Obama To Delay Formal Conversion To Islam Till Retirement

Predictions differ over whether a post-presidency conversion will have real political implications.

Washington, DC, April 4 – Barack Obama has decided to wait until after he completes his presidency to undergo formal adoption of Islam as his faith, White House sources announced today.

At the daily press briefing this morning, spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that while the president obviously maintains deep affection for the followers of Muhammad and aspires to join their faith community soon, political considerations make it wiser for him not to convert until he leaves office this coming January.

“The president has on many occasions expressed affinity for Islam and its practitioners,” noted Earnest. “It seems only fitting, especially after his famous address in Cairo that changed the entire region’s attitude toward the US, that this be the next step in his spiritual journey. However, doing so formally right now, in the midst of a presidential campaign with much at stake, would only distract the country from the important issues at hand.”

Commentators explain that Earnest was referring to the negative fallout for Democratic candidates. “If Obama converts to Islam now, that will hand rhetorical ammunition to the likes of [GOP nomination frontrunner] Donald Trump, whose bread and butter is the exploitation and exacerbation of ethnic tensions,” said New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. “And it’s basically a formality at this point. Given the president’s accommodation of Iran’s political, territorial, military, economic, and diplomatic ambitions, it isn’t even a question anymore whether he favors Shia or Sunni Islam.”

Predictions differ over whether a post-presidency conversion will have real political implications. “Even if the next president is a Democrat – likely Hillary Clinton, but not necessarily – the Democratic candidates have taken pains to differentiate themselves from their predecessor so far, so I can’t see this affecting very many people beyond a fringe right-wing group that maintains Obama has always been a Muslim,” offered Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post.

George Will disagrees. “The Democratic Party will forever be tainted with the stench of Obama’s disastrous presidency no matter who holds the office at the moment,” he insisted. “A conversion to Islam, even if only a formality, after he leaves office will simply be a validation of everything my conservative colleagues and I have been railing at since day one: his sympathies for Muslims compromise his integrity and led our country into a strategic catastrophe, especially in terms of a nuclear-weapons-capable Iran and a betrayed Israel.”

At press time, First Lady Michelle and the couple’s daughters Sasha and Malia were shopping for Burkhas.

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