Yesterday, I asked for someone to explain why AG Holder and DHS Secretary napolitano refuse to characterize the terrorists as radical Islamic terrorists. Today, rush Limbaugh gave his answer: He thinks that since Holder and his former law firm represented many of the Gitmo terrorist detainees, Holder does not want to undermine the cases of his former clients by calling the new terror plots "radical Islamic" plots.
I did not know that Rush Limbaugh read my site, but thanks for the answer.
Seriously, I do not agree with Limbaugh's reasoning. Even if Holder was concerned about his former clients, there is nothing to indicate that they would be harmed in any way if Shahzad and the others were accurately described as Islamic terrorists. there has to be something else.
I did also get a response from Steve Brill who told me that he thinks that the reason is just a political one. If the terrorists are called Islamic radicals, it makes the obama team look bad. Again, thanks for the reason, but I just do not buy it. why does Obama look any worse (is that even possible) if Shahzad is called a radical Islamic terrorist.
Actually, I think that it is another manifestation of team Obama believing that words are more important than actions or even reality. If we don't call them Islamic terrorists, maybe such terrorists will cease to exist. It may sound crazy, but then, the Obamacrats certainly seem crazy.
3 comments:
I think you're making it more complicated than it is. A major tenet of the Obama Presidential campaign, continued in his Presidency, is that the prior Administration abused the rights of citizens and detainees through surveillance, "torture" and other inappropriate conduct while overreacting to and exaggerating the true risk of terrorism.
To the extent that Obama could show that without such "heinous" techniques, the country is nevertheless able to avoid terrorist attacks, the case of Bush overreaction and the Dems as more benign opetatives is re-enforced. Any successful terrorist attack would obviously hurt this narrative, but realistically there's nothing Obama could do about that. Whenever, though, there is an ambiguous attempted attack, to the extent it can be spun as a garden variety, one-off criminal act rather than a "terrorist" attack by a group of Islamics no less, it allows the "Bush over-reacted/we're reasonable and care about personal liberty" message to effectively be repeated.
I had to laugh when you say that the Obama message could be "effectively" repeated. No one accepts his message about safety at a time right after a flubbed terror attack except for the true koolade drinkers.
I wrote this in part:
"to the extent it can be spun as a garden variety, one-off criminal act rather than a "terrorist" attack by a group of Islamics no less, it allows the "Bush over-reacted/we're reasonable and care about personal liberty" message to effectively be repeated".
Your response puzzled me. I am not claiming that the strategy will generally be effective. What I'm saying is that the strategy ATTEMPTS to convince people beyond the Kool-Aide drinkers that Obama is different from Bush and the criticisms of Bush policies remain valid. All the while, they are using many of the Bush policies, largely without much public discussion.
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