"Just say 'Islamic terrorism.' Just say those words and you'll win the election. Avoid those words and you're going to lose the election."
Please! Pretty please! Just say them. ...Despite the pleas of Bill Maher on HBO's Real Time last night, Senator Corey Booker of New Jersey declined to utter the words that seem so taboo for the Democrats. Bill Maher knows, as you can see in the video below, that the refusal by the Democrats to call out terrorism for what it really is could cost them the general election this year. Despite this outspoken concern by Maher, Booker still refuses to bow to this reality.
BILL MAHER: It was a horrible attack this week in Brussels. I know what Trump's message is. It's a horrible message. I don't agree with it. I don't know what the Democrat message is on this. What is it?
COREY BOOKER: Well, first of all, I don't want to think about one of the great threats to our country through a political lens. I want to think about what's the American message in all of this and how are we going to defeat what we see is a determined enemy that is doing horrific things, not just to the United States, not just to Europe, we have a lot of attention on things that happened this week but just today there were people killed in Iraq at a soccer game. Can't even go to a soccer game. In fact, ISIS has been killing more Muslims than they have been killing anybody else. And so our response has got to be what we're doing right now which is taking their territory away from them. This ideal they have. This perverse ideal that they have of creating a Caliphate. We're going to take their land back and we're going to win that war in that field. But we also have to disrupt their terrorist networks and we also have to counter violent extremism at home. And so that's not a sound bite...
The term "violent extremism" at the tail end of Booker's rambling reply set Maher off with this:
MAHER: But see, wait. You say "violent extremism." I've said this before on this show. I think the Democrats risk losing this election if they cannot put together the words "Islamic extremism" as opposed to "violent extremism.” Please just tell me that you recognize that it is a distinct threat much greater than any other violent extremist threat. You don’t really think it’s on the same order as the KKK? Are you really worried about the KKK?
BOOKER: What I'm worried about is that you begin that question by saying "the Democrats will lose if." First of all if the Democrats lose because of how they talk about this extremism, then they’ve got more problems.
MAHER: Maybe that's their biggest problem. Maybe that's what will lose the election.
Later Booker attempts using standard Democrat talking points on this matter but Maher will have none of it.
BOOKER: I’m not creating a false equivalency here but since 9/11, we’ve lost 48 Americans. Boston bombings. Christian walking in to a Planned Parenthood in Colorado, massacring people.
MAHER: Christians are not trying to get a dirty bomb. That is a false equivalency.
Towards the end of the interview, Maher pleads with Booker to just say "Islamic extremism" but to no avail.
MAHER: Just say 'Islamic terrorism.' Just say those words and you'll win the election. Avoid those words and you're going to lose the election. That's my advice.
Of course, Booker did not take his advice. Instead he stuck resolutely to the Democrat playbook of treating the terms "Islamic extremism" or "Islamic terrorism as taboo.
