Square peg in the Oval Office

Power Line - Sunday December 6, 2015

by Scott Johnson

(Scott Johnson)

Responding to the terrorist massacre in San Bernardino this past Wednesday, President Obama will speak from the Oval Office tonight at 8:00 p.m. (Eastern). The White House indicates that Obama will address how the terror threat has “evolved, and how we will defeat it[.]”

“He will reiterate his firm conviction that ISIL will be destroyed and that the United States must draw upon our values – our unwavering commitment to justice, equality and freedom – to prevail over terrorist groups that use violence to advance a destructive ideology,” the White House said in a statement Saturday night. (Here I am drawing on the Hill’s preview of the speech.)

The Hill notes that Obama last spoke from the Oval Office in 2010 to mark the end of combat troops in Iraq. Any connection between that famous victory and events in San Bernardino this week? You can bet that Obama will overlook it tonight.

Yesterday Obama conceded the possibility that the San Bernardino terrorists “were radicalized to commit this act of terror. And if so, it would underscore a threat we’ve been focused on for years — the danger of people succumbing to violent extremist ideologies.” Gee, which extremist ideology would that be here? The extremist ideology that dares not speak its name in the Obama administration.

Obama’s repeated references to “ISIL” is a pathetic affectation. What does that “I” in “ISIL” stand for again?

Carl Cannon points out that Obama said this on Wednesday, just before the San Bernardino massacre: “ISIL will not pose an existential threat to us. They are a dangerous organization like al-Qaeda was, but we have hardened our defenses. The American people should feel confident that…we are going to be able to defend ourselves and make sure that, you know, we have a good holiday and go about our lives.” He said that in an interview with CBS News, the Obama administration’s unofficial media arm. (See Sheryl Attkisson’s Stonewalled, her account of life inside CBS News during the Obama administration. It’s now out in paperback.) 

Obama repeatedly peddles euphemisms and false assurances. Reality refuses to conform to Obama’s prescriptions. Obama is as impervious to experience as the worst men who ever lived. Obama does not trust the American people with the truth in part because he believes the American people cannot be trusted with the truth and in part because the truth is inimical to his projects. 

Obama’s antipathy to the United States and to the American people render him unfit for the high office he holds. We have a square peg in the Oval Office.

  

Read More Here