Boortz: "Let's ask Obama how many prayer rugs he has"
Summary: Radio host Neal Boortz falsely suggested Sen. Barack Obama is a Muslim, saying: "Let's ask Obama how many prayer rugs he has." Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim.
On the August 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Neal Boortz falsely suggested that Sen. Barack Obama is a Muslim. While discussing Sen. John McCain's inability to answer the Politico's question about how many homes he and his wife own, Boortz said: "Let's ask Obama how many prayer rugs he has." As Media Matters for America has noted, Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim.
From the August 21 broadcast of Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show:
BOORTZ: How many houses do you have?
ROYAL MARSHALL (engineer and "sidekick"): Two.
BOORTZ: OK.
MARSHALL: But I want to say one thing here. It could also be wealth envy, like you said, but it also could be a matter of age. He's so old he can't remember --
BOORTZ: Oh, jeez.
MARSHALL: -- how many houses. He forgot he's got two houses in Florida. He forgot about the house in Boca.
BOORTZ: Oh, jeez. OK.
MARSHALL: I mean, it's a possibility. The guy is 72.
BOORTZ: Senile. He's senile. He can't remember -- he goes -- he keeps going to the wrong home, too, at night.
JAMIE DUPREE (Cox Radio correspondent): Sometimes, it's the dumbest things that get you in trouble in a campaign, you know?
BOORTZ: Well, like I said, if this is it in this campaign, then this country just deserves whatever is gonna happen to us.
DUPREE: Well, just wait and see. Just watch if that thing keeps coming up in the next few days.
BOORTZ: Let's ask Obama how many prayer rugs he has.
DUPREE: See? And, you know, somebody would say that's not fair.
BOORTZ: Well, I'm not trying to be fair.
DUPREE: Well, exactly.
—A.B.
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