Christine O'Donnell Cancels Media Appearances, Has "Secret Muslim"-Pushing Advisor

By Irin Carmon | September 20, 2010 | 2:34pm

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Christine O’Donnell canceling major media appearances — even Fox News — means her 90s-era Politically Incorrect appearances pack even more punch. The latest: sparring with Al Franken. But wait! She has a new website, and it has positions! Sort of.

No one was surprised that O’Donnell canceled on Bob Schieffer for Face The Nation Sunday, but to back out on the in-house organ of the Tea Partiers and the Christian Right was rather damning. On Media Matters, Eric Boehlert called it “a humiliating setback not just for Wallace… but also for the whole Fox News team which is essentially sponsoring O’Donnell’s candidacy…Now Fox News has to explain to viewers why O’Donnell is ready to serve in the U.S. Senate even though she’s not ready to appear on Fox News Sunday.”

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In the absence of fresh quotes — besides O’Donnell’s canned response to the whole “dabbled into witchcraft” thing that if she really were a witch, Karl Rove would be a supporter — some reporters are digging further into O’Donnell’s team, including an advisor who pushed the outlandish theory that President Obama is a secret Muslim. The aide “asserted that because Obama had recited to a reporter the Muslim call to prayer (which he apparently learned as a child in Indonesia) he must be a Muslim,” according to Mother Jones. There’s more:

He noted that during the 2008 campaign Obama had mistakenly said he had visited 57 of the 58 states. “While slip-ups on the campaign trail are not new,” Moseley observed, “in fact, there are 57 States in the Organization of Islamic Conference. So the number of Islamic OIC States appears to have sprung more readily to Obama’s mind than the 50 States of the USA.”

Clearly, O’Donnell’s team is ready to face the world with rock-hard facts and reasoning. At least they now have a functioning website, which as MaddowBlog notes, has scrubbed some of the anti-abortion groups from her website from the endorsement section, the better to soft-pedal her extreme views.

Elsewhere on the site, the sum total of policy pronouncements for someone who has raised millions to be a major party candidate for U.S. Senator is a series of vague one-liners! Such as, under “Values”:

Believes our country was founded on core values of faith, family and freedom and will fight to defend those values. Will always fight for maximum choice for parents about where to educate their kids, including private, parochial and charter schools or in the home.

And on jobs:

Believes jobs are created when businesses are freed from endless taxes and bureaucratic red tape.

Thank you for that insight.

As for those Politically Incorrect clips: On Friday night, Bill Maher opened his show with a bang, noting that O’Donnell had appeared on his old show 22 times and that she owed him. Airing the already-notorious “dabbled into witchcraft” clip, Maher said that if O’Donnell didn’t come on his new show, “I’m going to show a clip every week…It’s like a hostage crisis. Every week you don’t show up, I’ll throw a body out.”

The internet isn’t waiting that long. A YouTube user has embedded the clip scene here, in which O’Donnell faces Al Franken — who would be her Senate colleague if, heaven forbid, she actually gets elected — as well as Rick Schroeder and Star Parker. The topic: sex education. O’Donnell repeats her anti-condom line, to which Franken replies, “I think hypocrisy will have harmful psychological and physical effects. Don’t you?” We do.

Fox News Has A Christine O’Donnell Problem [Media Matters]
O’Donnell Aide: Obama Is A Secret Muslim [Mother Jones]
For O’Donnell, Rewinding To The 90s [Caucus/NYT]
Christine O’Donnell VS. Al Franken In 1997: Sex, Condoms And Hypocrisy [Talking Points Memo]
Behold, Christine O’Donnell [MaddowBlog]
Earlier: Christine O’Donnell Once Dabbled Into Witchcraft