“... America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles -- principles of justice and progress; tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings...”

Those remarks were uttered by President Barack Obama on June 4th of this year. And I wish I could believe that they were accurate.

Obama was, of course, speaking at Cairo University, and making good on his campaign promise of “delivering a speech from the capitol of a Muslim nation.”

Yet, despite the immense power of Obama’s oratory skills (and his incredible confidence in his skills), he nonetheless appears to be merely human, and does not seem to possess the supernatural ability to “speak things into existence.”

Thus, Obama simply declaring that America and Islam “overlap,” and that Muslims and Americans share “common principles of justice and progress,” does not guarantee that this “sharing” and “overlapping” actually occur.

By now, the horrific profile of Army Major Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is widely known. And despite President Obama insisting that we must not “jump to conclusions” about this American Muslim man, the picture is still horrifying: an American soldier who openly disagreed with the policies of two American Presidents (the “Hawk” George W. Bush and the “Dove” Barack Obama), who complained about deployments, and made “outlandish statements” against his nation and its government, was nonetheless allowed to rise through the ranks of the U.S. Army.

The obvious question – the “elephant in the living room,” to use a term from the world of family psychology – is “why was this kind of behavior tolerated and apparently overlooked?” And the only obvious answer, at least at this point, is simply “because he is a Muslim.”

Our government and our President will make their “conclusions” when they make them. The rest of us who are private citizens and who want our unique American style of human freedom to continue, must begin communicating clearly, and honestly, about the Islamic problem in our midst. And that means getting beyond the “kid glove” approach we typically utilize in speaking about minority groups, and being willing to speak the truth about Muslims – even if that results in “hurt feelings” for some, or cries of "intolerance" from others.

The unwillingness (or perhaps it’s a matter of inability) to speak the truth on these matters is often painfully apparent in both local and national media. Several days before Major Hasan became a mass murderer, a series of misconstrued, soft-pedaled press conferences and news reports unfolded in Phoenix, Arizona about a man who murdered his own daughter by running over her with his Jeep suv. Continued...