A big thank you to Obama after his mosque speech (Mehdi Hasan, Al Jazeera)

It only took him seven years. But maybe it was worth the wait.

On Wednesday afternoon, the president of the United States mounted a podium inside a Maryland mosque to give a much-trailed speech challenging the rising tide of anti-Muslim bigotry in his country. (Although, as the author and lawyer Qasim Rashidjoked on Twitter, "I heard @POTUS wants to make his landmark address at a mosque a truly authentic American Muslim experience, so he's arriving an hour late.")

Born to a Muslim father from Kenya, raised from the age of six to 10 by a Muslim stepfather in Indonesia, Barack Hussein Obama has been dogged by crazy, conspiratorial claims that he is a "secret Muslim" ever since he first declared his candidacy for president.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/02/big-obama-mosque-speech-160204075434687.html