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“I’m a Christian. But my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims.” –  Pres. Barack Obama, Cairo speech, June 4, 2009

Describing in his Cairo speech today his father’s relation to Islam, Pres. Obama pulled off the rare double-fudge, simultaneously suggesting less and more than the truth of the matter.  I think I know why. So let’s deconstruct.  Obama could have simply stated “my father was a Muslim.” And that would appear to be the truth. AP’s Jennifer Loven, largely considered an Obama fan, has straightforwardly written: “his father and grandfather were Muslims.”

But he chose instead to say that his father “came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims.” That might seem to suggest that his father had not himself been a Muslim.  How do we explain this first fudge?  I’d say it’s for domestic U.S. consumption: Obama’s clearly not eager to inform American voters of the fact his father was a Muslim.  Did you ever hear him mention it during the campaign? He’d rather not start now.

So where’s the double-fudge?  In the ears of Muslim listeners, that same statement about his father coming from a “a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims” might suggest that his father had a deep attachment to Islam.  But as Obama himself wrote in “The Audacity of Hope”:

“Although my father had been raised a Muslim, by the time he met my mother he was a confirmed atheist.”

Whoah! So his father was an apostate who rejected Islam, a sin punishable, according to the Koran, by death!   That apostasy probably wouldn’t have gone down too well with his Muslim audience.

So there you have it.  If Obama had been truthful today, he would have stated: “my father was a Muslim but rejected Islam and became an atheist.” Instead he resorted to his carefully camouflaging choice of words and in doing so pulled off the double-fudge.