The Vig

Slog’s Eli Sanders shares a plane ride with a member of the Obama email’s target audience.

Kirby is one of those fascinating people who both know that Obama spent 20 years at a Chicago church with a fiery Christian pastor and firmly believe that Obama is a secret Muslim.

“All the evidence points to that he is,” Kirby told me. “I don’t trust him.”

The evidence Kirby has received comes in the form of emails from “watch dog groups” that he listens to, as well as chatter among his friends. He’s heard it all—Obama not saying the pledge of allegiance, Obama’s pastor engaging in hate speech, Obama being a Muslim—and he believes it all.

Granted, he also thinks Hillary Clinton is “crooked as a snake” and he wishes Mike Huckabee had won the Republican contest, but Kirby is nevertheless quite worried about a potential Obama presidency: “Having a Muslim for a president—if he’s true to his faith he’s going to be pushing the Muslim faith.”

I asked Kirby why he thinks Obama went to church for 20 years if he’s in fact Muslim.

“I have no idea,” he replied. “A lot of people have political reasons behind everything they do.”

The mental gymnastics we force ourselves to perform so we may continue to live in our happy little bubbles can astound. I know I’m not above it. But even as stubborn as I am, I’ll allow the truth to change my perspective.

What would it take to convince him that Obama is a Christian?

“If I heard him say Jesus Christ is Lord it would cause me to listen to him.”

I told Kirby that Obama has, in fact, said he believes in Jesus. Repeatedly.

“Oh, really,” he replied. “I didn’t know that. I hadn’t heard that.”

Kirby gets most of his news from email and the Internet, he told me, and then he instructed me that even if Obama does believe in Jesus, “believing in Jesus and believing that He is Lord are two different things.”

I just keep repeating to myself, “there are people who will not vote for Obama no matter what.”  This guy is one of them.  And that’s alright.