March 30-31, 2009: New York Post, Fox News Blog Attack Obama Nominee as Advocating Subordination of Constitution to ‘Sharia’ and International Law

The New York Post publishes an article headlined “Scary! Obama nominee wants one world order.” The article, by Post reporter Meghan Clyne, attacks President Obama’s nomination of Yale Law School dean Harold Koh as legal adviser to the State Department. Clyne says Koh is a “fan of ‘transnational legal process,’ arguing that the distinctions between US and international law should vanish.” She says that according to Koh’s views, judges should put aside the Constitution in favor of “legal ‘norms’” from other nations’ laws. “Sharia law could apply to disputes in US courts,” she writes. “The United States constitutes an ‘axis of disobedience’ along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq.” The newly launched Fox Nation, the blog for Fox News, links to the article, which disappears from the Post’s Web archive shortly thereafter. [Fox Nation, 3/31/2009; Media Matters, 4/10/2009] An extraordinarily racist conservative blog, Chimpout, hosts a forum discussion of the article under the heading “Osambo picks another douche bag for his cabinet.” The forum’s thread is part of a larger discussion section entitled “N_gger College” and a subsection entitled “F_cked Up Facts about First Monkey,” an apparent reference to Obama. Commenters immediately begin launching “birther”-styled accusations of Obama being an illegal president because of his “Kenyan birth” (see October 8, 2008, October 16, 2008 and After, November 10, 2008, August 1-4, 2009, and August 4, 2009), and say Obama should be relegated to “picking cotton.” [Chimpout, 3/31/2009] Days later, Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck, conservative editor Cliff Kincaid, and former Republican Senator Rick Santorum will join in attacking Koh (see April 1, 2009, April 6, 2009, and April 9, 2009).