I realize it’s sort of like shooting fish in a barrel, but since WorldNetDaily has decided to headline Pat Boone’s latest screed, it’s probably worth addressing a few of the most obviously egregious points.
(This essay was actually written back in June. Why WND is finally running it at the end of November is as unclear as anything else WND does.)
Boone’s basic thesis in “The president without a country” is that Obama is not a Real American. He echoes the ongoing attempt by the Right to delegitimize Obama as president by making him out to be an unthankful wretch, someone who doesn’t understand (and quite possibly doesn’t belong in) America, an alien influence who misses the fundamental truth that America = Christianity = America.
He starts out with a quartet of of quotes from the President to make his point … in each case, snipping that quotation down to a minimum to avoid any context that would help explain the words. And, in each case, actually misquoting Obama. For example:
“We’re no longer a Christian nation.” – President Barack Obama, June 2007
This has been bandied about for quite some time. In fact, the citation is in error (not least of which, because Obama wasn’t President in 2007). His actual words, in June 2006, at the “Call to Renewal” conference were:
Given the increasing diversity of America’s population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
By leaving out the word “just,” Boone changes the tenor of the remark. Obama is noting the religious diversity of this nation, once overwhelmingly Christian in faith, but now increasingly diverse. He notes, accurately, that this is not an either/or, but a this and also that situation.
Thus, we have, as an example, the 2004 Pew study which found the US population 55% Protestant, 22% Catholic, 12% other (Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Mormons, etc.), and 11% non-religious. Is the majority of the US Christian? Yes (whether or not you are willing to consider Catholics as Christian, which some are not). But close to a quarter of the population — and the group most rapidly growing, are not.
To call the US “just” a Christian nation is patently untrue, any more than it would be accurate to call it “just” a white nation, or “just” a male nation.
“America has been arrogant.” – President Barack Obama
First off, anyone who doesn’t think there have been times when America hasn’t been arrogant doesn’t understand the meaning of the word.
Secondly, is apparently a misquote, and a paraphrase of a tiny snippet of a speech Obama gave to a town hall meeting in France in April 2009. A more contextual quote:
In America, there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.
But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what’s bad.
On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth.
Hardly some blanket condemnation of the US or mea culpa request for forgiveness, Obama is rightfully noting that both the US and Europe have at times found it easier to rely on stereotypes and easy targets to dismiss the value of each other — to everyone’s detriment. It hardly comes across, in context, as a rejection of America.
“After 9/11, America didn’t always live up to her ideals.” – President Barack Obama
Aaaand, yet another misquote, and out of context from another speech Obama gave, this one in Cairo.
And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter our principles. 9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.
So America will defend itself respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities which are also threatened. The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer.
That’s not an apology for America, nor a condemnation of it. I also find it perfectly accurate, save for Obama not getting Gitmo closed in the time frame specified (in no small part because the Right has turned this into yet another last-ditch struggle to keep it from happening).
Torture is not an American ideal. Indefinite detention without trial is not an American ideal. Or would you disagree with those statements, Pat?
“You might say that America is a Muslim nation.” – President Barack Obama, Egypt 2009
You might, but Obama didn’t. What he actually said — in an interview while in France (jeez, doesn’t anyone actually fact-check these rants?) while traveling to Egypt:
Now, the flip side is I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam. And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world. And so there’s got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.
Um … yeah. That’s demographically correct. There are a large number of Muslims in the US, more than in many Muslim countries. But it doesn’t actually mean (nor was he actually saying) that “America is a Muslim nation” any more than “America is a Mormon nation” or “America is a Jewish nation” or “America is a Chinese nation” based on total population counts.
I may be doing Boone an injustice. I don’t know that he has explicitly abridged and altered these quotations. He may be depending on misquotations and misinterpretations from the Right Wing echo chamber. But, regardless, as the foundation of this thesis, he’s building on sand at best.
After all of that, the rest of Boone’s screed is pretty pedestrian. He starts off by drawing a goofy parallel between Obama and Hale’s “The Man without a Country” (somehow turning the above quotations into an active renunciation of US … which, even if they were accurate, which they are not, they wouldn’t be).
Then he trots out the “Christian nation” meme.
You surely can’t be referring to the United States of America, can you? America is emphatically a Christian nation, and has been from its inception! Seventy percent of her citizens identify themselves as Christian. The Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were framed, written and ratified by Christians. It’s because this was, and is, a nation built on and guided by Judeo-Christian biblical principles that you, sir, have had the inestimable privilege of being elected her president.
Boone, of course, is playing identity politics here, mistaking demographic classification for ideological intent. Was the Constitution “framed, written and ratified” by Christians? Pretty much, yes. Does that make it automatically a Christian document? Only if it is also automatically a White document or a Male document or a Property-Holding document.
God plays no part, textually, in the Constitution, or in its all-important preamble (many of its anti-Federalist opponents condemned it on just that basis). The presence of “Judeo-Christian biblical principles” is pretty well hidden (none of the Ten Commandments, for example, make it into the “Law of the Land”).
The United States was, and still, mostly, is a nation of Christians. That does not make it a Christian nation.
You studied law at Harvard, didn’t you, sir? You taught constitutional law in Chicago? Did you not ever read the statement of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and an author of the landmark “Federalist Papers”: “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers – and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation – to select and prefer Christians for their rulers”?
John Jay was an interesting fellow — and, yes, a devoted and outspoken Christian. Note that the statement quoted here was in a private letter, not in the Federalist Papers nor in a ruling from the Supreme Court. Jay did suggest, in Federalist #2, that one of the strengths of the nation was it common roots in, among other things, religion; regardless, that demographic observation no longer pertains, any more than the factor of descent from “the same ancestors” does.
After trotting out other dubious arguments that the US is a Christian nation, and fobbing off “ideal” abuses like Abu Ghraib and torture on “just a few military officials trying their best to keep more Americans from being murdered by jihadists”), Boone concludes with various attacks on Obama’s patriotism and affinity for America, based solely on the misquotations above, concluding with:
It seems increasingly and painfully obvious that you are more influenced by your upbringing and questionable education than most suspected. If you consider yourself the president of a people who are “no longer Christian,” who have “failed to live up to our ideals,” who “have been arrogant,” and might even be “considered Muslim” – you are president of a country most Americans don’t recognize.
Could it be you are a president without a country?
So why spend so much effort this evening debunking Boone’s gibberish? Because, for whatever reason, people are listening to him, and quote him and are reprinting this piece of idiocy all over the internet (look up those faux quotations — they will first and foremost point to reprints of Boone’s essay).
By leaping into the meme that Obama is not really (if not by bizarro birther conspiracy than by some philosophical and education defect) an American, Boone contributes to the Right-wing claim that Obama is not really the legitimate president of the United States. He is a “president without a country,” and we are thus a “country without a president” … ready for Heroes of the Patriotic People like Boone to step forward and save us from this poor, sick, deluded man.
It’s sad. It’s maddening. It’s hypocritical (coming from folks who equated questioning anything Dubya did or said as President to be tantamount to aiding and abetting treason and terror). And it’s ultimately destructive, not just of this Administration, but of our nation and society as a whole — ironic, for an essay that purports to be about actually saving America.