Fox and Friends Highlights Obama’s “Curious Crescent Logo” Controversy

Yesterday, NY Post columnist Michael Goodwin suggested that the Obama Administration had a specific agenda in mind when coming up with the logo for the Nuclear Security Summit, claiming the “crescent-like design of the logo (was) not a coincidence, especially at an event where Iran’s nuclear ambition and al Qaeda’s search for a bomb are prime topics.” This meme was picked up by Fox and Friends and right of center website Free Republic.

To be clear, nobody is (or was) claiming that Obama is a Muslim. At least not on air.

Writing for the LA Times, Christopher Knight sums up the controversy best:

Really? And here I thought the graphic design of a bead traveling on a circular path actually represents the movement of subatomic particles — an electron revolving around a nucleus — and not an Islamic crescent.

That symbol for nuclear power, often overlaid on a world map as it is here, has been obvious at least since the days of President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” campaign of the 1950s. It’s even the motif used on a famous 3-cent U.S. postage stamp, issued at Eisenhower’s request following a nationwide design competition in 1955.

None of the conspiracy theorists have yet explained where, in their paranoid — and comically politicized — take on the Nuclear Security Summit design, the star in the Islamic world’s familiar star-and-crescent logo might have disappeared to. (Maybe it’s hiding behind Kenya on the world map?) But if they do, I’ll let you know.

Video below.