"While ISIL should be taken seriously, domestic terrorism acts have killed at least as many Americans as those who were promoted by jihadists." President Obama, National Public Radio, Morning Edition, Dec. 21 2015
December 23, 2015
By: Linda Case Gibbons
It's shameful. Everybody's piling on the president, blaming him for doing nothing to fight ISIS.
The concern is understandable. Everyone's scared. Nobody feels safe anymore.
And it's true. The president doesn't register emotionally, or respond like a president about ISIS, even when people are killed right in front of his nose.
But I think people are being too harsh. There's really a very simple explanation for the president's behavior.
We've always been told: "If you see something, say something." Well, President Obama hasn't been saying anything, because he hasn't seen anything!
Poor guy let it slip to columnists. It's absolutely criminal how isolated he is!
He didn't know! He did not know that Americans are afraid! And it was because he "did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino."
Makes sense.
It's an Obama quote you won't see in The New York Times, though. They scrubbed it out of their article, who knows why. Some say it's because he sounded stupid, but whatever the reason, doesn't the fact that he's left out of the loop make you absolutely furious?
That poor man! The president is supposed to receive intelligence from all sorts of government agencies, isn't he?
Apparently he isn't.
But even still, wouldn't you think the people around him would tell him how to react?
Like his wife, or maybe the attorney general?
After the Farook-and-Malik-husband-and-wife team of terrorists slaughtered Americans this month, Attorney General Loretta Lynch could have said, "Pres, the American people are shakin' in their boots. You know what I'm talking about. ISIL. Perhaps it's time we started reading Facebook."
At least that.
But she didn't. Instead she gave a shout out to the American people, sternly warning them that the government would prosecute them if they were mean to Muslims.
It was a strange legal move, but one the president always liked.
In the same vein, CBS' Scott Pelley did a nice interview with a bunch of Muslims, asking if they had been mistreated lately.
I can't remember if he got in touch with the families of the dead and wounded out in California for an interview. I don't think he did.
Now that could make you think "We the People" don't matter, but nothing could be further from the truth.
It's simply a misunderstanding. Our unfortunate president is information-less, set adrift in a sea of no-information.
So what we should be asking is: Where the heck is the FBI when Obama needs them most, for goodness sake? Oh, wait a minute. Didn't the head of the FBI, James Comey, say ISIL was a grave threat? And our military leaders?
Well, maybe they said it on cable and the president missed it.
Makes sense.
Whatever is going on, it's clear that information is not getting to Obama the way it's supposed to. Not just from his intelligence advisors, but even his own family doesn't seem to be leveling with him. If they're scared, it doesn't seem they're telling him.
Of course. if he doesn't click on the wide screen, how is he supposed to know?
So, if you're upset, thinking the president is favoring Muslims and neglecting to take on ISIL, it's not true.
It's because he hasn't been communicating enough about what he's doing against ISIL.
It's reminiscent of Obamacare. Same problem. It wasn't that Obamacare wasn't a good plan, it was that the American people didn't understand it. More speeches were needed.
So he made more speeches, and it worked so well with Obamacare, he did the same thing to explain his plan to combat ISIL, addressing and comforting the 70 percent of Americans who disapprove of the way he handles terrorism.
Even though it doesn't look like he's doing anything, with the Boston Marathon murders, and those in San Bernardino, he must be because Hillary says he is.
During the Democratic Debate on Saturday, she said she was glad we finally had a plan to fight terrorism, and that it's working.
She was referring to a United Nations plan, not Obama's, but what difference does it make? The U.N. does as little as Obama, but Hillary says it's working. So there you go.
And HIllary wouldn't lie to us, would she?
Everything else, according to her, is Donald Trump's fault.
Merry Christmas to one and all. Hold the line, America.