Sand, meet head of Hollande. In his just-concluded speech on the terrorist attacks in his country, Socialist French President Francois Hollande claimed that the terrorists "have nothing to do with the Muslim religion."
Of course. Terrorists run through Charlie Hebdo shouting "allahu akbar" as they murder, and proclaim themselves to be acting in the name of al Qaeda of Yemen. Why would anyone think this had anything to do with the Muslim religion? As my MRC colleague Rich Noyes observed, Hollande must watch MSNBC [where Howard Dean expressed a similar sentiment.]
The MSM has been fretting that the terrorist attacks will redound to the political benefit of European right-wing parties. Why wouldn't they, so long as politicians like Hollande refuse to recognize the terrorists for who and what they are?
FRANCOIS HOLLANDE: This is our best weapon, unity, that we must demonstrate our determination to fight against anything that can divide us and first of all, to be implacable, to be totally against any racism and anti-semitism. Because there was an anti-semitic attack, a terrible anti-semitic attack that was committed today in the kosher shop. Not to be divided means that we must not make any confusion and to make it easy to remove any [inaudible] concerning these terrorists, these fanatics who have nothing to do with the Muslim religion.
