Brian Williams conducted the interview with Obama under a rain-soaked tent in New Orleans,  where the president and his family flew in for a photo op and speech commemorating the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  The NBC anchor asked Scooter why so many people were uncertain about something so fundamental as his faith.  Was it simply an failure to communicate?

The President of the United States snarkily replied:

I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead.

Obama went on, visibly annoyed:

The facts are the facts. We went through some of this during the campaign — there is a mechanism, a network of misinformation that in a new media era can get churned out there constantly.  I will always put my money on the American people, and I’m not going to be worried too much about what rumors are floating around there.

You mean, you will always take the money of the American people…in a heartbeat.

According to a Pew poll released earlier this month, 18 percent of Americans identify Obama as Muslim.   Only a third identified Obama, who speaks about his faith in his autobiography, as Christian.

Perhaps it is the fact that he spent 20 years under the teachings of a racist preacher in a Black  Liberation Theology Church, perceived as being Marxist in their philosophy and sympathetic to Islam and its teachings.

Or, maybe, it’s this Actual quote from “The Audacity of Hope” [pg. 261]:

Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction. 

Obama, who just returned from a long, garish vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, feebly claims that didn’t watch Glenn Beck’s massive rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, adding that he was focused on the long-term, not on the “Nightly News.”

And if you believe that garbage, I have beachfront property for sale in Arizona.

Obama explained:

It’s not surprising that someone like a Mr. Beck is able to stir up a certain portion of [the American people]. … That’s been true throughout our history.

Obama doubled down on his support for a mosque and community center planned for a site two blocks north of ground zero in lower Manhattan, denying reports that he tried to back away from backing the controversial project:

I didn’t walk it back it all.  I was very specific with my team… The core value and principle that every American is treated the same doesn’t change… At [a White House Ramadan celebration], I had Muslim Americans who had been in uniform fighting in Iraq… How can you say to them that their religious faith is less worthy of respect?… That’s something that I feel very strongly about.

Although, you had no problem cancelling the White House Day of Prayer Breakfast the first year you ascended to the throne, huh, Scooter?

Obama added:

I respect the feelings on the other side.

No, you don’t.

Obama has been a very vocal and very harsh critic of the Bush administration’s sluggish response to Katrina.  So, naturally when Williams dared to ask him if the BP Gulf oil spill was his administration’s Katrina, because of a failure to act quickly enough, he got his widdle feewings hurt.  Awww.

Scooter responded:

It’s just not accurate.  The only thing in common with the Katrina response was [oil spill incident commander] Thad Allen… We had immediately [deployed] thousands of vessels, tens of thousands of people.

The spill has wreaked less havoc on the Gulf Coast “because of the sturdiness and steadiness” of his administration’s response, Obama added.

Sturdiness?  Steadiness?  The only sturdiness and steadiness you displayed during the Deepwater Horizon Disaster was your determination to continue playing golf as often as possible.

By the way, according to Drudge, while the president was in Martha’s Vineyard, workers at the White House have been busy installing new carpets, drapes, painting, etc. in the Oval Office. 

I wonder if they put a Persian rug in there?