Why Obama bowed to Iorio

Blogs are reporting a possible reason why Obama bowed to Pam Iorio, the mayor of Tampa, Florida:

“By virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Tampa, I do hereby proclaim November 15, 2008, as ‘Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Day’ in the city of Tampa, Florida.”—Mayor Pam Iorio.

I saw this quote at a few blogs, but none of them pointed to any news media source for the quote. Bloggers regularly post sensational (and not so sensational) items that they have picked up from other blogs, but that are not cited or linked to any legitimate source. Such information is not to be credited. So I did a search of the Tampa government site, tampagov.net. There was nothing there on this award or on CAIR. There wasn’t even anything on “Muslims” or “Islam” to speak of. At that point I was about to blog that I thought this proclamation was a hoax, probably intended to draw conservatives into making fools of themselves.

But then I found via Google a news story at the website of WMNF radio, dated November 17, 2008. It begins:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held its 6th annual banquet Saturday at the Tampa Convention Center. Speakers included Georgetown University professor John Esposito and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress.

And it ends:

A civil rights award was presented to the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, and WMNF received a community service award. Maritza Betancourt is the city of Tampa’s Human Rights Investigator in the Division of Community Affairs. She read a proclamation from Mayor Pam Iorio.

“By virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Tampa, I do hereby proclaim November 15, 2008, as ‘Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Day’ in the city of Tampa, Florida.”

Now that we know that Mayor Iorio did issue this proclamation honoring the Muslim Brotherhood front group CAIR, the next question is, could this be the reason Obama bowed to her? In the absence of any other explanation, it would have to be treated as a reasonable possibility.

I’ve saved the WMNF web page to my computer just in case something happens to the original web page.

Here is the entire story:

CAIR urges Muslims to define themselves listen

11/17/08 Sean Kinane
WMNF Evening News Monday. Listen to this entire show

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held its 6th annual banquet Saturday at the Tampa Convention Center. Speakers included Georgetown University professor John Esposito and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress.

Following prayers, about 600 people gathered to hear about the theme American Muslims: Defining Ourselves. Ellison said that during the recent presidential campaign, others groups attempted to define Islam and what it means to be Muslim. Many even tried to define Barack Obama as a Muslim, but the strategy didn’t work, Ellison said.

Ellison detailed some of the challenges that Muslims faced during the campaign, including two Muslim women wearing hijabs being forbidden by the Obama campaign from standing behind the candidate at a Detroit rally.

One way that non-Muslims tried to define Muslims during the campaign was through mass distribution of the DVD Obsession, which characterizes some members of the faith as violent extremists. But a University of South Florida religious studies graduate student, Catherine Lafuente, said propaganda like that won’t influence her. She is not a Muslim and her father died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

John Esposito is a professor of religion, international affairs and Islamic studies at Georgetown University. His most recent book is, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. Esposito said that a CAIR poll from two years ago pointed out the recent “political mainstreaming” of American Muslims.

Muslim-Americans worry about many of the same things that other Americans do, Esposito said.

Several Tampa Bay elected officials attended Saturday’s banquet, including Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin White and his newly elected colleague Kevin Beckner, Hillsborough School Board member Susan Valdes, and Temple Terrace Mayor Joe Affronti, who received a bridge builder award.

A civil rights award was presented to the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, and WMNF received a community service award. Maritza Betancourt is the city of Tampa’s Human Rights Investigator in the Division of Community Affairs. She read a proclamation from Mayor Pam Iorio.

“By virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Tampa, I do hereby proclaim November 15, 2008, as ‘Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Day’ in the city of Tampa, Florida.”

Photo by Sean Kinane/WMNF

- end of initial entry -

Leonard D. writes:

The simplest explanation for why Obama would bow to Iorio is not some old CAIR connection, but that she is a woman in authority (even if minor authority far below his). The point here is the same as with the various foreigners he’s bowed to: to symbolically lower himself before the person as a representative of a group, in order to achieve the nonheirarchical ideal of leftism. Men must be lowered to no higher than women. Americans must be lowered to no higher than Arabs or Japanese.

LA replies:

Yes, there’s a logic to what you’re saying, but she’s just the mayor of Tampa, he meets mayors all the time in his travels around the country, including female mayors, and other middling female officlals, but doesn’t bow down to them.

Leonard replies:

Do you know this, or just think it? How many female mayors does he actually meet? It seems likely we would know about it if he’s bowed to others, but I am not certain of that. Also, how many people does he meet that have done some or another service to CAIR or any of a wide range of leftist causes? It seems like he should be caught bowing all the time if we are to explain it on that basis.

As for why Obama would bow to one left-totem and not another, any explanation must take into account the fact that he has met many foreign bigwigs and bowed to few of them. My guess is he does it sporadically, when he feels like it. He is not conscious of his leftist motives; he just feels the impulse to bow before this or that person and does it.

LA replies:

“How many female mayors does he actually meet? It seems likely we would know about it if he’s bowed to others, but I am not certain of that.”

But you have undercut your own argument. First, since he is constantly traveling and meeting officials wherever he goes, and since there are lots and lots of female officials in America, we know for a fact that he meets lots of female officials. Second, the theory is not that he would be bowing to lots of them, but only to Iorio because of the CAIR connection. So the fact that he does not routinely bow to female officials, but did bow to Iorio, strengthens the CAIR theory.

Jason writes:

My guess is that he bowed to Iorio because he mistakenly thought she was Japanese, in whole or in part! Indeed, when I first saw her unusual name in combination with the photograph that you printed, that’s exactly what I thought, as well. Admittedly, in other pictures that I’ve seen since, there isn’t anything particulary Oriental about her features, but I think my hypothesis is, at least, as likely as Obama respecting her for some obscure political gesture.

P.S. The greeting was caught on video.

Jim C. writes:

Obama craves attention, so he bows.

Dana writes:

Would Obama have been raised to bow in Muslim “salaam” fashion growing up in Indonesia?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 02, 2010 08:06 AM | Send