Is Obama A 'Dark-Horse' Candidate To Be Gog?

Let me preface this with the statement that Obama is not Gog, and Bush is not Gog.

But there is a dispute going on on various mystically inclined blogs, whether Obama is Gog, or George Bush is Gog. A night or two ago, on Tamar Yonah's show, there was an interview of Joel Gallis and Dr. Robert Wolf, where they argued that Obama is Gog, and is thus the Antichrist. In her latest post, Nava of DreamingOfMoshiach argues that Obama cannot be Gog, because he is black. And since he is black, he is descended from Cham, and we know that Gog is descended from Yefet. As it states:
בְּנֵי יֶפֶת--גֹּמֶר וּמָגוֹג, וּמָדַי וְיָוָן וְתֻבָל; וּמֶשֶׁךְ, וְתִירָס.

I am all for equal-opportunity, so let me be a devil's advocate on behalf of Barack Obama as Gog. (Even though he is not!)

Firstly, to follow this line of argument, we must assume a literal interpretation of those psukim in Torah. And furthermore, we must assume that only the descendants of Cham were black.

But aside from all of this, her objection is that since Obama is black and his father is black, he cannot be from Yefet, but rather from Cham.

But Gog is just the king of Magog. We are not told whether the king descends from Yefet or from Cham. We are told, rather, about the country Gog rules over.

As she cites the Malbim:

פירוש המלבים על יחזקאל לח'
וחז"ל קבלו שג' פעמים יבא גוג על ירושלים, ופה באר שני פעמים והפעם הג' התבאר בזכריה (סי' י"ד), וגוג וכן ארץ המגוג לא ידענו עתה מי הם רק כפי המבואר שהוא נשיא משך ותובל הם מבני יפת ואינם נמולים

"And Gog, and so too the land of Magog, we do not know now who they are. However, according to what is explained, he is the prince of Meshech and Tuval -- they {=Meshech and Tuval} are of the sons of Yefet and are not circumcised."

Nava wants George W. Bush to be Gog. That would mean that the US would be Meshech and Tuval, for Gog is Nasi over them. Now, there are blacks and Jews aplenty, descendants of Cham and Shem. But OK, let us call the US Meshech and Tuval. I doubt it, but will grant it for the sake of argument.

Does the king need to be of the same descent as the people? Need he be of the same nationality? We know from a midrash that while Balak was king of Moav, he was actually a descendant of Midian. So we have precedent for a king to be of different descent from the people over whom he rules. And if US is Meshech and Tuval, and Obama is king of it, then he is a candidate for Gog.

Call him a dark horse candidate, if you like. After all, DreamingOfMoshiach cites psukim from Yirmeyahu such as ועל סוסים ירכבו ערוך כאיש מלחמה עליך בת בבל (ירמיה נ מב, where ועל סוסים ירכבו is the same gematria of George Bush. Aside from the Rashi that interprets this as the destruction of Bavel at the hands of Paras and Maday (long since passed), if we want we can point out that one etymology of Barack Hussein Obama's first name is Baraq, Lightning, such that he would be named after Mohammad's horse.

Of course, I will stress: The US is not Edom, it is not Meshech and Tuval, and neither George Bush nor Barack Obama is Gog.

This is a problem of theology via gematria. You can get anywhere using gematria and Torah codes. And the result looks like a frum dvar Torah. But it could, at its core, nonsense. And since you can get anywhere, you can have all sorts of flights of fancy, and declare it (incorrectly) to be the Torah perspective on X.

See some of my recent posts on Baal HaTurim to show that even Baal HaTurim, famed for his gematria, really only used it to draw in readers to his primary perush (usually not cited or discussed), and to bolster ideas already derived legitimately via other midrashic or pashtanic means.