President Obama gave an interview with National Public Radio before heading off for vacation that should send chills down the spine of anyone who cares about national security. The president blamed the media for Americans’ fears of the Islamic State group instead of a.) the Dec. 2 terror attack in California, the deadliest on U.S. soil since 9/11, b.) the resiliency of ISIS, and c.) an aimless “strategy” to defeat the terror group.
“If you’ve been watching television for the last month, all you have been seeing, all you have been hearing about is these guys with masks or black flags who are potentially coming to get you,” Obama said Monday, CNN reported. “Look, the media is pursuing ratings. This is a legitimate news story. I think that, you know, it’s up to the media to make a determination about how they want to cover things.”
How delusional does a man have to be to question media coverage of a terror group only weeks after 14 Americans were slaughtered in San Bernardino by its supporters?
How tone-deaf does a man have to be to question media coverage of a terror group just weeks after it killed 130 during an attack inside Paris, France?
To add insult to injury, Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame, 20, was arrested in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Dec. 9 and charged with trying to join ISIS. He is the 10th Twin Cities resident facing such charges.
The president’s comments also come in the middle of a world-wide refugee crisis fueled by the U.S.-led coalition’s failure to destroy ISIS in Iraq, Syria, and parts of North Africa. Millions of people are scattered across the globe, ISIS explicitly says it wants to use the chaos to filter its members into western nations, and Mr. Obama wonders why networks are covering the story.
In short, Mr. Obama’s comments can be translated: “Can’t you guys just cover Steve Harvey screwing up the 2015 Miss Universe pageant? You’ll get ratings and protect my reputation at the same time! Come on, what do you say? You just need to cover for me one more year and I’ll be out of here.”
The president did everything within his power to ignore the Middle East since 2008. He believed his own hype — that the world’s terrorism-related ills could primarily be traced by to George W. Bush — and in doing so he allowed al Qaeda’s mutation to thrive and grow.
The fear Americans have of ISIS is a rational response to a reality that Mr. Obama helped create. If the president is unhappy with news coverage now, then he should not have dismissed ISIS as a “JV” team on Jan. 27, 2014.
