Investor's Business Daily: "Would Obama put African tribal or family interests ahead of U.S. interests?"

A January 16 Investor's Business Daily editorial claimed that "the core" of Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) "faith -- whether lapsed Muslim, new Christian or some mixture of the two -- is African nativism" and that Obama's familial ties to Africa "have potential foreign policy, even national security, implications." The editorial also asked what it called a "valid question": "Would Obama put African tribal or family interests ahead of U.S. interests?" The editorial's claims about Obama's faith being "lapsed Muslim, new Christian or some mixture of the two" echo widely debunked allegations that Obama is or ever has been a Muslim. Investor's Business Daily also cited "the issue" of Obama's "Muslim past," pointing to recent claims by Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes that Obama "had a reasonably Muslim upbringing" and that Muslims may "consider him a 'murtadd' (apostate), that is, a Muslim who converted to another religion and, therefore someone whose blood may be shed." As Media Matters for America noted, however, Pipes' claims were based largely on a Los Angeles Times article from March 2007, key portions of which were later challenged by the Chicago Tribune.

Additionally, Investor's Business Daily claimed that Obama "already has heeded his church's 'nonnegotiable commitment to Africa,' spending an inordinate amount of his campaign time on the Kenyan crisis, for one," but offered no explanation as to why the paper considered Obama's attention to the recent violence following Kenya's disputed presidential election "inordinate." The editorial also said that "Obama interrupted his New Hampshire campaigning to speak by phone with [Kenyan opposition leader Raila] Odinga, who claims to be his cousin. He did not speak with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki." However, the editorial did not note that according to a January 12 Economist article, Obama "has apparently tried to get in touch with Mr. Kibaki, too, but without success."

The Investor's Business Daily editorial also attacked Obama's church, Trinity United Church of Christ, claiming that the "Black Value System" espoused by Trinity United "encourages blacks to group together and separate from the larger American society by pooling their money, patronizing black-only businesses and backing black leaders." This claim, however, is false; "encourag[ing] blacks to group together and separate from the larger American society" is not a tenet of the Black Value System. According to a document posted on Trinity's website, the Black Value System urges members to "Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting Black Institutions," but does not, as Investor's Business Daily claimed, "encourage[] blacks to group together and separate from the larger American society" in doing so. Several conservative media figures have attacked Obama's church, as Media Matters has documented.

From the January 16 Investor's Business Daily editorial:

Since we first drew attention to Barack Obama's Afrocentric church a full 12 months ago, other media have weighed in. And additional disturbing information has come to light.

At the core of the Democratic front-runner's faith -- whether lapsed Muslim, new Christian or some mixture of the two -- is African nativism, which raises political issues of its own.

In 1991, when Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he pledged allegiance to something called the Black Value System, which is a code of non-Biblical ethics written by blacks, for blacks.

It encourages blacks to group together and separate from the larger American society by pooling their money, patronizing black-only businesses and backing black leaders. Such racial separatism is strangely at odds with the media's portrayal of Obama as a uniter who reaches across races.

The code also warns blacks to avoid the white "entrapment of black middle-classness," suggesting that settling for that kind of "competitive" success will rob blacks of their African identity and keep them "captive" to white culture.

[...]

Wright makes the Rev. Jesse Jackson look almost moderate and patriotic. Yet this is whom Obama picked to baptize his daughters, plus to act as his "sounding board" during his presidential run.

The candidate already has heeded his church's "nonnegotiable commitment to Africa," spending an inordinate amount of his campaign time on the Kenyan crisis, for one. Obama has close family ties to Kenya, and even founded a school in his ancestral village -- the Senator Obama School.

In the bloody conflict there, which already has claimed some 700 lives, Obama appears to have sided with opposition leader Raila Odinga, head of the same Luo tribe to which Obama's late Muslim father belonged.

[...]

With al-Qaida strengthening its beachheads in Africa -- from Algeria to Sudan to Somalia -- the last thing the West needs is for pro-Western Kenya to fall into the hands of Islamic extremists.

Yet Obama interrupted his New Hampshire campaigning to speak by phone with Odinga, who claims to be his cousin. He did not speak with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.

Would Obama put African tribal or family interests ahead of U.S. interests?

It's a valid question, and one voters deserve to have debated regardless of the racial and religious sensitivities. Thanks to a media blackout of these issues, the electorate has yet to benefit from a thorough vetting of Obama.

We have to wonder how much of the national agenda Africa would consume under an Obama administration. Of the six "world threats" Obama lists in stump speeches, at least half of them concern that chronically troubled Third World continent.

Yes, some of his African priorities are noble, such as fighting AIDS and genocide. But how much U.S. aid, resources and presidential time would he devote to them? How much is enough? If Bill Clinton was America's "first black president," would Barack Hussein Obama be our first president for Africa?

Then there is the issue of his Muslim past. Obama, 47, was raised by two Muslim fathers and attended Islamic classes in Indonesia.

He denies being Muslim, however, and says he "embraced Christ" while answering the altar call 20 years ago at Trinity. (Contrary to anonymous e-mail rumors circulating, Obama never took the oath of office on the Quran. He used a Bible, and Vice President Dick Cheney swore him in during his Senate ceremony.)

This merely raises another concern, beyond that of the controversial church he chose to baptize him. If Obama were ever Muslim, even as a youth, he would now be viewed as an apostate, which in radical Islam is punishable by death. As Mideast expert Daniel Pipes has noted, a President Obama could be the target of a fatwah.

Still, his Muslim heritage is not the signal issue before the electorate. It's his Afrocentric church, which preaches black socialism and black nativism, and his family ties to an African tribe that's fanning the flames of Marxism and militant Islam in a country once considered strongly democratic and a friend of the U.S.

"I believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change," Obama has asserted. He also says his faith has led him to question "the idolatry of the free market."

If a President Obama's foreign and domestic policies are anything like the Afrocentric doctrine he's pledged to uphold, Americans will pay a hefty price, including those among the growing black middle class.