Meet the Man Calling Obama a Muslim

The pernicious rumors that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim can be traced to one man, the New York Times reports: Andy Martin, a failed lawyer and politician known for his anti-Semitic comments and frivolous lawsuits. In 2004 Martin released a press release calling Obama a Muslim, and he has since been quoted heavily by most proponents of the theory. “Everybody uses my research as a takeoff point,” he says.

Martin is a law graduate, but he was denied entry to the bar after a psychiatric finding of “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.” He has run for office for both parties; one of his campaign committees once listed as its official purpose “to exterminate Jew power.” He was plucked from obscurity last week by Fox News, which allowed him to falsely assert that Obama had trained to overthrow the government. (More Barack Obama stories.)