Obama at the Mosque
[guest post by JVW]
Traditionally, Presidents in their final year of their final term should have wide latitude to address controversial topics, especially those that might cause some discomfort within his own base of supporters. One thinks immediately of President Eisenhower pointing out the influential “military-industrial complex,” a surprising warning from a career military man who had led the Allies to victory in the Second World War. Not all Presidents take this opportunity — Bill Clinton spent his final year trying to rehabilitate his legacy after his impeachment and George W. Bush was busy dealing with the financial collapse that closed out his Presidency on such a sad note — but in theory the President’s final year in office ought to be an opportune time to address issues of importance even at the risk of alienating some of his supporters.
So I was pleasantly surprised when along with the predictable pleas for gun control legislation and feeble defense of his miserable Mideast policy in his December address in the wake of the San Bernardino shootings, President Obama had this to say about Muslims in America:
. . . If we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies, rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.
That does not mean denying the fact that an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities. This is a real problem that Muslims must confront, without excuse. Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and al Qaeda promote; to speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity.
Though it may be relatively weak sauce, for this President to acknowledge even in a vague way that far too many Muslims are far too sanguine about the violence done in the name of Allah seemed to me to be a breakthrough of some sort, and I was hopeful that President Obama might challenge more Muslims here and abroad to become more directly engaged in the fight against extremism.
Naturally, it looks like my hopes were way premature. Yesterday, the President visited a Mosque in Baltimore to give a speech intended for the greater Muslim community. That his choice of a location raised some eyebrows even among the “moderate Muslims” the White House so fervently courts was typical of the tone-deaf arrogant ideologues that comprise this administration. But the real missed opportunity was unsurprisingly in what the President had to say to the American adherents of Islam who gathered to hear him speak. Naturally there were the typical platitudes: “Thank you for lifting up the lives of your neighbors, and for helping keep us strong and united as one American family.” There were the usual sob-stories: “I’ve had mothers write and say, ‘my heart cries every night,’ thinking about how her daughter might be treated at school.” There was a banal pean to multiculturalism: “This is a moment when, as Americans, we have to truly listen to each other and learn from each other.” And, Obama being Obama, there was every effort to insert himself personally into the debate as well as the tired recitations of one of his shop-worn clichés: “These are children just like mine. And the notion that they would be filled with doubt and questioning their places in this great country of ours [. . . ] that’s not who we are.”
To be sure, the President did mix in a pretty mild call for Muslims to drop their religious chauvinism and to be vigilant against extremist voices who would seek to recruit within their communities (though, notably, not one word was mentioned about the potential for newly arrived “refugees” from “Syria” to promote the siren song of radicalism). He also issued a very pro forma challenge for them to speak out against persecution of Christians and Jews in Muslim-dominated societies (though Obama appears to willfully ignore the fact that the strident secularism in countries like France is proving to be as inhospitable to Jews as the rise of Islamism, probably because his favored policies here promote the strident secularism fashionable in Europe). He even made a somewhat oblique reference to the notion that Muslims should be interested in military service, again ignoring mostly avoiding the uncomfortable truth that Muslims in some Western countries have shown more willingness to join ISIS than to join their new nation’s armed forces.
But worst of all in the President’s address to the Muslim community of Baltimore was one quick clause in a sentence that seemed to tip the hand of the Professor of Constitutional Law as to what he really thinks of the First Amendment. In bloviating on the need for us to watch what we say about Islam, he uncorked the following:
So the best way for us to fight terrorism is to deny these organizations legitimacy and to show that here in the United States of America, we do not suppress Islam; we celebrate and lift up the success of Muslim Americans. That’s how we show the lie that they’re trying to propagate. We shouldn’t play into terrorist propaganda. And we can’t suggest that Islam itself is at the root of the problem. That betrays our values. [Emphasis added]
Think about that for a moment. The phrase “we can’t suggest that Islam itself is at the root of the problem” appears in both the President’s spoken remarks and in the official published version on the White House Press Secretary website, meaning that phrase was drafted and approved by the Administration. Note that telling the American people what they “can’t” say appears immediately after the President makes the more palatable suggestion that we “shouldn’t” help terrorists by bullying Muslims. Wouldn’t a more facile thinker with a sincere respect for the First Amendment have switched the placement of the verbs in the two sentences? We can’t play into the terrorist propaganda. And we shouldn’t suggest that Islam itself is at the root of the problem. Or, if the oratorical geniuses in the speechwriting team didn’t think that soared enough for Obama’s tastes, they could have switched the order of the two sentences: “We shouldn’t suggest that Islam itself is at the root of the problem. We can’t play into the terrorist propaganda.” Instead, Obama comes off sounding like most modern Western progressives, suggesting that he is willing to sacrifice free speech on the altar of mollifying a fashionable victim group.
It’s going to be a long, long year ahead of us.
[Note: post-publication edit made to choose more accurate word; noted above with the crossed-out original.]
– JVW
I’m shocked — shocked! I say — that Obama didn’t take the opportunity to tell the audience at the mosque that Islamic bakery owners should by law be compelled to bake wedding cakes for gay weddings. That must have just slipped his mind.
JVW (d60453) — 2/4/2016 @ 12:33 pmObama also gave a shout out to a health clinic run by the mosque “that serves the needy, regardless of their faith,” without mentioning if they are required to give pregnant women referrals to abortion clinics or provide birth control to teenage girls without the consent of their parents.
JVW (d60453) — 2/4/2016 @ 12:37 pmThe call to prayer is the sweetest sound!
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 2/4/2016 @ 12:38 pmHe only has about 11 1/2 months left in his term in which to make his first appearance at a Christian church.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 2/4/2016 @ 12:40 pmFirst
Those guys from Syria are not refugees – Name one other instance in human civilization where the young men were emigrating from a war torn society while at the same time, leaving their children, the elderly, their parents and grandparents and their wife’s behind to surrender to the invaders.
Joe - From Texas (debac0) — 2/4/2016 @ 12:56 pmThe only victim group, fashionable or not, is everybody else. Everybody else who is in any way touched by this despotic state religion is victimized by it. As they blow up religious antiquities they deem wrong and murder people around the world, as they rape and enslave women an children and their soldiers defile young boys, as they quietly enter American cities and set up their mosques and madrassas, s they recruit from the inner city and the prisons all while taking what ever free is offered by the gargantuan and complicit socialist welfare state you folks are worried about how a moslem named Hussein gives a speech.
You guys really don’t get what’s going on here and I fear by the time you see and understand it will be too late. The moslems do not want to be American, they want the world to be Islamic.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 2/4/2016 @ 1:01 pmYou guys really don’t get what’s going on here and I fear by the time you see and understand it will be too late.
Who the fuck are “you guys,” kemosabe? “You don’t get what’s going on here” sounds exactly like the kind of presumptuous arrogance that the other side is famous for and which has defined the last 7 years of Obama.
JVW (d60453) — 2/4/2016 @ 1:07 pmBTW, there are the same number of moslems named James Patrick as Christians named Barack Hussein.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 2/4/2016 @ 1:10 pmActually Barack is a Christian name. It’s in the bible.
But Hoagie I’m stepping in what your putting down generally.
Preach it Baby.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 2/4/2016 @ 1:14 pmWell, you cursed and called me names how about you tell me what we should do with millions of moslems who refuse to assimilate are directed by their faith to kill us.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 2/4/2016 @ 1:20 pmJust once I would like someone to list the alleged contributions of islam to the United States. Just once would I like to see a muslim apologist address what Jefferson and Adams actually wrote about islam, rather than the ridiculous propaganda narrative alledging “peace”.
Pete (fc87b2) — 2/4/2016 @ 1:20 pmHe only has about 11 1/2 months left in his term in which to make his first appearance at a Christian church.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 2/4/2016 @ 12:40 pm
Joe - From Texas (debac0) — 2/4/2016 @ 1:28 pmNot exactly. The Arabic name Bara(c)k with a K means “blessed”, and its Hebrew cognate, which appears in the Bible, is Baruch. Hebrew grammar doesn’t like K at the end of a word, and almost always softens it to a “ch” sound, as in “loch” (there are a very very few exceptions). The name Baraq with a Q which appears in the Bible is a different name; it means “lightning”, and its Arabic cognate is Buraq, as in Mohammed’s magical horse.
(The Arabic and Hebrew letters conventionally represented in English as K and Q sound almost identical to the Western ear, but they are different letters, behave differently, and words using one are not related to words using the other.)
Milhouse (643dcd) — 2/4/2016 @ 1:42 pmHe has been to Christian churches. Not often, but several times.
Milhouse (643dcd) — 2/4/2016 @ 1:43 pmGreetings:
Too bad he didn’t mention (discover) Muslim kuffarophobia.
11B40 (6abb5c) — 2/4/2016 @ 1:55 pmit’ll be good when Trump wins the presidency…
…he’ll repeal all of 0bama’s unwanted policies.
…and potentially, put Hillary to a trial that either ends with her execution.
Or total banishment from the USA… …like a banishment to a muslim country she seems
so in love with muslims… I wonder what will happen when she meets ISIS there… hahaha…
oh and ted cruz has no chance against hillary… if he is the nominee… most likely hillary will be president after that instead.
the dems are also all members of ISIS… so they want that version (which they consider the true version of Islam) in the USA.
YourMaster (c7e392) — 2/4/2016 @ 2:08 pmPete, I’m stunned you would say something like that in #11. We are all aware of the great contributions of Islam to the Republic. In that hot summer of 1776 when all those peaceful moslems were gathered in Philadelphia to help found our nation. Why, even the phrase “endowed by their Creator” comes from the Koran don’t you know? And once that Great Declaration was signed the great moslem warriors went to fight the British. All the great founders like Abu Washington and Mohammad Adams pledged their lives their fortunes and their sacred honor to make this land free. Not understanding all the thousands of great contributions the moslems gave America shows your presumptuous arrogance and makes you sound like a leftist. Or worse, an islamophobe! We have reached the pinnacle of self destructive political correctness when conservatives would rather call each other bigots, islamophobes, racist or whatever rather than discuss the problem: moslems in our midst who wish us harm and will not assimilate since it is against their religion. And the on-going problem that the left in this country wants to keep importing more moslems to get votes regardless of what it does to the nation.
The democrats want to bring in more immigrants than we can currently handle. The democrats hate America and want to Fundamentally Change it. Therefore, what they want is bad for America and we should be against it. That’s not hard to understand, is it?
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 2/4/2016 @ 2:36 pmHe sounds like “most modern Western progressives” because he is one, and the overriding feature of that class is self-loathing. So in addition to the pablum you cited, he stuck in his usual moral relativity phrase scolding Christianity. I could not despise him more, even if he had gone there just to raise a wedge issue with the GOP (which he probably did).
The political Islamists are only too happy to go along with it all, acting the Noble Savage all day long, while preaching their supremacist ideology and collecting money to fund terrorism here and everywhere.
I hope the GOP candidates talk more about this and educate the American people. If they lose to Hillary at least they will have opened the Overton Window a crack.
Patricia (5fc097) — 2/4/2016 @ 2:38 pmI can only think of one contribution Islam made to the US.
Because the Islamic states of the Barbary Coast of North Africa acted out the savagery and inhumanity as commanded in their holy texts, we have had a permanent Navy ever since Jefferson.
Steve57 (f61b03) — 2/4/2016 @ 3:34 pm#14 Milhouse,
I was just joking when I suggested that Barack hasn’t yet visited a Christian church. It was just a punchline.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 2/4/2016 @ 3:40 pmSteve57,
“…to the shores of Tripoli…”
Sing it!
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 2/4/2016 @ 3:42 pmRIP Maurice White, dead at 74.
Colonel Haiku (b52e12) — 2/4/2016 @ 3:42 pmThere were a handful of Moslems in the Continental Army. I suppose if you strained hard enough you could describe that in a very vague way as “a contribution of Islam”. But 0bama has earlier spoken of his counterfactual belief that “Islam has always been part of America”, and that it’s been “woven into the fabric of our country since its founding”. There is apparently a belief circulating in the Moslem world that when Columbus discovered America he found Moslems already here, and perhaps he read that somewhere and accepted it uncritically.
Milhouse (6847ae) — 2/4/2016 @ 3:50 pmI read somewhere once there were a few moslem soldiers in the Continental army too, Milhouse. But as I recall they were hired mercs rather than patriots. I also think they came down from Canada? Not sure.
However, Islam has never been a part of America and the only part they play now is in her downfall. Moslems come here for one reason: to usurp the Republic in favor of a theocracy and eliminate non moslems to prepare for the caliphate. The same as they do everywhere they go. To allow moslems in the US is to allow termites in your home. You’ll both have shelter until they bring the house down on your head. Then you’ll be done and they’ll move on.
Rev. Barack Hussein Hoagie™ (f4eb27) — 2/4/2016 @ 4:22 pmThis episode of p.c. by the usurper in chief should be a campaign ad.
mg (31009b) — 2/4/2016 @ 4:59 pmObozo is an apologist for Muslim violence. Pure and simple.
Comanche Voter (1d5c8b) — 2/4/2016 @ 5:47 pmGreetings, Comanche Voter: ( @ 2/4/2016 @ 5:47 pm )
Have you ever read “Comanches: The History of a People” by T.R. Fehrenbach ??? If you have, I would appreciate your feedback.
11B40 (6abb5c) — 2/4/2016 @ 6:27 pmThe One is gonna rub our faces in in every day for 300+ more days.
Bugg (fa64ec) — 2/4/2016 @ 6:39 pmTeh Won is – and has always been – a legend in his own mind.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/4/2016 @ 6:45 pmThe phrase “we can’t suggest that Islam itself is at the root of the problem” appears in both the President’s spoken remarks… Note that telling the American people what they “can’t” say appears immediately after the President makes the more palatable suggestion that we “shouldn’t” help terrorists by bullying Muslims.
Believe me, if Christians and their history were up for debate, he’d have no trouble saying “we shouldn’t suggest that Christianity is at the root of the problem…”
Mark (f713e4) — 2/4/2016 @ 7:40 pmthis is a more comprehensive view,
http://libertyunyielding.com/2016/02/03/what-obama-doesnt-know-or-isnt-telling-about-the-mosque-he-visited-today/
narciso (732bc0) — 2/4/2016 @ 7:53 pmMilhouse @23, do you have names to go with the assertion that there were any Muslims in the Continental Army? Were the enlisted in the cause posthumously, sorta like teh gays wait until someone is well and truly dead and can’t object before claiming them as gay on flimsy evidence?
Steve57 (f61b03) — 2/4/2016 @ 9:18 pmwell when do they ever get it wrong?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-considine/lets-honor-muslim-america_b_3339838.html
narciso (732bc0) — 2/4/2016 @ 9:22 pm“There were a handful of Moslems in the Continental Army.”
What a load of pure, unadulterated horsesh*t
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/4/2016 @ 9:25 pmCoronello, have you heard? The Continental Army used an early version of your X1/9 as a courier vehicle to hustle dispatches back and forth to the Continental Congress. Because the Lotus Super Seven couldn’t handle the 18th century cobble stone roads.
George Washington enlisted Sikh drivers for the mission.
Inshallah!
Steve57 (f61b03) — 2/4/2016 @ 9:47 pmObama is a Psychologists wet dream. He is a effed up emotional mess, and an angry boy, who wants desperately to find his Daddy.
Do I need to say more?
Gus (a084f0) — 2/4/2016 @ 9:55 pmHello Haiku!!
Gus (a084f0) — 2/4/2016 @ 10:00 pm“”“There were a handful of Moslems in the Continental Army.”””
Yes, and we had one in our current Army. Maj Nidal Hassan. He was also a Soldier in Allahs’ Army.
Hid business card said so. Yet when he jumped onto table and murder more than a dozen REAL AMERICAN ARMY members, WHILST SHOUTING……ALLAHU AKBAR……OBAMA and DISGUSTING HACK FEST, denied it was ISLAMOFASCIST TERRORISM. Nope. It was just your normal everyday garden variety, workplace violence.
WHO IS THAT STUPID????
that seems unlikely as the brits were fighting against two foes, in india, back in that era, the maratha, and one other tribal confederation,
narciso (732bc0) — 2/4/2016 @ 10:07 pmWP yields Bampett Muhamed, and Joseph Benhaley.
Milhouse (87c499) — 2/4/2016 @ 10:34 pmDo you have a problem with the evidence on von Steuben?
Milhouse (87c499) — 2/4/2016 @ 10:39 pmBarack said, “So the best way for us to fight terrorism is to deny these organizations legitimacy and to show that here in the United States of America, we do not suppress Islam; we celebrate and lift up the success of Muslim Americans. That’s how we show the lie that they’re trying to propagate. We shouldn’t play into terrorist propaganda.”
——————
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 2/4/2016 @ 11:15 pmI think it would be funny if someone had hacked into Barack’s teleprompter and re-wrote the text of his speech so that it reads, “We shouldn’t play into the propaganda of Republicans who say we liberals are always for more government and more entitlement programs. We should reduce the size of government and reduce entitlements as a way of proving we’re not who they say we are!”
Naturally, Barack would never entertain that line of reasoning when it comes to Republicans. He only entertains that line of reasoning when he feels compelled to defend someone like Nidal Hassan.
Cruz supporter. Obama is a lying Marxist, with SEVERE EMOTIONAL ISSUES. He’s a JOKE and a CLOWN. To even dignify his NONSENSE is a fools errand. Obama is a heap of crap.
Gus (a084f0) — 2/4/2016 @ 11:22 pmObama’s clownish speech to a very very questionable mosque is CLOWNISH. Obama has no intention of ever entertaining TRUTH, nor LOGIC. Obama is a seriously, SERIOUSLY MENTALLY ILL man/child. Each and every day, where Obama lies and talks COMPLETELY NONSENSICAL BULLSHIP, and WE as a SOCIETY and NATION, ACCEPT and even entertain his ASH-HOLIAN NONSENSE, we sink deeper into an abyss of CRAPTARDIOM.
Gus (a084f0) — 2/4/2016 @ 11:27 pmWtf has happened to the U.S.?? The MFM actually take this MORON seriously. WHY?? Because the MFM is completely without reason. LIBTARDS have been trained to be LIBTARDS by LIBTARDS.
41. Bullseye.
DNF (755a85) — 2/5/2016 @ 4:27 amThis will end badly:
http://www.allenbwest.com/2016/02/while-we-obsess-over-trump-something-truly-terrifying-is-happening/
DNF (755a85) — 2/5/2016 @ 4:34 am44. West is the best.
mg (31009b) — 2/5/2016 @ 4:42 amthanks, g.g.
Milhouse @38 & 39, that’s just pathetic. Joseph Benhaley? Since when has Joseph been a Muslim name? It’s not in the Quran; nowhere will you find the name of Mary’s consort or husband in the Quran (unless it’s in a transliteration of the Quran I’m not familiar with, and the person transliterating the Quran added it in, in which case it will be in brackets as it’s not in the original text). But Christians know and use that name as it is in the Bible. That’s the kind of name that guarantees you don’t get a decent job in Pakistan because they will presume Joseph is a Christian, and Muslims have a religious obligation to degrade non-Muslims.
“Sorry, Joseph Bhatti, but we just don’t have any openings for an engineer right now.”
A week later Joseph finds out a guy named Kareem got the job he was told didn’t exist.
This is what I meant by the wisecrack about the LGBT crowd posthumously enlisting people into the cause. When somebody dies and therefore can no longer speak for themselves they’ll claim that person was actually gay, based on practically nothing but innuendo. The idea that somebody named Joseph Benhaley was a Muslim is the same sort of endeavor.
The bottom line is this; there were churches and synagogues in America well over a hundred years before the revolution. But the first mosque wasn’t built in the US until the 20th century. That’s how “vital” Islam has been to the American project.
As anything except an existential threat, that is.
Which reminds me.
I was listening to some Irish bagpipes this morning, and I came across a Ligurian who simulates Irish bagpipes on his accordion. Really, really well, I have to add; you’d never know you’re not listening to bagpipes. Anyways, Liguria is a region in northwest Italy and its regional capital is Genoa. Christopher Columbus was from Genoa. Why did Christopher Columbus discover America? Why did the Spanish royal court agree to bankroll him?
Because the damned @$$hole Muslims had closed the eastern trade routes to India and China, that’s why.
So Columbus proposed sailing west to the East Indies and going to China by the back door, so to speak.
There you go, pete @11. Another contribution Islam made to America. They contributed directly to its founding, by adhering to the commands of the their prophet to make war on the non-Muslims.
Steve57 (f61b03) — 2/5/2016 @ 9:31 amCome on, Steve, that’s pathetic. Joseph (Yusuf in Arabic) has been a Moslem name since there have been Moslem names, and it’s got nothing to do with Mary’s husband. Yosef was Yaacov’s son, viceroy of Egypt, and that’s why Miriam’s parents-in-law gave their son that name. Joseph Benhaley was Yusuf Ben Ali.
I see you don’t deny that Bampett Mohammed was Moslem, or that Steuben was as “gay” as anyone got in the 18th century.
Milhouse (87c499) — 2/5/2016 @ 12:12 pmMilhouse, considering we are talking about the same person, was there a Muslim Yusuf bin Ali in the Continental Army, or a non-Muslim Joseph Benhaley?
You can’t say.
Yusuf is a Muslim name. Joseph is not.
Let me simplify things for you. I actually don’t dispute that there may very well have been Muslims in the Continental Army. Because some of the slaves in the US may very well have been Muslim, and some of them did serve.
But as should be obvious in an age where Bruce Jenner can insist we call him Caitlin, it matters if the gentleman in question went by Yusuf or Joseph.
If he went by Joseph, it’s wrong for you to posthumously dragoon him into the Muslim cause. I don’t care about von Steuben. It’s the posthumous assignment of class consciousness that I object to.
Is this really that hard to understand?
Steve57 (f61b03) — 2/5/2016 @ 1:41 pm