In today’s New York Times, columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote an op-ed about how Republicans are trying to “otherize” Barack Obama by playing up rumors of him being a secret Muslim or even the anti-Christ. In his column today, Kristof listed Redstate (along with Jerome Corsi) as one of the Republican institutions that was attempting to “otherize” Obama with the secret Muslim/anti-Christ rumors. Kristof even placed a link to the Redstate giftshop on his blog about his column. Well, even though I am really busy with my pediatrics rotation (and I should be studying instead of blogging), I just couldn’t bite my tongue. I responded with a comment of my own. My comment is number 159 on Kristof’s blog about his column (the second of the above links); however, I’m pasting my comment below:

-First of all, I am a Redstate blogger and I can tell you that anyone who remotely insinuates that Senator Obama is a Muslim is automatically banned from the site.

Second of all, I recently wrote a diary for Redstate (that was at the top of the most recommended list for a week) in which I went out of my way to debunk the “Obama is a secret Muslim” rumor, and I called Jerome Corsi a crackpot. The link is below.

Frank Rich is an Awful Person

Third of all, as I previously stated in my diary, yes, something like twelve percent (you say thirteen) of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim, but sixteen percent of Americans believe in Bigfoot, and eight percent believe that Bigfoot is a Muslim (OK, I made that last part up). In other words, if Obama loses, it’s not going to be because voters believe the stupid “secret Muslim” rumors–it will be because voters believe that he is an inexperienced neophyte with unsavory friends.

And finally, Nick, you stated that, “Just imagine for a moment if it were the black candidate in this election, rather than the white candidate, who was born in Central America, was an indifferent churchgoer, had graduated near the bottom of his university class, had dumped his first wife, had regularly displayed an explosive and profane temper, and had referred to the Pakistani-Iraqi border”.

OK, well let’s imagine for a moment that there was a hypothetical white candidate that had started running for president after he had less than two years in the Senate (and had no real accomplishments), and he had attended a racist, anti-American church for twenty years. Now, let’s suppose that this white presidential candidate was running against a black opponent who had over twenty very accomplished years in the Senate, and was a war hero to boot. Who do you honestly think would win? I, personally, think that the white candidate would get creamed by the more experienced, more presidential black candidate.

— Posted by Susannah

Anyway, I felt the overwhelming need to speak up, because I thought that Kristof was falsely accusing all of us at Redstate of trying to “otherize” Obama when, if anything, Redstate has been hyper-vigilant about chastising and banning anyone who remotely implies that Senator Obama is a secret Muslim or the anti-Christ (I feel silly just typing that). So in conclusion, I felt that Nicholas Kristof was trying to “otherize” us over here at Redstate by implying that we are a bunch of bigoted racist hicks and conspiracy theorists who believe everything that we read on the interwebs. Again, I just had to speak up.