YOU REALLY CANNOT MAKE THIS UP – AT 8:39 A.M. ET:  We report it to you straight, from ABC News:

On an upcoming trip to India, President Obama will skip visiting one of the country’s most sacred shrines out of fear that wearing the requisite headgear might make him appear Muslim, according to reports from the United States and India.

It sounds crazy, doesn't it?  But India is an ally, and snubbing an ally comes naturally to this crowd.

The New York Times, citing an unnamed American official involved in the trip’s planning, reports that the president will not stop at the Golden Temple, a Sikh holy site and one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions, because visitors typically wear headscarves, turbans or Muslim caps.

Obama was to visit the sprawling golden complex in Amritsar, "but the plan appears to have foundered on the thorny question of how Mr. Obama would cover his head, as Sikh tradition requires, while visiting the temple," wrote the Times.

"To come to golden temple he needs to cover his head," Dalmegh Singh, secretary of the committee that runs the temple told the paper. "That is our tradition. It is their problem to cover the head with a Christian hat or a Muslim cap."

I don't know what a Christian hat is, but I suggest Mr. Obama get one quickly and not create an international incident.  Is this difficult?

Obama, who is a Christian, has repeatedly had to fend off accusations that he is secretly Muslim. An April poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that nearly 1 in 5 Americans believe the president is Muslim.

Well, he doesn't help matters when he grovels before every Muslim head of state within shouting distance and makes a speech in Cairo in which he grovels some more.  It's the actions, not the hat, Mr. Obama. 

Our presidency has come to this.  Reagan would have put on a cowboy hat and said, "Take it or leave it."

October 20, 2010