The Unbearable Deliciousness of Minaret-Shaped Candy

Thursday, 30th April 2009

Like Mr Larison I wish Mr Salam had not cut this paragraph from this (excellent) piece on the popularity of the paranoid style:

So despite the fact that Obama has been a church-going Christian for most of his adult life, more than a tenth of the country believes that while roaming the streets of Jakarta as an elementary schooler, Obama met some wily bearded imam who lured him into his roving Muslim-mobile with delicious minaret-shaped candies and converted him to radical Islam. Dazzled by his obvious intelligence, and convinced long before David Axelrod that Americans were itching to elect a half-Kenyan youth as president, he also sold young Obama on the idea of keeping his Islamic zealotry under wraps. That way he could transform America into a radical Islamic caliphate without anyone ever noticing.

This is well done and useful stuff. But it's typical of Reihan's generous view of matters that he should consider this mean-spirited and fret that it was needlessly harsh. That spirit is one reason why the group blog he founded - The American Scene - is so consistently interesting. In my view it's one of the best online "salons" there is and I recommend it to you without the least hesitation.

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Conservative Cabbie

April 30th, 2009 7:22am Report this comment

"That way he could transform America into a radical Islamic caliphate without anyone ever noticing."

Of course it's utter nonsense, but let's not forget that this kind of paranoia doesn't just take place on the right. There was the 9/11 conspiracy theory and just recently, your good friend Andrew Sullivan was obsessing about Trig Palin (something he still hasn't apologised for). It wasn't just him either. The Daily Kos ran with the story and even this last week, MSNBC ran a story on their website in which they stated that Tripp was Sarah Palin's "first acknowledged grandchild". It's also worth noting that the Obama birth certificate story was started on the left by Hillary supporters. I suppose the difference is that the right wing conspiracy theorists tend to be on the extremes whilst Andrew Sullivan, Daily kos and MSNBC...not so much.

Campbell

April 30th, 2009 9:50am Report this comment

Not so sure about that CC. From my admittedly random sampling of right-wing US blogs; NRO, Malkin etc. etc., ad personam nuttiness certainly looks as though it is playing a part, if not at the exact centre or Republican thinking, then pretty close in.

Conservative Cabbie

April 30th, 2009 5:33pm Report this comment

Campbell

I read the NRO daily (The Corner). There is nothing like that on their. As for Michelle Malkin, she's a fun read but hardly the place to go for serious commentary.

Fergus Pickering

May 1st, 2009 3:51am Report this comment

When right wing people are nuts it's obvious. Perhaps the truth is that ALL left wing people are nuts and therefore it's more insidious They al believe, for example, that if you can just get hold of a child early enough, say at three, say from the very cradle, then all the geese can be transformed into swans. But of course that's nuts. It doesn'twork for turning them nto tennis players, only intellectuals.

Verity

May 6th, 2009 1:49pm Report this comment

What's with the smarty-pants, faux sophisticated "minaret shaped candy"?

Obama's mother married an Indonesian Muslim. He spent that segment of his life in a Muslim household, living in the Muslim style, with his step-brothers and -sisters. That would have included prayers five times a day, salaams, the whole nine yards.

At his school, under Religion, he was registered as a Muslim.

I'm not saying I think he's a Muslim. I don't know him. But that silly "minaret shaped candy" is just too silly.

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