By now, everybody who lurks Daily Kos is familiar with the unsubstantiated charge --- and it's no more than that --- that Sen. Hillary Clinton is quietly attempting to undermine her rival Sen. Barack Obama by spreading innuendos about his Muslim background. AFAIK, nobody here believes the original story at InsiteMag.org has any substance at all. We believe it's a smear directed at both Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama. I accept that too.
However, by diligent googling I have tracked this rumor back to a press conference by a certain Andy Martin held on August 10, 2004, while Barack Obama was still running for the Senate against Alan Keyes.
More after the flip.
The press conference was held by a certain Andy Martin, about whom I know nothing except he's a journalist for the website Out2.com, and is reputed to have spent some time in Baghdad.
In the press conference, held on August 11, 2004, Martin calls upon Obama's publishing firm to withdraw his autobiography from sale, because the Senatorial candidate had allegedly lied about his past and his heritage. Martin accuses Obama's Kenya-born father (Barack or Baraka Obama Sr.) of having links with the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in the 1950's, and accuses Obama of concealing this.
However, the meat of the press conference was in the following quote from the accompanying press release.
"It is time for Barack Obama to stop presenting a fantasy to the American people. We are forgiving and many would still support him. It may well be that his concealment is meant to endanger Israel. His Muslim religion would obviously raise serious questions in many Jewish circles where Obama now enjoys support," Martin states.
The press release is reproduced in this Free Republic thread. Be warned! These are Freepers, and there's some vicious stuff in the comments.
Because Obama was still a Senate candidate at the time, the Freepers rubbed their hands with glee, certain this "revelation" would put Alan Keyes in the Senate. We all know how that turned out.
Fast forward a few months to April 2005, when an anonymous chain email begins to circulate, raising the charge that Obama is a secret Muslim and his loyalty to America is therefore suspect. Snopes.com has a rebuttal to it. We can date the email to April 2005 because it says Obama "has been a Senator for 100 days." He took his oath as a Senator in January of that year.
This email has been working its way around the 'Net for nearly two years. It, or the original press release, was the probable source of a blog post by Debbie Schlussel, a right wing talk radio host. The post is dated Dec. 18, 2006, but now contains an update repeating Insight's contention that Senator Clinton's campaign staff is spreading the rumor.
From Andy Martin to Free Republic, to a chain email, to Debbie Schlussel, to InsightMag.org. Insight, affiliated with the Washington Times, whose partisan affiliations are well known (GOP and Unification Church), pretends that Senator Hillary Clinton started this, when it fact the right wing of the blogosphere has been spreading it since Obama-Keys Senate campaign two and a half years ago.
If there's some backlash against Senator Clinton because of the Obama-as-Muslim rumor, she doesn't deserve it. The blame rests on Andy Martin and Free Republic.
For the record, I am a proud Democrat but not a supporter of either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama at this early stage of the campaign.