Legal Commentary

Jonathan Alter, trying to set the record straight on Obama's religion, writes in Newsweek that:

?Obama's father, whose name was also Barack Hussein Obama, was born to a Muslim family in Kenya but become an atheist long before he came to Hawaii in 1959, where he met Obama's mother.?

Thus, in an effort to debunk persistent rumors that Obama is a Muslim, Alter manages gratuitously to link Obama?s name with perhaps the only belief more unpopular than Islam ? atheism. One can almost hear David Plouffe's teeth grinding.