Joe, you are wrong about Obama's father. Obama's father was NOT a Muslim. Obama's father was an agnostic, and a Harvard-educated economist who was a high ranking official in the Kenyan government. Obama's African grandfather was a Muslim, but a converted one. HIs wife, Obama's grandmother, did not convert, nor did she raise her children as Muslims. In fact, Obama's African grandfather converted to the Muslim religion AFTER Obama's father was born, so Obama's father is not even a Muslim by default. Obama never met his African grandfather, and Obama only saw his African father once after he left when Obama was 2 years old. Obama had just about no contact with his father, and no contact at all with his father's family growing up.
Obama was raised as a Christian by his Christian grandparents, with whom he spent all but three years of his childhood. Obama's mother was raised as a Christian and she called herself an atheist, but never the less, she took her children to all kinds of services: Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu and told them that they should benefit from all types of contact with God. Obama lived with his non-religious but Muslim born stepfather for about three years, and they didn't get along very well. His stepfather was very Westernized, attended a US university and worked for an American oil company in Indonesia. His wedding ceremony to Obama's mother was NOT a Muslim ceremony, he was not a practicing Muslim and if he was he never would have married a non-Muslim woman. Obama himself was never a Muslim, his Mom and Dad were not Muslims, even Obama's stepfather, although born a Muslim, did not practice the Muslim faith. You really need to get your facts straight.
'The Challenges We Face'
Obama speaks out on his prospects for the presidency, his leading rival for the nomination and post-baby-boom politics.
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As Illinois Sen. Barack Obama moved closer to a presidential run, he spoke with NEWSWEEK's Jonathan Alter. Excerpts:
ALTER: We've had only two African-American governors and three senators since Reconstruction. Is America ready for a black or a woman president?
OBAMA: I absolutely think America is ready for either. Stereotypes and prejudices still exist in American society, and for the highest office in the land a female or African-American candidate would, at the outset, confront some additional hurdles to show that they were qualified and competent. But what I've found is that the American people--once they get to know you--are going to judge you on your individual character. Whatever the flaws in the process, people get a fairly accurate read by the end of the campaign.
I've watched how crowds react to you. Why are you striking a chord?
It's hard to stand outside yourself. Some of it is that. I've become representative of the American people's desire to turn the page and get beyond some of the harsh, sharply partisan politics that has ruled over the last 10 years.
You think this is generational?
Our politics has very much been grounded in debates over the '60s. There's the '60s, the backlash against the '60s, the counter-backlash within the Democratic Party against the '60s. We've been effectively talking about Vietnam, the sexual revolution, the civil-rights movement for a generation now, and it doesn't adequately describe the challenges we face today. My peer group, I think, finds many of those divisions unproductive. We see many of these problems differently, on race, faith, the economy, foreign policy and the role of the military.
Part of the reason the next generation can see things differently is because of the battles that the previous generation fought. But the next generation is to some degree liberated from what I call the either/or arguments around these issues. So on race, the classic '60s formulation was, "Is it society and institutional racism that's causing black poverty or is it black pathology and a culture of poverty?" And you couldn't choose "All of the above." It looks to me like both. [The younger generation] is much less caught up in these neatly packaged orthodoxies.
How do you match up against Hillary Clinton?
I'm not going to go there. I have tremendous respect for Hillary Clinton. She's an outstanding leader in the Democratic Party. She's earned her stripes.
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