That's right. Obama has kept mum about Morsi's vociferous lobbying on behalf of Abdel-Rahman, the "blind sheik," who is serving a life sentence at a maximum-security prison in North Carolina for seditious jihad conspiracy. The commander in chief's silence speaks volumes.
Morsi started publicly haranguing the U.S. to have mercy on the ol' blind sheik back in September. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., confirmed to the New York Post at the time that the Egyptian government had "asked for his release" and that the request was being considered by the Obama administration.
Underlings denied any talks were underway, but pressure on the White House had been building since at least last June, when the State Department granted a visa to a member of the radical Egyptian terrorist group Gamaa Islamiyya (the very group the blind sheik is alleged to lead). The Gamaa Islamiyya representative joined an entire delegation of Egyptian lawmakers who met with top State Department and White House officials. They reportedly discussed the possible release of the blind sheik with at least one Obama national security official.
In late August, Gamaa Islamiyya went on to schedule and organize a protest at the Cairo embassy to further ratchet up public pressure to free the blind sheik. Not coincidentally, a terror mob attacked the Cairo embassy on 9/11/12. While Obama minions were busy blaming an obscure YouTube video, the Department of Homeland Security had warned two days before the Cairo attack that jihadists were inciting the "sons of Egypt" to attack the embassy over Abdel-Rahman. "Let your slogan be: No to the American Embassy in Egypt until our detained sheikh is released," the incitement thundered.
Morsi has now amended his plea to include an array of "humane" benefits and visitation privileges for the murderous Islamic cleric "(b)ecause he is a man, an old man, and he deserves full care."
Lest you need reminding, the wily blind sheik has used his visitation privileges to wreak more terror from behind bars. His radical left-wing lawyer Lynne Stewart was convicted in 2005 of helping her client smuggle coded messages of Islamic violence from the imprisoned sheik to outside followers in violation of an explicit pledge to abide by her client's court-ordered isolation.
This "old man" is a virulent anti-American propagandist who condemned Americans as "descendants of apes and pigs who have been feeding from the dining tables of the Zionists, Communists and colonialists," called on Muslims to "destroy" the West, "burn their companies, eliminate their interests, sink their ships, shoot down their planes, kill them on the sea, air or land," and issued bloody fatwas against U.S. "infidels" that inspired the 1993 WTC bombing, the 1997 massacre of Western tourists in Luxor, Egypt, and the 9/11 attacks.
As GOP watchdogs call for Obama to keep the blind sheik locked up, we will no doubt hear more slick protestations that the White House has "no plans" to release the terror preacher. But I'm with Andrew McCarthy, the former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Abdel-Rahman, who warned last fall, "There's no way to believe anything they say."
This is the administration, after all, that endorsed the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, whose terrorist act resulted in the murder of 189 Americans. The Obama White House feigned "surprise" over the release, but documents obtained by The Sunday Times of London in 2010 revealed that the administration "secretly advised Scottish ministers that it would be 'far preferable' to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya."
This is the administration whose attorney general was a senior law partner for Gitmo detainee cheerleaders Covington and Burling.
This is the administration that tried to shove Cirque du Jihad civilian trials in NYC down America's throat over objections from 9/11 families and national security experts.
This is the administration that has rolled out the red carpet for scores of visitors belonging to groups serving as fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and other militant Islamic outfits.
This is the administration that lied and blamed pretextual Internet movies for its own dereliction of duty at our consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
This is the administration that suffers from chronic and deadly apologitis when it comes to dealing with the demands of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage.
This is the administration that continues to deny plans to shut down Guantanamo Bay and transfer inmates to the U.S., while it quietly moved forward to purchase the Thomson Correctional Center in western Illinois "to provide humane and secure confinement of individuals held under authority of any Act of Congress," i.e., Gitmo detainees.
Denial is a river that runs through 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., but the Obama administration's tone-deaf acts of jihad-appeasement speak for themselves. Concern is more than warranted. It's de rigueur.