World News

Earlier today, when I read that President Barack Obama had, in typical visiting-U.S.-leader fashion, said "thank you" in the local language while visiting Saudi Arabia ("Shukran"), I jokingly tweeted my impression of a hysterical media response -- "OMFG Obama said "thanks" in Arabic to King Abdullah -- HE IS A MUSLIM! What if he bows?"

Of course, as Spencer catches, the media did take it up (and I haven't even seen the cable shows yet). Jake Tapper's take on the new emphasis on the president's Muslim heritage reflects the ambiguity about this issue that I criticized during the campaign. On one hand, it's hard to blame Obama for wanting his religion to be correctly identified (yup, he's a Christian) and there were and continue to be bigoted attacks against him based on this false perception. On the other hand, though, by continually emphasizing that Obama was not a Muslim, it almost created the impression that maybe there is something wrong with that.

With the campaign over and his heritage now valuable on the world stage, I'm happy to see the president reclaiming his cosmopolitan background to help protect America's interests abroad and recall that American Muslims are real Americans, too. But I hope this new understanding doesn't drift away in the face of electoral battles to come in 2010 or 2012.

-- Tim Fernholz

Photo of Obama visiting the Blue Mosque in Turkey, courtesy the White House

Update: Hadn't seen Adam's post below and thus missed out on Michael Goldfarb's ridiculous insinuations. Classy!