The question that came to mind while listening to President Obama's remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast -- where have I heard this before? Conservative columnist and author Charles Krauthammer provided a helpful reminder when he appeared on Hugh Hewitt's radio show yesterday.
For Obama to compared the current-day atrocities committed by radical Muslims on a daily basis around the world with the crimes of people centuries ago in the name of Christianity is simultaneously "banal" and "repulsive," Krauthammer told Hewitt, and what you'd expect to hear in a specific setting -- and from people of a certain age.
Is Obama engaged in a long-range plan for "normalization" of relations with Iran, Hewitt asked, thereby causing him to downplay the obscene depravity of Islamists? (audio) --
HEWITT: The only way I can make sense of this is, the president is preparing to argue to the American people that they should forgive and forget Iranian terrorism since 1979, and that those remarks are just part of a rollout of a plan to put into context normalization with a barbaric regime. Can you otherwise come up with an explanation for that flight of fancy yesterday? (alluding to Obama's remarks at the prayer breakfast)
KRAUTHAMMER: The reason I would slightly dissent from that is because it gives him too much credit. (Hewitt laughs). I actually think he was doing it, he'll trot it out when he does the Iran deal. But the more immediate thing was simply to dismiss the barbarism that we saw with the immolation of the Jordanian pilot, and to make everybody believe that this is really nothing out of the ordinary. I mean ... this is a combination of the banal and the repulsive. The banal is the adolescent who discovers that, well, man is fallen and many religions have abused their faith and used it as a weapon. This is what you discover when you're 12 or 17, and what you discuss in the Columbia dorm room. He's now bringing it to the world as a kind of revelation, and he does it two days after the world is still in shock by the video of the burning alive of the Jordanian pilot, as a way of saying, hey, what about Joan of Arc!? (Hewitt guffaws).I mean, this is so distasteful.
Typical of Krauthammer, he pointed out something else about Obama's speech that has gone largely unremarked --
And, you know, there's one thing that I didn't even think about until now -- what the hell is he doing bringing India into this? I mean, it's the first time I've heard India drawn into this discussion. Here he is, essentially insulting, it's because it's a Hindu country, it's not Muslim. I mean, he'll say 'in the name of Christ', he won't say 'in the name of Muhammad,' 'in the name of Allah,' he won't use those words. (An observation also made by radio host Mark Levin, of prayer breakfast remarks by "Jeremiah Light").
And then he goes after India which is probably our strongest, most stable, most remarkable, democratic ally on the planet, considering all the languages and religions that it harbors. It has the second largest Muslim population on earth and yet he goes after it as a way of saying, hey, everybody here is at fault. They are not at fault. The Crusades ended 800 years ago. There's not a big Inquisition going on today. Joan of Arc was not yesterday, but the Jordanian pilot was two days ago.
HEWITT: This is the big, the $64,000 question, to date ourselves -- so why won't he use 'in the name of Allah' or 'in the name of Muhammad', but he will say, 'in the name of Christ' or he will say, in India, Hindu country. Why?
KRAUTHAMMER: What do you think I am, a psychiatrist? (Hewitt laughs again)
Obama on India -- a magnificent country that would be even better, if only they'd stop killing each other over religion.
Obama as president during World War II, after receiving intelligence reports that Nazi Germany was engaging in industrial-scale extermination of Jews -- Hey, who are we to judge after what we did to the Indians?
Another theory for the rationale behind Obama's core beliefs in American un-exceptionalism, moral relativism, and Islam as religion of peace, no matter what -- the nostalgic pull of the faith of his childhood. Would anyone be surprised if he eventually converted back?
