During his address to the United Nations today in New York City, President Obama again blamed violent Islamic riots in the Middle East on a video....six times.
In every country, there are those who find different religious beliefs threatening; in every culture, those who love freedom for themselves must ask how much they are willing to tolerate freedom for others.
That is what we saw play out the last two weeks, as a crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. I have made it clear that the United States government had nothing to do with this video, and I believe its message must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity.The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.
That "video" has been used as a scapegoat for the Obama administration in an effort to distract away from failed policies in the Middle East and with proponents of violent Jihad. Obama also refused to call the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya a terrorist attack, he didn't say the word terrorism once during his address, directly contradicting White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olson.
“It is self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”
"What happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack."
“They were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our Embassy.”
This isn't the first time Obama refused to use the word "terrorist." Today on The View, when asked specifically if the attack in Libya was terrorism, he said the following:
"There's no doubt that the kind of weapons that were used, the ongoing assault, that it wasn't just a mob action. What's clear is that, around the world, there are still a lot of threats out there," the president said.
"The overwhelming majority of Muslims, they want the same things that families here want. They want opportunity, kids want an education, they want jobs, they want peace. But there are extremist strains that are there."
"There's never an excuse for violence," he said.
"The best way to marginalize that kind of speech [in the anti-Islam movie] is to ignore it. You don't make yourself bigger by putting other people down."
Yesterday Obama said we should ignore the video, today he talked about it in front of the entire world. Not to mention, Rasmussen reported yesterday the vast majority of American voters don't believe the anti-American violence in the Middle East has anything to do with the video Obama referenced repeatedly today.
Most voters think the recent protests at U.S. embassies in the Middle East were pre-planned and not a reaction to an anti-Islamic video on YouTube. They also believe overwhelmingly that terrorists are likely to have been involved in the murder of the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% of Likely U.S. Voters feel that the recent embassy protests largely have been planned in advance. Just 23% think they were spontaneous reactions to the anti-Islamic video. Nineteen percent (19%) are not sure.
So, let's recap the past two weeks. First the White House and the State Department said the attack on our consulate in Libya was a random protest that spun out of control, intelligence sources said there wasn't a protest outside the consulate and that there was a planned attack carried out to kill U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others Americans. The State Department sent U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice on all the Sunday talk shows to declare the attack wasn't pre-planned but a result of a protest getting out of hand. Finally last week, the White House admitted through Jay Carney the attack was in fact a terrorist attack while simultaneously still blaming the video. We were also told last week marines were on their way to Libya to secure the crime scene, they aren't there yet and the FBI still isn't in the country investigating what happened. Today President Obama in front of the international community, blamed the attack on a video.
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