This is what I said about the “Obama is a Muslim” rumors in March
Just minutes ago the phone rang. It was CNN, a producer for one of their news shows. She had read the truth-challenged Washington Post story on the rumors about Barack Obama. She was looking for me because she expected that I, as the “journalist” Perry Bacon falsely represented me as doing, would claim that Obama was secretly a Muslim.
I explained to her that in the column I wrote that Perry Bacon quoted, I was actually discussing the fact that Obama was not a Muslim, and what the reaction might be in the Islamic world to the LA Times’ claim that he had been registered a Muslim when attending grade school in Indonesia, but was a Muslim no longer. And that was that: the CNN producer, who was very kind, polite, and professional, went on in search of someone else who would say that Obama was a Muslim.
Meanwhile, if CNN would ever like to discuss the activities, both violent and non-violent, of global jihadists and Islamic supremacists, which I believe are ultimately much more newsworthy and more far-reaching in their implications than are rumors about Obama, I’m right here, just another phone call away.
Finally, I think this particular phone call, and the producer’s expectations, are a fine small example of how the inaccuracy, carelessness, and lack of interest in the truth of “reporters” such as the Washington Post’s Perry Bacon — of whom there are so many — can lead people astray.
ADDENDUM: I just added a link to a Hot Air video I made last March, in which I explicitly dismiss the “Obama is a Muslim” rumors as “hooey.” But why should we expect a journalist from the Washington Post to have done his homework?