So Brian Williams asks President Obama what he thinks of the fact that one fifth all Americans believes he is a Muslim. The President gets defensive and sheepishly responds that this issue was put to bed during the campaign.

But let’s ask ourselves an honest
question for a moment. If he were a Muslim, would it matter? Yes, he isn’t, and
has said time and again that he is a Christian. But if he were a Muslim I
couldn’t care less. My problem with Obama is not his faith or lack thereof but
his policies. If Obama were an Islamic president of the United States who
berated instead of coddled Arab dictators, like King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia,
he would have my vote. If he were a practicing Muslim who prayed in the
direction of the Had but promoted democracy across the Middle East, rather than
Kissingerian realpolitik, which seems to be the foundation of his foreign
policy, I would endorse him. If he were a devout Muslim first magistrate of the
United States who spoke out against the abuses of women in the Islamic world, I
would deeply respect him. If he were a Muslim who prayed in the Oval Office
five times a day and fasted all of Ramadan and then lectured Hamas and
Hezbollah to stop putting all their money into rockets against Israel and
invest it instead into Universities for their people, he would inspire me.

The problem with President Obama is that
he does none of these things, rarely holding the Islamic world accountable for
its absence of freedoms, refusing to personally condemn Iran for its plan to
stone a woman to death, and putting the pressure on Netanyahu of Israel to make
territorial concessions rather than place the blame for the failure of the
progress toward peace squarely on the real culprits: the terrorist organizations
of Hamas and Hezbollah, both Iranian proxies.

I have devout Muslim friends who love
Israel and wish Arab countries emulated its democratic institutions, just
courts, and freedom of worship and press. Likewise, I have G-dfearing Islamic
friends who love America, would fight and die to protect her, and believe
America is the light in an increasingly dark world. I would support anyone like
this for President any day of the week over, say, Jimmy Carter, a devout and
self-declared evangelical Christian, who goes against the stalwart evangelical
Christian support for Israel and has the chutzpa to call Israel, a thriving
democracy facing existential enemies, an apartheid state. I would take a
competent Muslim President who believes in lowering the burden of taxation,
controlling runaway spending, and vastly reducing the appalling Federal deficit
over a President like Jimmy Carter, who as our leader, ran this country into
the ground.

As a Jew I am trained to judge someone by
their actions not their beliefs. I will choose an atheist president, who loves
and respects all of humanity and would put an end to the genocide in Sudan any
day over a religious president who believes that we Americans have no such
responsibilities to people beyond our border.

If an American president believed in
elves and the Easter bunny but fought Taliban misogynists who pour acid on
women who attend University, I would follow him.

And if an American president spoke
Klingon in his private moments and worshipped Capt. James T. Kirk of the
Starship Enterprise as a divinity, but set up an alternative to the United
Nations, to be known as the United Democratic Nations, open only to governments
that were of the people and by the people, I would support him, too.

In short, I could not
care less what a person believes but in what they do. 

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the
international best-selling author of 23 books and was the London Times Preacher
of the Year at the Millennium. As host of ‘Shalom in the Home’ on TLC he won
the National Fatherhood Award and his syndicated column was awarded the
American Jewish Press Association’s Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary.
Newsweek calls him ‘the most famous Rabbi in America.’ He has just published
‘Renewal: A Guide to the Values-Filled Life.’ Shmuley
hosts ‘The Shmuley Show’ live every Sunday from 7-9 p.m. on 77 WABC Talk Radio.
Follow
him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.