Forgive the controversy-baiting title: it really is necessary to draw your attention to the most offensive article written this year in the English language.
The article, written under the name Shireen K. Burki for the always suspect Christian Science Monitor (hell, that's almost a triple negative), is so ghastly, so offensive, wrong, and off-base in its attacks on Barack Obama, that not only will Hillary supporters be outraged, McCain himself might end up weighing in on it... if he can locate his missing moral compass, that is...
Have you eaten today? Then don't read this excerpt:
Osama bin Laden must be chuckling in his safe house. After all, the 2008 campaign could very well give Al Qaeda the ultimate propaganda tool: President Barack Hussein Obama, Muslim apostate.
The fact that Senator Obama – the son of a Muslim father – insists he was never a Muslim before becoming Christian is irrelevant to bin Laden. In bin Laden's eyes, Obama is a murtad fitri, the worst type of apostate, because he was blessed by Allah to be born into the true faith of Islam.
We tried to stop reading-- but we were pretty sure this was weak satire that would get better over time. After all, doesn't someone have to actually believe in the religion they are born into to become an apostate? It's not converting, it's joining when one decides one would live to become a Christian, as his mother was. But that's obviously less objectionable than the rest of this complete nonsense:
According to Islamic jurisprudence, children of a Muslim father – even an apparently nonpracticing one, such as Obama's father, and irrespective of the mother's faith – are automatically Muslims. Most Muslims around the world agree: A child of a Muslim father is a Muslim. Period.
And I bet if you ask Christians around the world if, because Obama's mother was a Christian, he is automatically a Christian, they would agree: a child of a Christian mother is a Christian. Period.
People: how clear do we have to make this? Calling Obama a Muslim is a fear tactic, not the least because it's untrue but because its only purpose is to connect him to Bin Laden, which is disgusting, wrong, immoral, untrue, and pathetic. We stopped reading after the above paragraph because we don't need to hear anything further-- these people will contradict themselves and prove to be awful hypocrites and no one will call them out on it. "Obama's pastor is un-American!" and "Obama is a Muslim in disguise!" are statements that prove, if nothing else, at least one is automatically untrue-- after all, as the Christian Science Monitor proves, you can't have two religions... or change your mind about one.
Shireen K. Burki [who writes only to help incite religious warfare -Ed.] is an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington, in Fredericksburg, Va. The daughter of a Muslim father and a Christian mother, she spent her childhood in Islamabad, Pakistan, where she studied Islam at school. [Christian Science Monitor]
You can tell her what you think of her at .