Obama's Muslim conundrum

By Libby

The Politico, which happens to be a favorite of the McCains, especially Meghan, was quick to report that Obama volunteers at his recent event in Detroit refused to allow two Muslim women wearing headscarves to be seated in the gallery behind Obama where they would be visible in the televised shots. A spokesman for the campaign was equally quick to apologize, noting that this is not an official policy.

Mr. Burton was also quick to point out that Muslims have been in the shot at previous Obama events. “This is obviously an anomaly, but we have apologized and are going to indeed work to ensure that this situation doesn’t happen again,” he added in an e-mail message, without elaborating on what specific measures would be taken.

We all know the seating at these events is staged for every candidate. That's just politics and it's hard to fault the volunteers for wanting to protect Obama from another round of wingnut screeching about his Muslim supporters. It was a difficult call.

The campaign is in a difficult position with this issue. I'm sure Obama appreciates his support in the Muslim community but he's been forced to tread a fine line between welcoming them and being seen as too friendly. In a perfect world, there would be no wingnuts consistently trying to drum up hate mobs against Americans who happen to practice the Muslim faith and the media wouldn't reinforce the narrative by giving this sort of offensive rhetoric an undue importance by focusing on it in their coverage. They would ignore it instead and the narrative might have died out long ago.

But we don't live in a perfect world. It was inartfully handled, but I'm not sure it was entirely unwarranted, especially at a time when Obama seems to finally be making some headway among the easily deluded in establishing he is really a Christian and a patriotic American.