WASHINGTON, 26 January 2007 — Insisting he will not be “Swift boated,” Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., pushed back Wednesday against “ludicrous” rumors reported on Fox News that he attended a radical Islamic school.

“The notion that somehow, at the age of 6 or 7, I was being trained for something other than math, science and reading, is ludicrous,” Obama said on ABC television.

Taking on Fox hosts Steve Doocy and John Gibson by name, Obama’s campaign blasted the “malicious, irresponsible charges” they aired.

“You have to take control and make sure that folks know the facts and not just these innuendos from the right-wing smear machine,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. “We will aggressively address any charges that are leveled.”

“The notion that me going to school in Indonesia for two years at a public school there at the age of 7 and 8 is probably not going to be endangering in some way the people of America,” Obama said on NBC’s “Today” show.

The push-back was a signal Obama would fight to protect his reputation in the presidential campaign.

“We will not be swift-boated,” said Obama communications director Robert Gibbs. “And we won’t take allegations that are patently untrue lying down.”

Many Democrats argued that Kerry’s failure to challenge aggressively his critics in the 2004 presidential race cost him in his effort to unseat President Bush. A group with conservative ties, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, charged that Kerry did not deserve the medals he won in the Vietnam War — despite his combat record of bravery and valor. Kerry announced Wednesday that he will not run again in 2008.

The smear campaign against Obama surfaced last week on the website of the conservative Insight magazine, owned by the Washington Times, the day after Obama announced he was jumping into the 2008 presidential race.

Conservative Internet blogs and the Fox News Channel picked up the story and spread the charges just as his candidacy was getting off the ground. Interviews by CNN and The Associated Press at the elementary school in Jakarta found that it’s a public and secular institution that has been open to students of all faiths since before the White House hopeful attended in the late 1960s.

Obama, who was born in Hawaii, moved to Indonesia at age 6 to live with his mother and stepfather, attending schools in the country until age 10, when he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents.

“The allegations are completely baseless,” Akmad Solichin, the vice principal at SDN Menteng 1, told AP. He added, “Yes, most of our students are Muslim, but there are Christians as well. Everyone’s welcome here...it’s a public school.”

A spokesman for Indonesia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs also said claims that Obama studied at an Islamic school are groundless.

“SDN Menteng 1 is a public primary school that is open to people of all faiths,” said the spokesman, Sutopo, who goes by only one name. “Moreover, he studied earlier at Fransiskus Assisi, which is clearly a Catholic school.”

Obama’s mother, divorced from Obama’s father, married a man from Indonesia named Lolo Soetoro, and the family relocated to the country from 1967-71. At first, Obama attended the Catholic school, Fransiskus Assisis, where as a six-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism.

Documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim, the religion of his stepfather, due to requirements that each student choose one of five state-sanctioned religions when registering — Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic or Protestant.

The Illinois senator is currently a member of the United Church of Christ.