OBAMARAMA

In yet another display of how rattled they are by his candidacy, the political right greeted Sen. Obama’s official entrance into the 2008 presidential race with a barrage of asinine political gunfire.

After conservative Australian PM John Howard’s bizarre and flailing remarks about how, if he was in al Qaida, he’d pray for Sen. Obama to win, a “senior White House official” felt the urge to weigh in (though apparently without the guts to do so by name), saying that “Prime Minister Howard knows that setting a timeline for a withdrawal sends the wrong signal to our enemies.”

Media Matters for America also documents an anti-Obama media trifecta, with MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson saying of Sen. Obama’s church that “it’s hard to call that Christianity,” ABC News’ Jake Tapper incessantly spotlighting Sen. Obama’s middle name, and The Politico’s Mike Allen claiming Sen. Obama has lied about the origin of his first name, asking, “Why has he sometimes said his first name is Arabic, and other times Swahili?” (Answer: “the Swahili word ‘baraka,’ meaning “blessing,” is derived from the Arabic word ‘bariki.’” Though, to be fair, Allen couldn’t have been expected to know this fact, since it would have required research.)

And, for the finale, rightwing commentator Bill Kristol called Sen. Obama’s message “the opposite of Lincoln,” who said that “we cannot live as a house divided on slavery,” since Sen. Obama is merely asking “Can’t we all get along?” We could point out how untrue this is, how Lincoln also demanded the country “get along” and work together to overcome its obstacles, how both Lincoln and Sen. Obama addressed a divided nation with a message of unity — but this comment is actually so absurd that it forfeits its right to be discussed: