When a US satirist joked that President Barack Obama will admit to Congress that he is Muslim in his latest compromise with Republicans, Saudi media took it seriously.
On Friday the online version of Al-Hayat newspaper and the prominent news website Sabq.org both reported straightforwardly humourist Andy Borowitz's column that began:
"In his latest effort to find common ground with Republicans in Congress, President Barack Obama said today that he was willing to agree that he is a Muslim.
"In agreeing that he is a Muslim, Mr. Obama is sending a clear signal that he is trying to find consensus," Borowitz said in the column posted on the Huffington Post and The Borowitz Report websites this week.
Both Al-Hayat, one of the Middle East's most influential newspapers, and Sabq, believed to be controlled by the Saudi interior ministry, apparently missed the joke.
"Obama doesn't mind coming out as a Muslim if that will satisfy the Republicans," the Al-Hayat headline said.
"Obama: 'I'm ready to announce that I am a Muslim,'" led Sabq.
Both repeated Borowitz's "quote" of Obama saying:" My place of birth has been, and will always be, negotiable."
"White House sources indicated today that the president might be willing to meet the GOP (Grand Old Party -- the Republicans) halfway on his birthplace and say that he was born in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean," Borowitz joked,
Despite Obama repeatedly saying he is Christian, because his native-Kenyan father was born a Muslim, and because his middle name is Hussein, many Muslims and even some US Republicans suspect he is secretly Muslim.
No, Cincinnatus, he's not. NO government officials have ever been. Keynes said to deficit spend to stimulate during hard times but also to cut expenses and pay it back when times were good. When has government EVER cut spending? They move it around and cut the rate of increase, but they don't cut spending.
#6
I'd settle for just knowing he had a functioning brain. Nothing he's said or done indicates he does.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/11/2010 14:39 Comments ||
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#7
but also to cut expenses and pay it back when times were good.
Glenmore, I thought Mr. Keynes wanted governments to save up in good times beforehand, not pay it back afterward? Sort of like Joseph in Egypt -- seven fat years followed by seven lean? But that's a detail, overwhelmed by the idea of actually paying for the stimulus, not carrying the debt.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.