Media again stoke fears that Obama too close to Muslim world
SUMMARY: Media figures have used President Obama's second overseas trip to Europe and the Middle East to stoke fears that he may be too close to the Muslim world or harbors a secret, anti-American agenda.
In covering President Obama's second overseas trip to Europe and the Middle East, the media have used the trip to stoke fears that he may be too close to the Muslim world or harbors a secret, anti-American agenda. For example, on the June 4 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh stated of Obama's trip: "[H]e pretty much told them today that he's one of them, he's got Muslim roots, he grew up -- three different countries with Muslim people, relatives and so forth. Then he says he's gonna close Guantánamo. 'We're gonna stop the torture. I've made it unequivocally illegal, and we're gonna close Guantánamo Bay.' Of course, that's -- we're harming ourselves. That's why they love him."
This theme follows a series of baseless smears from the presidential campaign intended to stoke fears about Obama's background and sow suspicions that, as ABC News' senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper noted, Obama was "some sort of Muslim Manchurian candidate," including that he was educated in a radical madrassa and that he is a Muslim and not a Christian.
Media Matters for America has identified numerous recent examples of media figures reviving negative references to Obama and Islam, including the following:
* Several Fox News media figures have pointed to Obama's current overseas trip to Saudi Arabia and Cairo as, in the words of Fox News host Steve Doocy, Obama's "Muslim apology tour," echoing an assertion made about Obama's European and Middle Eastern trip in April. On the June 4 edition of Fox & Friends, Doocy asserted that "some have -- commentators have referred it as President Obama's Muslim apology tour." Similarly, on the June 3 edition of Fox & Friends, on-screen text asked of Obama upon his arrival in Saudi Arabia: "Will He Continue 'Apology-looza?' " Additionally, on the June 3 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, radio host and comedian Dennis Miller stated that there was "going to be a lot of butt kissing" during "Obama's mea culpa with the Arab world."
