http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/44322.html

Anyway, here is the transcript from today’s White House Press gaggle related to the President’s trip to India, in which the administration spokespersons state clearly that all the speculation related to the photo op is unfounded.

Q Okay. I also wanted to make one more run at a question that came up a few days ago to you, Robert, about whether — what was the specific reason why the President opted not go to the Golden Temple, which was something that was in his tentative plans? Was it because he would have to cover his head and the concerns about him being perceived as Muslim –

MR. GIBBS: I’ll take — let Ben take another. I think he’s going to tell you largely what I told you at the back of the plane.

Go ahead.

MR. RHODES: I’ve been leading our trip planning here, so I’ve known this trip at every stage of our development.

As Robert said, it’s a big country where we’d like to do a lot of things. It’s an extraordinary country and we can never do as many events as we’d like to do. We send advance teams to far more places than we’re ever going to visit.

I think if you look at — the schedule that we ended up is the schedule that best advances the purposes and interests of the trip. We’ve got a very packed three days in Mumbai and Delhi that speak to those priorities, that reach out to the Indian people as well.

So we arrived at the schedule we arrived at because we thought it was the best way to have a successful trip. We’ve visited multiple religious sites — mosques, churches, synagogues — on foreign travel. We’ll do so on this trip, probably in Indonesia. So I think that the decision we made was driven by, again, the interests of time, how to best advance our common interests with India in these three days. And, unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to get to get to every place we advanced.

Q Would it be fair to say, though, just to eliminate that as an issue, that that’s just wrong, that theory that that was the reason why –

MR. RHODES: Yes. We — again, we make the decision about the schedule based on the best way to advance our goals for the trip. And with three days, we just thought that, when we really crunched it, Mumbai and Delhi, with a very packed official program, that the schedule we arrived at for those two cities filled up our time successfully.

This is so very disappointing. Is this the same Obama who invited a Vaishnava purohit to the White House to conduct Diwali Pjua and then photographed himself namaste’ing the kuthuvilakku? You don’t need to be invited to visit Harmandir Sahab, there is a standard maryada that you follow that’s all. How difficult is that? My favourite picture from India is of Sonia Gandhi and Vajpayee standing together at the annual Rashtrapathi Bhavan Christmas celebration in 1998 singing carols! Or Advani in a headscarf visiting Ajmer; or Abdul Kalam at the Tirupati Balaji Mandir. Not to forget Salman Khan performing Ganpati Puja at his home! Barry, forget all those politics this time in India just see how we stay together in India.

It seems that all the controversial (that pretty much means “all”) Pakistani politician’s entry on Wiki or the internet in general seems to all be written by revisionists. Jinnah was some times born in Karachi (by his allies), and other times, in Gujarat (by his detractors). Some times Musharaff was born in Delhi to Punjabis (by his admirers) and in western UP to Mohajirs (by his detractors who believe that UP is less than Punjabi socio-economically). Also, if you look at the history of Benazir Bhutto’s Wiki entry, it even stated that her ancestry was part Baluchistan, when in fact she’s half Kurdish and half Sindhi/Punjabi (or what ever).

1. 24% or so Americans are apparently under the impression that Barack Husein Obama is a Muslim.

2. An unspecified percentage of Americans are either under the impression that Sikhs are Muslims, or cannot differentiate between the two.

3. Ergo, if Obama is seen wearing a head scarf at a Sikh gurudwara, the images will reaffirm to a significant unspecified percentage of American voters that he is a Muslim. Or maybe even a closet member of the Al-Qaeda who tricked them all on his way to the White House. Or some such thing.

4. President Obama therefore doesn’t want to come to the Golden Temple anymore as was supposedly part of the original plan for his India visit.

5. The SGPC is trying to explain to President Obama that they’ll be fine with anything he wears to cover his head, not a headscarf, and can he please not change his plans. To quote from the sugary sweet letter from the SGPC chief to Obama, “The Sikh diaspora wish and eagerly wait to see you at this sacred sanctum sanctorum as you are leading the oldest democracy of the world i.e. United States, the country of everybody’s dreams.”

Points 1 and 2 don’t speak too well for the level of awareness among the population of the world’s biggest economic and military superpower. Points 3 and 4 don’t speak too well about the manner in which the most powerful man in the world is so defensive about adjusting to misinformation. Point 5 – I think the debate is still on, but personally, I don’t think anybody, irrespective of the power they wield, should be beseeched to come to a place of faith, even by its administrative custodians.

Mr Obama is the leader of the free world – or at least that is the image that the US would like to convey, since we are handling image management here. For him to cater to fringe perceptions this seriously doesn’t instill great confidence.

This is not a Karan Johar movie – not that the White House staff would have seen it – but surely the Presidency can’t expect all Muslims in the US to carry a placard saying “I am not a terrorist”, and all Sikhs to carry one declaring “I am not a Muslim”. As the President of the US, one expects Obama to take a position countering mistaken impressions based on prejudice – not make everyone who ties a headscarf at any point feel apologetic about the fact. This could have been much better handled with a little more courage of conviction and a little less worry about image management.

Even if B Husein O needs to emphasize that he is not a Muslim, and 24% of his voters apparently have very poor general knowledge, there is nothing so profoundly defensive about being a Muslim that he has to actively disassociate from any such imagery. Even if Sikhs are not a politically significant enough part of the US electorate, surely they deserve better then for everyone to give a tacit approval of looking at men with turbans and beards as if they were guilty purely by visual association of affiliation with some wing of the Al Qaeda – or offshoots of some radical jihadi group – simply because Osama Bin Laden sports a beard and a turban? At the same time – even if this is not be the most politically correct example – few US political leader seem to have had qualms cozying up, for example, to the cash-rich Sant Singh Chatwal.

Frankly, I am nobody to advise them, but I would be happier if the SGPC were to politely request the President to now not come to the Golden Temple, rather than issue appeals to him to not change his plans and don whatever sort of headgear he wishes to. This is not about jingoism, but if the US President is so apologetic about being identified even momentarily with any of the faiths that involve donning headgear, even for a few minutes, let’s just let it be. Why beseech him, leader of the “country of everybody’s dreams” though he may be?

The day after Dussehra, most Indians saw a photo of Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, and Rahul Gandhi at the Ramleela ground, holding the bow and arrow used to set the effigy of Ravana alight. I don’t think 24% of Indians thereafter confused either Sonia or Manmohan or Rahul to be direct descendants of Ram’s Raghuvanshi lineage, or of having their family roots in Ayodhya, or of being closet anti-Lankans, or any such thing. If the Indian voter – with all his illiteracy, poverty, caste and clan divides and all our system’s failings – can have that much common sense, surely you don’t tell me you really believe that tying a headscarf will change what your voter understands about you, O Occupant of Air Force One? If that’s the case, well, tread defensively, Mr President. One does recall you declaring emphatically the day you took your oath of office, in your inaugural address, “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers.”

Well, whatever.

Meanwhile, can we please stop requesting him anymore to please, please come to the Temple?

http://pictopia.com/perl/get_image?provider_id=16&size=550x550_mb&ptp_photo_id=114806

Manju,

OBL is dead. That’s what Bhutto said. Why do you think they killed her? Duh, NWO.