This is Steve Hayward’s advice to Donald Trump on what he ought to say to someone who accuses Obama of being a Muslim.

As far as I’m concerned, Obama’s nationality and religious faith are a settled matter. But you can understand why many Americans might think otherwise from his words and deeds in office. He has strengthened our enemies seemingly on purpose, obviously hates Jews and Israel, and really doesn’t appear to like America very much. If we did have a secret Muslim in the Oval Office, it would be hard to tell the difference from the actual Obama record. Instead of demanding my apology, the Democratic Party ought to apologize for foisting this plainly defective president on our once-great country.

You can see what Hayward thinks but knows he cannot say.

UPDATE: Then there’s this ridiculous article attacking Trump for being somehow opposed to small government and Republican principles. Here is a reply in the comments that says pretty well what I think myself:

What the author, GOP Inc and the DC Establishment fail to grasp is 25 years of saying one thing and doing the opposite tends to make people question things. How could Trump be worse than the supposed leaders of the leaders of the GOP ?They campaign on limited government, and then go to Washington and give away the store. And the most obvious example is the DC GOP wants desperately to give away the store again with amnesty to make the Chamber of Commerce donor class happy at the expense of middle and working class Americans. We’re supposed to be upset because Trump isn’t conservative enough, but the likes of Jeb and Grahamnesty are “true conservatives”? Without fixing immigration, none of it matters. And the idiots running the GOP do not grasp that. Trump, if nothing else, does. And without him no one else is even talking about immigration.

Trump is the only one anywhere talking about America as a nation state while the rest are interested only in one form or another of open borders. If they really are unaware of what is going on across the world, where our way of life is being submerged by migrants who know nothing of the principles of a free society and personal responsibility, then there should be no surprise when some of us will make one last effort to preserve for the next generations what we were able to enjoy ourselves.

FURTHER UPDATE: Here is what Roger Simon thinks Trump ought to have said:

Although it’s perhaps a bit too complicated, or even apocalyptic, for the campaign hustings, here’s how Trump should have answered the man’s question. Is Obama a Muslim? No, but he’s something even worse — a transnational progressive.

But he adds this, which is the Republican elite response of the moment to the challenge posed by Donald Trump:

On second thought, such complex ideological talk is obviously not Trump’s style. But there is someone running for the presidency with the intellectual chops, guts and speaking clarity to explain something like this to the public — Carly.

Fine and dandy, but what does she think about immigration, which is the real issue, not Obama’s religious beliefs which no one will ever know while he is still president.

And then we may add this, which is the conclusion to It’s Back: The President’s Religion Controversy:

So, America, is Barack Obama a Christian or a Muslim? Wrong question, destined to lead to an insufficient answer. I suspect that we are presided over by a modern Marxist agnostic, holding our own historical foundations and culture in contempt, while he is sympathetic with and ready to enfold the culture of people who have sworn to slaughter us. I suspect he has no desire to make us Islamic, and that President Obama is more opportunistically taking advantage of Muslim upheaval to work anarchy and chaos against the America he wants to change. Because American government is indeed founded on the Judeo-Christian principles I stated above, he exhibits the same simmering hostility to Christianity that we see generally among the “progressive” American Left.

Both of these have been taken from Instapundit