The Obama administration is historic. That’s something we hear constantly from media elites, from congressional Democrats and, frankly from the White House itself. And they’re right. This administration has overseen a historically slow economic recovery; it has overseen the ceding of more ground to terrorists than ever before; it rung up more debt than every previous administration combined, and so on. It is historic.
Another way in which the Obama administration is historic is in its employ of Islamic theologians in positions where such expertise isn’t required. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has spent the last week explaining to the American people how terrorists who, in their own words, acted in the name of Islam, yelled “Allahu Akbar” while murdering people, did not act in the name of genuine Islam. Marie Harf, State Department Press Secretary, did the same thing. Obviously Earnest and Harf are learned Islamic scholars who happen to have forsaken their training to become mouthpieces for government agencies. Kudos to them.
Of course this is absurd. Earnest and Harf are reciting talking points issued to them by people who know full well repeating a lie often enough, and from a position of authority, tends to instill that lie in the minds of those who hear it. They also know that no amount of repeating a lie can make it true – repetition of a lie is a commitment to it, not dogma.
The Obama administration will not admit there is a radical, dangerous strain of Islam that is significant in size and growing. After the Paris attacks, the White House announced they’d be hosting a summit on “violent extremism” on February 18. They made this announcement as if it was proof the White House was taking the threat seriously. But the summit was originally scheduled for October, but has been postponed since.
Its new date was announced because the White House had no choice – their failure to respond seriously and show any leadership in the wake of the slaughter in Paris tied their hands. It’s like continually telling your girlfriend you’ll go on a “couples night” with her friends, but always having an excuse why you can’t. Then, once she decides to invite her “male friend” from work, you suddenly become available and insist you really want to go. Your bluff, like the bluff of the White House on their “extremism” summit, was called.
But the summit won’t be about radical Islam, it will be about all forms of extremism. So those of you plagued by extreme Jehovah’s Witnesses and overly aggressive Walmart greeters can rest easy, the White House has heard your pleas.
It’s absurd, but it’s also currently the official policy of the United States.
This Obama denialism was crystallized in his failure not only to attend Sunday’s anti-terrorism march in Paris, but to even acknowledge it existed until forced to.
When asked about the President’s absence, Earnest did what someone who is lying does – listed a lot of possible excuses. When you convey the truth, no matter how ashamed of it you may be, you simply convey it. You don’t offer a laundry list of reasons as to why you didn’t do something.
If there were security issues, why wasn’t the Secret Service asked if it was doable? In addition to being an Islamic theologian, is Josh Earnest a security expert?
Another excuse offered was that there was “no official invite” and that the President was unaware of the event because unknown low-level staff didn’t tell him. This is as believable as saying French President Francois Hollande sent out an Evite that got caught in Obama’s spam filter. This was a gathering of the leaders of the most important and powerful nations in the world, to pretend Barack Obama was simply “out of the loop” is insulting.
Barack Obama did not want to attend because to attend would be to stand against something he doesn’t want to admit exists. ISIS is the jayvee team, Al Qaeda is on the run, after all, and General Motors is alive while Osama bin Laden is dead, at least according to the talking points. Upsetting that narrative would contradict what he’s been saying for years and might slow his terrorist evictions from Gitmo, something on which he places more importance than the Constitutional separation of powers.
The movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance contains the line, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” In the Obama White House, the legend is treated as fact, but those facts are falling apart.
There is a small window open right now, like it was after September 11, to unite the civilized world against the monsters and coordinate a counter-offensive that can make a difference in the war on terrorism. Rather than use that window, President Obama has chosen to stick with the legend.
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