What would happen if Barack H. Obama forgot his mike was still on at a press conference and made some islamophobic remarks to a aide.
E.g. something along the lines of
““Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you””
or “We must be aware of the superiority of our civilization, a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights and – in contrast with Islamic countries – respect for religious and political rights, a system that has as its value understanding of diversity and tolerance.”
Would it help or hinder him in his re-election campaign?
How would it go down internationally?
How would his critics handle it?
It’d be hilarious seeing the actual Islamophobes coming up with a reason that this was bad. Probably that he intentionally leaked it to try to get them on his side.
Why would they do this? In the last British election, the serving-Primeminister Gordon Brown had an off-the-mike moment when he gave a disgruntled Labour activist some platitudes, then called her a “deeply bigoted woman” once out of supposed earshots. The media played up the twofaced’ness of the whole thing.
There’s the thing, religious (and racial) equality and harmony are seen as American values for Americans in America. The man-on-the-street seems to care about killing the America-hating terrorists, then minimising the “collateral damage”(1). They care about America’s families’ sons and husbands being killed overseas, but they can’t seem to move beyond seeing the wars overseas as a blue-vs-red scenario. (I’m not an expert, but substitute Britain for America and these are very common views in my country).
(1) Gawd I hate that term, the only one which enrages me more is “Friendly fire”
They would blast Obama for being a hypocrite, then declare that it proved that they were right to promote anti-religious bigotry because even the (hypocritical) president really agreed with them.
As to the next election, it will still be based on the economy and the overwhelming majority of the electorate will find ways to either agree or disagree with the candidate or endorse or rationalize his remarks, based on how they perceive the economy affecting their families.
Yeah, This is more than possible, these are the same people who both insinuated he was a Muslim at the very time they were attacking him over his PASTOR‘s remarks
I believe that the current crop of conservatives and Republicans hate Obama more than they want the US to succeed, so they will find some way to spin this as being bad for him
