Preposterous Universe

 
Networking

Seems like everyone on the left-hand side of the blogosphere is having great fun with David Horowitz's latest misadventure, DiscoverTheNetwork: A Guide to the Political Left. (See e.g. Michael Bérubé, Pharyngula, Crooked Timber.) The website tracks the many connections between the vast left-wing conspiracy that has been so effective at keeping conservatives out of power in this country. It's pure comedy gold, I have to admit. I mean, consider the following set of people:


Quite a motley crew, wouldn't you say? Anyone who thinks that these folks are part of some common "network" is just a fruitcake. To any right-wingers out there who might harbor suspicions, trust me on this: Bruce Springsteen is not lunching with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, nor is Howard Dean planning on bringing Fidel Castro to help him on the Democratic National Committee. Look, guys: the Ayatollah Khomeini was not a leftist, okay?

But beyond the laughs, there is something ugly and offensive going on. Look at the last paragraph of the entry for Barack Obama:

Who and what is the real Barack Obama? "I am a Christian," he told the Chicago Sun-Times last April to assuage all those who had asked if he had any religion at all. "I have a deep faith." The mother that a decade ago he described in his book as a "lonely witness for secular humanism" he now describes as "a Christian." It is here we are told that his stepfather in Indonesia, where Barack spent two years in a Muslim Madrassah, was a "non-practicing Muslim." Obama and his wife and two young daughters now attend Chicago's liberal Trinity United Church of Christ. "Obama doesn’t believe he, or anyone else, will go to hell," wrote Sun-Times reporter Cathleen Falsani, "But he's not sure if he’'ll be going to heaven, either."

I presume the insinuation here isn't too subtle for anyone to decode. Sure, this guy with the funny name "Obama" claims to be a Christian, and apparently is devious enough to actually attend church (albeit a "liberal" one). But don't let that fool you: his stepfather was a Muslim, and he spend two years in a Madrassah. In Horowitz's crazed world, this is tantamount to an al-Qaeda membership card. As Matthew Yglesias says: What's wrong with you people?

~ posted by Sean Carroll at 6:06 AM ~ link ~ ~ ~