The Manchurian Gambit

In 2004, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was denounced by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who claimed the Massachusetts Senator lied about his service during the Vietnam War. Senator Kerry was awarded the Silver Star for the events on February 28, 1969 in which Kerry decided “to attack rather than flee from two ambushes, including one in which he led a landing party.”[i] The Swift Boat Veterans claimed Senator Kerry embellished his story and was not worthy of the Silver Star and Purple Heart medals awarded to him.

In 2000, Democratic presidential candidate and the incumbent Vice President Al Gore was labeled a serial exaggerator, liar and flip-flopper by his opponent George W. Bush, the Republican Establishment, and the mass media.

Even though the 2008 Democratic contest has not been decided, a narrative involving Illinois Senator Barack Obama is slowly developing.

Mr. Obama is the progeny of a biracial couple – his father is of Kenyan ancestry, and his mother is white, from Kansas. As a child, he lived in Indonesia and studied in a “madrassa.” Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim country.

The narrative implies Senator Obama is a closet Muslim who was indoctrinated in radical Islam while attending a madrassa in Indonesia. The fear is that once Barack Hussein Obama becomes president of the United States, he will disclose his Muslim identity and impose Shariah Law against the will of the people.

This is not paranoia from the left talking. An email is circulating throughout the Internet from the Republican Party Committee of Clark County, Washington. Posted on the front page of their official Republican Web site is a dire warning. Obama “takes great care to conceal he is a Muslim… [It’s] reported he swore his oath of office on the Koran and pictures have shown him standing for the pledge but not reciting it and holding his hands to his sides while others held their hands over their hearts. This is chilling information about a candidate for the highest office in the country, especially given the radical Muslim claims that they will destroy America from the inside.”[ii]

Senator Obama unknowingly disclosed his secret identity. Every patriotic American knows that standing with your hands by your sides and keeping your mouth shut while the Pledge of Allegiance is being recited is a verifiable sign someone is not a real American.

Parenthetically, it was Representative Keith Ellison from Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District and the nation’s first Muslim who swore his oath of office on The Quran. The error is understandable. All black people look the same to most racist, deluded, paranoid, fear mongers.

This dark fantasy – a Muslim taking over the country – does not live and sustain itself in a vacuum. As a nation, we are currently at war against terrorists, radical jihadists, and Al Qaeda. Bin Laden issued a fatwa in the mid 1990’s directing jihadists to kill Americans wherever “they” can find them. What better way to destroy America than concealing a sleeper Muslim in the country of your worst enemy.

It takes an overactive imagination to create such a paranoid narrative, and it’s not even original because it borrows heavily from the brilliant 1962 film “The Manchurian Candidate,” directed by John Frankenheimer.

Unfortunately, the people who concoct these wild fantasies would flunk an elementary school civics test.

Assume the worst. Barack Hussein Obama is a modern day Manchurian Candidate. He is a closet Muslim with an agenda. After being sworn in as our next president, President Obama states his intentions as soon as his right hand comes off the Bible. “Surprise!!! I’m really a Muslim. Life as you know it is over.” President Obama proclaims Americans will be living under Shariah Law, will have to change our American names to Arabic names, men will have to grow beards, women will have to wear burkas, homosexuality will be criminalized, all the majors sports will be outlawed, prohibition will be reinstated, the mass media will be nationalized, movies, music, porn and mass entertainment will be banned, the Internet will be shut down, we all have to live in tents, Americans will have to learn Arabic, and Americans will be forced to convert to Islam.

Let us assume further that men dressed in white coats, with oversized butterfly nets and a white jacket with extra long sleeves that wrap around the torso, do not haul off the new President of the United States to a nice farm where it is peaceful and quiet, “with trees and flowers and chirping birds and basket weavers who sit and smile and twiddle their thumbs and toes, where life is beautiful all the time and [he’ll] be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats.”[iii]

Our political system is structured to prevent radical change. Suppose President Obama wanted to substitute our current Constitution for Shariah Law. He cannot do it by decree or by President Bush’s current method of circumventing the Constitution – the infamous signing statements. To amend the Constitution, the proposal to implement Shariah Law would need the support of two-thirds of the House of Representatives (287 congressmen), two-thirds of the Senate (66 Senators), and three-fourths of the states (37 states). Senator Obama prides himself on being the candidate of change, but to affect that type of change, you will need an awful lot of Manchurian Candidates.

Assume President Barack Hussein Obama wanted to incorporate Shariah Law into American law. According to Civics 101, a bill would have to be introduced in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. After the introduction, the bill is sent to the Judiciary Committee, and then to a subcommittee. The subcommittee may hold hearings. The hearing may be open to the public. However, in this case the hearings will be closed. Congress will prefer to keep these hearings a secret. No need to alert the public. After the hearing process, the subcommittee sends the bill back to the Judiciary Committee with recommendations. Presuming the bill to incorporate Shariah law is accepted, the bill is placed on the calendar. Afterwards, each house will vote on the bill. If the bill is approved, then the president can sign it into law. This process usually takes longer than it took God to create the universe – at least according to some people. And this is how a bill becomes a law boys and girls.

Assume President Barack Hussein Obama attempted to impose Shariah Law by force. To accomplish this act, he would need the complete loyalty and support of the United States military in order to declare Marshal law. Congress, state and local governments would have to be disbanded. The president would have to assume control of the state National Guards (all 50 of them), and take control of all state and local law enforcement agencies. Under the United States Constitution, the President is the Commander in Chief, but the brave men and women of the military take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not obey the whim of an individual determined to eliminate our way of life.

Or maybe Barack Obama is a Muslim Svengali who will hypnotize Americans with his beautiful oratory skills, and eventually lure us with his siren call to Islam. The media is already alluding to the Obama campaign for President as a cult of personality

The probability that Barack Hussein Obama is a sleeper, radical Muslim preparing to take over the country in the name of Islam is remote. Al Qaeda did not exist when Barack Obama attended the madrassa as a child. Obama lived in Indonesia from 1967 until 1971. Al Qaeda was established in 1988. If Obama were a sleeper, radical Muslim, then he would have been indoctrinated into radical Islam 17 years before our enemy was founded and organized.

But the fear exists and an effort is being made to perpetuate this fear. Articles printed in the mass media imply a Muslim past. The articles were debunked by the same mass media, but Senator Obama still needs to reassure audience members at his rallies that he is not a Muslim.

Delusional conspiracy theorists fear an individual or a minority will impose its will against the United States, and we will not be able to stop them. As if Barack Obama is the modern day conquistador Hernando Cortes who sailed boldly to Mexico in March of 1519 with a horde of 600 men, captured Mexico in two years, and defeated the Aztec Empire. Granted, Cortes was a powerful motivator who burned his ships to prevent his men from retreating. “Conquer or Die” was the campaign slogan of the day.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Spanish Conquistadors adventurously sailed to the New World, and eventually acquired a continent. These men established the “Encomienda” system in which the indigenous population was indoctrinated in the Catholic faith, and the Conquistadors demanded tribute from the natives for protection and religious instruction. Sound familiar? President Obama will raise taxes on Americans, and use the revenue to brainwash Americans into accepting Islam.

A minority with superior firepower conquered the indigenous population of the New World. Furthermore, colonial powers installed indigenous ethnic minorities as rulers over their territories reasoning ethnic minorities will do anything to hold on to power. Not only will a Muslim be president, but also black people will rule over white people. First sports (except hockey), then America.

According to the delusional, Barack Hussein Obama is a modern day Hernando Cortes, determined to establish a new, radical, alien form of religion and government against the will of the American people.

Conventional wisdom by political pundits claim the Republican Party is afraid to run against an African American because they would be afraid to run a campaign that will flirt with racist ideology. The Muslim narrative provides a reason to exploit fear of Muslims without having to resort to using racist code words against Senator Obama.

That is not to say there are people who are not trying. Karl Rove, the former brain and conscience of President Bush, is off to an early start. Unable to shake off his true nature, Rove in an article for The Wall Street Journal explained Senator Obama lost the New Hampshire primary because the voters perceived him negatively after he attacked Senator Clinton in a debate. Rove argues that Obama’s “trash talking was an unattractive carryover from his days playing pickup basketball at Harvard.”[iv]

Furthermore, Rove argues, “He (Obama) is often lazy, given to misstatements and exaggerations and, when he doesn’t know the answer, too ready to try to bluff his way through.”[v]

You can almost see it on the side of a blimp as it sails over the United States. Barack Obama, trash talking, basketball player, not intelligent, hustler, lazy. Not right for America!

Too outlandish? Too paranoid? Tell that to Senator Kerry who repeatedly had to rebut charges of exaggerating his bravery during the Vietnam War.


[i] “Republican Funded Group Attacks Kerry’s War Record,” FactCheck.org, August 6, 2004.
[ii] Countdown with Keith Olbermann, January 22, 2008.
[iii] “They’re Coming to Take Me Away,” Napoleon XIV (Jerry Samuels), 1966.
[iv] Karl Rove, “Why Hillary Won,” The Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2008.
[v] Karl Rove, “Why Hillary Won,” The Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2008.