationally televised announcement on Afghanistan troop deployments last week so that his speech would preempt what Wiseman apparently considers a quintessential Christian television program: “The Charlie Brown Christmas Special” that kids have been watching annually for more than four decades.
We’re not making this up.
According to the Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis, Wiseman used his personal Facebook page to launch his broadside at President Obama:
“Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it….w…hen the answer should simply be ‘yes’….”
In Wiseman’s extensive thread that attacked the president, his supporters and Muslims, he stated “…you obama people need to move to a muslim country…oh wait, that’s America….pitiful.”
Wiseman even suggested in his online rant that only property owners should have the right to vote:
“(Y)ou know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different……..”
When asked later by a reporter what in the world he was thinking, Wiseman was defensive and claimed the reporter was “trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.” You mean, like attacking the president of the United States for giving a critical foreign policy speech that bumps the airing of a children’s cartoon? Someone sounds like a real blockhead.
Oh, this speaks well of the people of Arlington Tennessee, who elected a yahoo as mayor, who doesn’t know that you can buy the DVD of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” to watch whenever you want to…
Just another excuse to make a crack about our President. Why in the world the media even pays attention to these idiots is beyond me. We know that the Republicans hate Obama, no matter how much they smile to his face. This is beyond politics and into ridiculous.
Obviously, we don’t elect the most qualified, or educated, people to public office…
Instead of allowing only property owners to vote, maybe we should require an IQ and literacy test to run for public office… 🙂
He needs Lucy’s services, I think. The psychiatrist is in.
It doesn’t matter what religion the President professes. I don’t know why TFN affords so much space to this idiot, Wiseman. Obama seems like he’s really trying. His Nobel speech puts war and peace in perspective. He’s the best we’ve got and all we’ve got right now so how about some support, and concrete criticisms from the peanut gallery? In his own presentation Obama quoted this, which a wise man should understand, from ML King’s Nobel acceptance speech: “I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isness’ of man’s present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ‘oughtness’ that forever confronts him.” Mr Wiseman apparently thinks his oughtness is the same flavor as everyone else’s. Wiseman’s isness scares me, too. What a kook!
I think what we need to consider is what Mr. Wiseman (there is a misnomer if I ever saw one) left out of what he said about the Constitution. Yes, it originally only granted voting rights to property owners – white, male, property owners to be exact. Someone needs to ask Mr. Wiseman if that is what he would really like to see restored.
My first thoughts were simply unkind adjectives. What I really want is for this man to have an experience that yanks the veil from his blinded eyes and allows him to see truth, love and beauty. He is desperate for it. Hang on, Mr. Wiseman. You may one day live up to your name.
Well, I think we all know who the Grinch is.
TFN Dan is right. You cannot make up stuff like this—-not even on a 7-day drinking binge. But while we are at it, Charles will make a brief observation.
“We three kings of orient are…” The three wise men in the Christmas story came from lands where religions other than Judaism (and its later Christian derivative) were dominant. In fact, Islam probably became the religion of their descendants. Church tradition holds that one of these three wise men was black.
Note the irony. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” contains the story of these three wisemen coming to baby Jesus with valuable gifts from the oriental trade routes. If Barack Obama were an adherent of Islam (which he is not), his open claim to the Christian faith would be no less than the reverance bestowed by the three wise men in the story. Please note that Mary, Joseph, and the assorted animals were openly accepting of these gifts from strangers. Note that within the context of the Christmas story, foreign strangers with different colored skin and alien religions are welcomed. The message is inclusiveness. What then does it mean when the mayor of a small suburban town is unable to be similarly inclusive with one of his own countryman? It means it’s time to serve the fruitcake.
Great posted comments from everyone. It gives me hope that there are some people who can think clearly and honestly. It never ceases to amaze me the things people with some authority (Wiseman, Cathie Adams, Palin, etc.) say and do. Now that is what truly scares me, the religious reich. They are dangerous. Thanks everyone.
And, just a pedantic note, but Islam does respect Jesus (Issa) and considers him, while not the ‘Son of God,’ a very important Prophet.
When I was about seven, it really ticked me off if my favorite TV cartoon was pre-empted for a speech by the President.
I think that’s all I need to say about the mental age of Mr. Wiseman and people like him.
Despite our best efforts at explanantion, I believe Gary just hit the nead on the hail.
My impression is that the heart of Mr. Wiseman’s complaint is that this was a “bait and switch” attempt on the part of the White House to stick the president in front of impressionable youth so he can brainwash them, akin to the speech that was streamed to schools at the start of the current term. Still a ridiculous argument, but marginally less ridiculous than “waah, the president pre-empted my cartoon.”