THE GUARDIAN: White House dogged by 'secret Muslim' claims, amid sniping from the American right
Barack Obama was in wistful mood today on his return to Indonesia, where he spent part of his childhood. He reminisced about mango trees, flying kites, running alongside paddy fields, buying satay from street vendors and catching dragonflies.
He spoke too of the tolerance Indonesians had shown the foreign child brought up in their midst, and the tolerance needed today to eradicate the mistrust that had built up over the years between Muslims and Christians.
He was speaking at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, in the second major speech of his presidency reaching out to the Muslim world. The first was in Cairo last year.
But there was little sign of tolerance on US conservative websites, where there were derogatory comments about the visit. Pictures of the Obamas visiting the Istiqlal mosque in Jakarta are likely to surface on websites propagating the myth that the president is a secret Muslim. >>> Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Toni O'Loughlin in Jakarta | Wednesday, November 10, 2010
