How Attacks On Obama's Race And Religion Turned Into Jokes

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/how-attacks-on-obamas-race-and-religion-turne

“Salaam!” Nothing stays below the surface for long any more.




Ben Smith
Posted Apr 29, 2012 4:23pm EDT
“I was born, of course, in Hawaii,” President Barack Obama began last night from the stage of the annual piece of dinner theater that is the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Then he winked, bringing down the house.

In his routine, Obama — as he has before — poked fun at rumors he was born in Kenya. He laughed gamely when comedian Jimmy Kimmel flicked at another rumor, that he’s a crypto-Muslim, with his greeting: “Salaam.” He joked that his second term’s secret agenda would involve hip-hop: “In my first term, I sang Al Green; in my second term, I'm going with Young Jeezy.” He joked about eating dog as a boy in Indonesia, an alien detail conservatives have delighted in raising in recent weeks.

Last night’s comedy routine didn’t just tap newsy mini-scandals — one at the General Services Administration, the other at the Secret Service — for which such events are designed. Obama and comic Jimmy Kimmel harped on the three most visceral and, once, potent lines of personal attack on Obama, the contradictory stew of questions raised about his religion, his race, and his American identity that have shadowed him since 2007, mostly debunked but never quite put to rest. Their presence at the White House Correspondents Dinner, a good-natured and generally toothless ritual whose players are adept at appearing to cross lines while remaining fundamentally inoffensive, shows how thoroughly they have been neutralized, and how confident are Obama and his handlers that they pose little threat.

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