#2620: F.W. Burleigh

The online publication American Thinker is generally known as a poor man’s Newsmax, and is primarily characterized by general ineptitude, for instance when it comes to distinguishing fake news and incoherent nonsense from legitimate news stories. That’s how they end up publishing things like pieces by F.W. Burleigh, such as his 2015 piece “Obama and the Muslim Gang Sign”, in which Burleigh alleged, based on a photo, that Obama flashed a “Muslim gang sign” to the prime minister of “Morroco” and the president of Mali during a meeting, something that apparently suggests that Obama was in some secret Muslim conspiracy with several African leaders – at the very least, it is, according to Burleigh, compelling evidence that Obama was really a Muslim. But Burleigh already knew that, given how consistently “Obama is comfortable with Islam’s extreme.”

 

And Burleigh ought to know, doesn’t he? Burleigh is also the author of It’s All About Muhammad: A Biography of the World’s Most Notorious Prophet (enthusiastically reviewed by e.g. Alan Caruba, whom we had all but forgotten). Burleigh does not seem to have any relevant research background in any relevant field (at least we were unable to find it), but he really doesn’t like Muhammad or Islam – his website also features articles like “How to Bring an End to Islam”; “[d]ropping bombs is certainly part of it”, but Burleigh primarily suggests using cinema: “Hollywood quality blockbusters” depicting … his own books. That ought to do it. Burleigh also wrote a novel, The Imam of Time, to accompany his biography.

 

Diagnosis: It’s tempting to conclude with “whatever” to such silly conspiracy theorists, but lots of people actually read this kind of stuff and things people like Burleigh has anything going for them, even to the extent that they might mistake him for a serious scholar. That is frightening.