Fates Having Fun

November 13, 2008
The Fates are Having too much Fun!

Barack Hussein Obama. President-elect of the United States of America; a country that is fighting two wars each of which was primarily designed to "take out" an individual. In Afghanistan it was Osama, whose name is a tiny typo away from being the same as that of the president-elect. In Iraq, it was Hussein.

Is there a Barack running an Islamic country anywhere? If so, I'd be real nervous were I him :-)

Could the Fates have played a stranger trick? Not only is the name tie-in to our two wars beyond coincidental comprehension ... but in both wars we are fighting (radical) Muslims ... and the Islamic and Christian nations and religions have not been so close to falling back into the Crusades mentality since ... the Crusades?

It has, in any event, been a long time. Most Americans never thought of Islam in a negative fashion before Osama sent the planes into the buildings. Most Americans never thought of Islam at all. Or if they did, it was along the lines of "Isn't that the religion that the Cat Stevens dude adopted?" [It is. On Muharram, in 1398 by the Islamic calendar. Indeed his name now is Yusuf Islam. What most folks don't know is that he never was "Cat Stevens"; that was just a stage name. He was born Steven Demetre Georgiou.]

In any event, we are at war for all practical purposes, in two different countries and in a third sort of generic "War on Terror", with the radical arm of Islam. And we elect, for the first time in the history of the nation, a presidential candidate who has an extensive Muslim background.

Indeed, his Muslim background is another of those "hazy" areas surrounding the man. He acknowledges being born to a Muslim father and that his stepfather was also Muslim. It appears likely that he was enrolled as a Muslim at a child in the Muslim school he attended in Indonesia. I wrote one column on apostasy and will soon do a follow-up to that now that he is president-elect. But in any event, his "Muslim background" is the greatest of any U.S. President to date ... and likely greater than any serious presidential candidate in the past. And we elect someone with that background ... now?

This is beyond mind-boggling. The Fates have got to be rolling in the aisles ... of wherever it is the Fates hang out.

And yet this man not only stridently proclaims that he is Christian ... but he stained his reputation badly by being a member of such a radical Christian church (and it would have been much worse had not the press been giving him, in Bill Clinton's words, that Rolls Royce ride to the White House as noted in my last post). If the press had tackled Obama the way it did Palin ... you'd know every sermon that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright ever preached that could be taken negatively in any way.

But my point here is not to complain about the disparate press treatment. I've spent plenty of time in this blog doing that.

My point is that he joined the radical arm of his religion. He isn't just someone who grew up in a church and continued on in the religion he was raised in. He actively sought a place for his spiritual side and specifically selected this Church, which was more to him than just a "show up at Sunday, visit with the congregants, hear a bland sermon on doing good and believing, and maybe attend the annual potluck". This Church filled a deep hunger and he took it much more seriously spiritually than socially. "Obama was searching for an identity and a community, and he found both at Trinity. And he found a spiritual guide in Wright."

And Wright was radical! [He still is, but he has now retired.] Obama's continued association with (and pronounced affections for) him long after he reasonably should have rejected Wright and all that he stood for (assuming it was even defensible to have joined the Church in the first place) was faulted by even the most liberal of columnists. This man who Obama claimed was his "spiritual advisor" vehemently preached (to, ultimately, a huge audience) about how 9/11 was America's fault and how the U.S. was intentionally spreading the Aids virus. This man who married Obama and his wife said in one famous speech "God Damn America" at least three times. Yet Obama says it was this man's words that were the inspiration for his book "The Audacity of Hope"!

My point here is not to regurgitate that oft-repeated point that Obama's various "associations" have shown a remarkable lack of judgment. While that is clearly a true statement, my point was really to show that Obama, more than any prior president, is a member of the "radical fringe" of Christianity ... while we are fighting wars against the "radical fringe" of Islam.

It strains credulity that all these are coincidences. And yet, this is all acknowledged mainstream information. Those tending closer to the wing-nut position will tell you many more things too strange to be coincidence (including many apparently strange numerical synchronicities). I'll refrain from giving those print space here at the moment. But it all does make one wonder.

Is there something going on that none of us truly understand?

I am not a mystical nor religious person. But even I am tempted to research what the Bible says about the Anti-Christ! :-)

No. I very much doubt that Barack is the Anti-Christ. And I presume that the Fates are just having fun at our expense. But the more one ponders the impossibilities surrounding this election (imagine if, before you had heard of Barack Hussein Obama that such a person could be elected president at this time in our history). If you look at it in that context ... you will have to concede that the chances of it ever happening would be too silly to even consider.

It makes me more curious than anything. Is this truly God playing a joke on us? Could it be that these coincidences are just coincidences? Perhaps someday I'll manage to satisfy my curiosity about this most curious of elections. But somehow, I doubt it.