Obama and the dastardly drapes

On a visit to Washington last week, I was surprised to see that the Capitol dome was being redone in a lovely mosque gold. Prayer rugs surrounded the nearby Reflecting Pool, and I'm pretty sure I spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the National Gallery gift shop buying a print from an A-rab artist.

Well, OK, maybe not. But there was scaffolding on the side of the Capitol. Clearly, these people are up to something. (Please feel free to use this disinformation to cobble a conspiratorial e-mail for a thousand of your closest friends and acquaintances.)

During this visit, I read in The Washington Post that one in five Americans - and one in three Republicans - think President Barack Obama is a Muslim.

According to the Pew Research Center, 60 percent of these folks said they learned about this "fact" from the media.

Apparently, the "media" are broadly defined to encompass both FOX News - where a "fist bump" between Barack and Michelle Obama was once somberly debated as some sort of terrorist greeting - and e-mails from people who have to wipe froth from their keyboards as they type.

I know I get more than my fair-and-balanced share of these missives. My favorite version in recent weeks broke the "news" that Obama's stealth campaign to destroy the nation includes - wait for it - terrorist interior designers.

We are sooo doomed.

"For a long time," the sleazy spam began, "I have noticed that the decor at the White House has changed since BHO moved in. The Oval Office is now stripped of the traditional red, white, and blue and replaced with Middle Eastern wallpaper, drapes and decor. The hallway that he walks out of to talk to the press now has Middle Eastern chairs, drapes, etc. And the thing that has bothered me the most is the bright yellow drape behind him every time he speaks from the White House. It has Arabic symbols on it... "

The e-mail includes a photo of Obama standing in front of this "bright yellow curtain" - with (oh... my... Allah) no U.S. flag in sight. Additional photos show previous presidents, even Bill Clinton, standing in front of Old Glory.

"Trust me when I say that this is intentional. It should alarm every American," the spamster states. "... He told you he would change America, didn't he? This man, whoever he really is, is not an American. He and his ilk want to end the American Free Enterprise System."

I had to tilt my head and squint really hard before I could see the connection between big yellow drapes and the end of capitalism.

A stroll through Snopes.com and other websites rather soundly "refudiates" - to borrow a term from Sarah Palin - the whole heaping mess.

Snopes (Arabic, I believe, for "don't be a sucker") shows photos of other presidents, including Clinton and George W. Bush, in front of those same drapes. (They're gold, actually.) "They're simply ordinary patterned drapes; they bear no 'Arabic symbols' or other markings of significance," the site points out.

Over at the White House Museum's website, there's a photo of Richard Nixon playing the piano for Pearl Bailey in the East Room in 1974. In the background - the dastardly drapes.

There are plenty of Obama administration policies about which reasonable people can disagree. But it's sad - and dangerous - that so many Americans buy into conspiracy theories about this president.

We've seen variations of this folderol about Obama's birth certificate, his supposed embrace of socialism and his alleged anti-Americanism before. His predecessor, for instance, was subjected to claims that he participated in - not overlooked warnings but was complicit in - the 9/11 attacks.

Those claims were despicable. So are multiplying attacks on Obama that are draped in lies - easily disproved lies, at least for people of intelligence and good will.

Daryl Lease is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. E-mail: daryl.lease@pilotonline.com