As I was waiting in line for the cashier at the grocery store, I glanced at the tabloid front pages. Barack Obama’s picture was on all of them, but they each had a different scandal. One said that Obama had close ties with terrorists. Another said that he’s having affairs with other women. Another one said that he threatened to kill his ex-boyfriend if he revealed their gay affair… Why would I get upset at the stupid tabloids’ ridiculous stories? Because they unfortunately work!
When I watched 20/20 the weekend before the Ohio and Texas primaries, an American in Ohio being interviewed said that he likes Obama best, but he won’t vote for him because he’s Muslim, as he learned in the media! Not only is Obama the most Christian of all three candidates (Clinton and McCain), but religion shouldn’t even be an issue when choosing a candidate. Why is the media linking Obama to terrorists when Republicans are the masters of that domain (we’ve seen many videos in the past where the Bush family, Rumsfeld and Cheney shake hands with bin Laden, Saddam and Musharraf.
Why are the media making up sex scandals about Obama, but not bringing back the real Clinton scandal (not that it should matter either) that almost kicked them out of the White House? Why is everyone questioning Obama’s judgment in foreign policy when Clinton and McCain are the ones who voted for the Iraq war? Right before the Ohio primary, Ohio’s Republican governor said that if Obama becomes president, Arab terrorists around the world would be dancing because of Obama’s middle name (Hussein)! Not only is that comment ridiculous, especially coming from a governor, but even if it was true, so what if they dance? That doesn’t mean that Obama will join their dance. The truth is, if Obama becomes president, the whole world will be dancing, especially advocates of peace. This weekend, we learned that Clinton’s most effective ad against Obama, aired in Ohio and Texas used footage of a teenage girl that was filmed eight years ago. Today that girl can vote, and she’s very upset at the ad, because it turns out she’s a very active Obama supporter.
It seems that every time a decent person has a chance to lead the country in the right direction, money and dirty politics become the best chance for the other candidates to destroy them. We saw it with Bush against McCain and then Gore in 2000, and now with Clinton and McCain against Obama. It’s so frustrating to see that it works on many American voters.
Voting (and politics) is the most fundamental and important system in our society, and needs to be changed to ensure real democracy, freedom and progress. As long as money and media are misused to influence voters, we’re only going to see a glimpse of “an Obama” once per century, if we’re lucky.
Last month, fed up with dirty politics, one of my students at the University decided to switch her major from political science to linguistics!
Mohamed Jemmali is an Arabic instructor at the University