Mychal Massie

Will Demanding Proof of Obama's Baptism Become The Next Right Wing Crusade?

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on August 24, 2010 - 12:09pm

I always thought that the central tenet of the Christian faith was ... well, faith. But, as it turns out, when someone like President Obama claims to be a Christian, that can't just be taken on faith, which is why we keep seeing column after column written by right-wing activists claiming that they don't believe that Obama is, in fact, a Christian ... and it is entierly his own fault, of course:

The current president has neither a church, nor, to my knowledge, even a denomination. When I'm asked questions about his faith, by sincere people not looking to attack, I sincerely can't give a good answer. It's a problem I didn't have with any of the Bushes, the Clintons, Reagan, Carter, and on and on.

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Of course, it shouldn't be difficult to rectify misperceptions. Throughout American history, presidents have been asked about their faith and sat for lengthy interviews sharing their thinking, explaining precisely what they believe. Why doesn't Obama simply do the same? This isn't rocket science ... Obama's problem isn't a tiny fringe that believes he faces Mecca to pray five times a day, but an increasingly large number of Americans that aren't sure what he believes. Until he makes that clearer, confusion will understandably reign.

Sure, Obama may claim to be a Christian, says Mychal Massie, but that means nothing:

In the aftermath of Obama's unsolicited, controversial dictates over the Ground Zero mosque debate, White House image-makers are now trying to convince the public he is a devout Christian. Specific to that point, he may not be a Muslim, but I'm convinced he isn't a Christian, either.

As evidence of his devoutness, the White House has entered into evidence that he allegedly prays every day. Let me be clear – praying every day no more makes one a Christian than walking across a stream makes one a fisherman.

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Scriptures tell us that by our works we shall be known (Matthew 7:15-20). Where is Obama's fruit? I think it can be reasonably argued that, if he were a Christian following after Jesus, there would be no questions about his faith. If his actions were Christ-like, people wouldn't question whether or not he is a Muslim.

And if you thought the Birthers were an annoyingly insistent bunch, let's just hope that Cliff Kincaid's demands for proof that Obama was actually baptized never catches on:

Obama talks about hearing a Wright sermon, “The Audacity of Hope,” which inspired the title of his second book. However, there is no mention of any baptism in this—his first—book. The reference to being baptized came in the second book, as Obama was preparing to launch his presidential campaign. The timing is significant.

These are the facts as Obama himself reported them. So how have the media handled them? Needless to say, there has been no serious investigation into whether the claims are true and what they mean.

“Obama’s religious biography is unconventional and politically problematic,” Newsweek’s Lisa Miller reported. “Born to a Christian-turned-secular mother and a Muslim-turned-atheist African father, Obama grew up living all across the world with plenty of spiritual influences, but without any particular religion. He is now a Christian, having been baptized in the early 1990s at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.”

The phrase, “having been baptized,” is apparently based on Obama’s claim about being baptized. Our major media haven’t questioned the claim.

Miller went on to say, “His baptism presents its own problems. The senior pastor at Trinity at the time of Obama’s baptism was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the preacher who was seen damning America on cable TV…”

Notice the formulation, “at the time of Obama’s baptism.” She carefully does not say that Wright performed the baptism. In fact, there’s no evidence it was a baptism in the traditional sense that it was performed by Wright or anybody else. It looks like Obama walked down the aisle and made a profession of faith. That is not a Christian baptism.

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What's Another Word For Antichrist?

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on November 3, 2009 - 9:16am

You know, it has been a while since we posted anything on someone declaring that President Obama was the Antichist or the harbinger of the Antichrist or something like that .... so here is Mychal Massie writing just that in WorldNetDaily, claiming that Obama's decision to honor those killed Afghanistan proves "just how narcissistic he is":

Offended and outraged by his display, I wanted to tell him that while America's enemies may view him as pusillanimous or as the equivalent of that which a jester's liripipes factually represent (i.e., two ears and a tail) – I viewed him as a cheap pettifogger who feigns qualities that conceal his true incertitude. I wanted to tell him that he was reducing the office, which should have been his ne plus ultra for good – to a sinister darkness that rivaled Erebus himself.

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I would not give him the benefit of the doubt, by saying he had an opportunity to do good and did not. I would submit that he has been a flawed, miserable human being since his early childhood development.

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I would also remind him that there is "One" greater than he and the agenda he shares in compliance with his handlers. And the faith of us believers persuades us that he is but the penultimate ephemera preparatory to the zeitgeist that must exist prior to the unveiling of the ultimate evil. In the final analysis, he is potentially the next to the end before that which our Scriptures call the Tribulation Period begins – either way, as an ephemera he is a matter of no lasting significance.

Or maybe Massie just decided that this would be a good subject for a colum allowing him to test out a new thesaurus.

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Mychal Massie

Be Careful How You Pray

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on March 13, 2008 - 9:13am

From their start as the “Moral Majority” through their as the “Christian Coalition” and all the way up to the “Values Voters” who supposedly returned President Bush to office in 2004, Religious Right leaders has long claimed the exclusive right to speak for people of faith in the political arena. In order to bolster that claim, the Right has developed an entire repertoire of attacks against those who might dare to disagree: complaining about perceived anti-religious bigotry, warning that Christians are under constant attack, demonizing and disrespecting other faiths, and accusing Democrats of attempting to dupe faithful Americans into abandoning the only political party that represents a “truly biblical worldview.”

Normally, such attacks were directly solely against Democrats, but they started to get used against Mitt Romney and his Mormon faith when he showed up on the presidential scene. The Right, not knowing know how to react to a Republican candidate who did not subscribe to a faith with which they were comfortable and familiar, began to flail about, giving rise to all sorts of speculation about whether rank and file right-wing voters could ever support such a candidate, allegations that other candidates were exploiting the issue for political gain, worries that Romney’s unique beliefs would somehow hijack the Right’s traditional messaging … even allegations that a vote for Romney was “a vote for Satan.”

Eventually, Romney was compelled to deliver a speech reminding voters that a religious test for candidates and office holders was prohibited by the US Constitution and proclaiming that “no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. “

The speech didn’t accomplish much and Romney was eventually forced to drop out of the race – and now the Right has been able to get back to what it does best: attacking Democrats.

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Right-Wing Reaction to Don Imus

Submitted by Anonymous on April 18, 2007 - 7:50am

Some on the Right voiced criticism of radio host Don Imus, whose slur against the Rutgers women’s basketball team led to his firing from CBS radio and MSNBC. Jerry Falwell, who was frequently mocked on the show, called Imus’s comments “the most demeaning thing possible.” “He has built his career on saying outrageous, indecent, racist, even blasphemous things,” wrote Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family, adding that Imus also targeted Focus founder Dobson. Michael Steele, the former Senate candidate and new chairman of Newt Gingrich’s GOPAC, said Imus should be fired and criticized John McCain for supporting the talker.

But many right-wing commentators defended Imus or used the controversy to push their own agendas. Quite a few decided to attack Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as “race hucksters” (columnist David Limbaugh) or “nappy-headed demagogues” (Yale Kramer for the American Spectator). Mychal Massie, a spokesman for the right-wing Project 21, described the firing of Imus as a “lynching” and accused Jackson, Sharpton, and other Imus critics as “race-baiters” who “are today fomenting unrest and belching racial bile.”

Others used the opportunity to change the subject to their own issues and suggested that Imus critics are hypocritical for not making the same connections. John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute charged that “Imus’s insensitive remarks pale especially in comparison to disparaging comments and cruel recommendations made time and again by leaders of environmental groups.” Alveda King, director of African-American outreach for Frank Pavone’s Priests for Life and a frequent religious-right speaker, declared in a press release, “Yes, Don Imus's apologies are necessary. But I demand the same from every public figure who has ever said that babies in the womb are not persons.”

And a few commentators and activists have suggested that critics of Imus are ignoring “anti-Christian” references in the media. Catholic League President Bill Donohue complained about the lack of interest in his campaign against a Manhattan boutique hotel’s display of a “chocolate Jesus” sculpture and concluded, “In other words, Catholic bashing is humorous and an exercise in liberty. Racism is awful. Bigotry, then, is neither good nor bad—it just depends who the target is.” Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas also decried a supposed “double standard”:

Why aren't these keepers of the First Amendment flame coming to the defense of Don Imus? It's because they have a double standard. Evangelical Christians, practicing Roman Catholics, politically conservative Republicans, home-schoolers and others not in favor among the liberal elite are frequent targets for the left. Anything may be said about them, and frequently is. But if someone insults the left's "protected classes," be they African-Americans, homosexuals or to a lesser extent, adherents to the religion of "global warming," they must be silenced and punished.

According to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, “The message of the ongoing Imus scandal is simple: verbal offenses against anyone other than conservatives or Christians or Jews, will be treated as crimes, and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are the judge and jury.” And Star Parker, author of “Uncle Sam’s Plantation,” warned that Congress is considering extending violent-hate-crimes protections to gays and wrote, “With the passage of this so-called hate-crime bill, pastors will be intimidated to condemn homosexual behavior from their pulpits. Is this the freedom we want?”

Finally, a few right-wing commentators tried to make Imus a symbol of white-male victimhood. MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan decried the “Imus Lynch Party,” writing, “The issue here is not the word Imus used. The issue is who Imus is -- a white man, who used a term about black women only black folks are permitted to use with impunity and immunity.” In a Human Events column, Mac Johnson declared that “Apologizing to Al Sharpton Was Imus’s True Racist Act” and speculated,

Now think about how stupid and racist all this is. Were Chris Rock, in the heat of a comedic diatribe, to call someone, say, a “limp-haired slut” what would he do next? Would he ask to go on David Duke’s radio show so that Duke could accept an apology on behalf of all “white people” and then issue a suitable penance? (“Donate to my charity, Chris! You don’t look sorry enough yet.”) Somehow, I don’t think so.

And Rebecca Hagelin, vice president of the Heritage Foundation, attacked “the tentacles of radical feminist thought” that she claims are “poisoning the image” of white males through the media and Title IX sports programs. “The white, Anglo-Saxon male, the young teenage guy, is probably the most discriminated against kid on the face of the earth right now,” she declared on “The O’Reilly Factor.”

See comments on the Imus controversy by People For the American Way Foundation staff and by founder Norman Lear here.

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Right-Wing Front Group Spokesman: Affirmative Action 'Hitlerian'

Submitted by Anonymous on February 21, 2007 - 9:44am

In lashing out at affirmative action programs in college admissions, Mychal Massie of “Project 21” warns of “the harm done to minority students who have repeatedly been told the world is out to get them after they drop out or flunk out of schools they weren't qualified to attend to start with.” According to Massie, “diversity” is “Hitlerian”:

I have repeatedly argued that the level of bigotry inherent in diversity should be glaringly obvious. It is a perverse form of Hitlerian motivations vis-à-vis attempted social engineering for no other reason than to have a color-coded campus matrix.

Massie is the host of an Internet radio show and a frequent spokesman for right-wing causes through his involvement with “Project 21,” a front group for the National Center for Public Policy Research designed to market a “new leadership for Black America.” NCPPR is perhaps most famous for allegedly laundering money between corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. “Only a Rip Van Winkle, asleep for the past 50 years, would mistake Massie and his colleagues for civil rights leaders,” as a PFAW report put it.

Nevertheless, occasionally Massie’s self-promotion pays off. Earlier this month, an Associated Press story on the debate in the Virginia legislature over apologizing for slavery used Massie as a prominent source:

Moreover, an apology won't cure community ills, said Mychal Massie, with the National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives.

That will come from blacks emphasizing two-parent homes, education over fast money and personal responsibility for life choices, Mr. Massie said.

"A willing disregard for responsibility, a willing disrespect for education, ad nauseam, is not attributable in any way to slavery," said Mr. Massie, who considers an apology redundant.

"We see black leaders on every level," he said. "America has apologized."

(“National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives” is the tagline on the “Project 21” website, apparently used by mistake.)

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National Black Pro-Life Union Event Draws Familiar Religious-Right Faces

Submitted by Anonymous on February 8, 2007 - 11:59pm

BOND’s Jesse Lee Peterson, Star Parker, Mychal Massie, ex-Bush advisor Claude Allen – plus Brownback. Meanwhile: “Black Genocide” speaker attacks Obama.