Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker apparently doesn’t know if President Obama is a Christian, but Bill Maher previously claimed that the Commander-in-Chief is secretly a “drop-dead atheist.”
Since the president has many times self-identified as a Christian, the loaded question to Walker from a Washington Post reporter seems out of left field, figuratively and literally, and perhaps designed to artificially generate a controversy.
Some fringe elements have, in the past, suggested that Obama is a Muslim.
The mainstream media has been, in its own unique way usually reserved for Republicans, vetting Walker who is currently one of the frontrunners for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination.
When asked about the president’s religious faith, Walker simply said “I don’t know,” and deemed the irrelevant inquiry a form of gotcha journalism that contributes to public dislike of the press.
According to HotAir columnist Noah Rothman , “It’s possible Walker was trying to be a bit cagey, as was Hillary Clinton when she told a political reporter in 2008 that Obama wasn’t a closet follower of the Islamic faith ‘as far as I know.’ That is, however, the worst possible interpretation of Walker’s intentions.”
First elected governor in 2010, Scott Walker won his third election in four years on the job in November 2014 in the blue state of Wisconsin. After enacting the collective bargaining reform law known as Act 10, public sector unions mounted a failed recall election in 2012 against him. Recalls of other Republican state legislators were only temporarily successful, as both houses of the Wisconsin state legislature are back under GOP control. An effort to dislodge a perceived Scott Walker ally from the Wisconsin Supreme Court also went down to defeat.
The soft-spoken Walker is the only governor in American history to survive a recall .
Added Walker in the Post interview about the president’s faith, “I’ve actually never talked about it or I haven’t read about that. I’ve never asked him that. You’ve asked me to make statements about people that I haven’t had a conversation with about that. How [could] I say if I know either of you are a Christian?”
Although there is obviously a big difference between an elected official possibly seeking national office and a comedian and social commentator, Real Time host Bill Maher last year used the “drop-dead atheist” terminology to describe Obama, which apparently escaped the media’s notice.
In an appearance with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show , Maher claimed that Obama is only pretending to be a Christian for political expediency and that he was “a liar” for “spouting spiritual bulls**t.”
Maher, who supports the president on most issues, insisted that the nascent politician only joined Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church in Chicago “because he wanted to move ahead in the political world, and of course you had to be part of a church.”
In some apparent damage control following the Post story, a Scott Walker spokeswoman subsequently said that “Of course the governor thinks the president is a Christian,” and deemed the line of questioning a distraction from important issues.
As far as Rudy Giuliani’s controversial declaration that President Obama doesn’t love America , Gov. Walker said , “The mayor can speak for himself. I’m not going to comment on whether, what the president thinks or not. He can speak for himself. I’ll tell you I love America, and I think there are plenty of people Democrat, Republican, independent, and everybody in between who love this country.”
Scott Walker previously took some heat from the media for ducking a question about evolution during a recent visit to London. He subsequently released a statement reaffirming his view that faith and science go hand in hand.
[Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images News]