Conservatives Debate Obama's Mother's Role in Foreign Policy

Max Fisher Apr 14, 2010
Think Progress' Matt Duss has uncovered an unusual debate among some conservatives. As he phrases it, "Is Obama's Mother's Taste In Men Relevant To The War Against Islamofascists?" Duss clearly has his own opinion--he's out to mock the conservatives--but there's no denying that this debate is really happening.

Duss cites Human Events' David Goldman and Pajamas Media's Michael Ledeen, who both insist that Obama's mother Ann Dunham, as Goldman puts it, "sought to expiate her white guilt by going to bed with Muslim Third World men." Goldman concludes that Obama "is a Third World anthropologist studying us, learning our culture and our customs the better to neutralize what he considers to be a malignant American influence in world affairs."

Duss also notes the backlash against this argument from conservative John Podhoretz, who calls the charges "disgusting," and Commentary's Peter Wehner, although Duss accuses both of believing that "Obama doesn’t like America very much." Duss laments that conservatives are debating "the right hysterical tone to take against Barack Obama’s insidious agenda," which he says reveals "the state of the debate among 'serious, mainstream' conservatives."

For a sense of the whole debate, read up on his full round-up here.

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