By Warner Todd Huston ——Bio and Archives--November 7, 2009
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So what of Obama? Why he's still trying to understand this "tragic shooting." Hours after the murderous rampage concluded, Obama made some rather facile comments after his jaunty opening remarks to members of America's "First Nations" consisting of a long list of special "shout outs" to participants there.
"I planned to make some broader remarks," he told the crowd. "But as some of you might have heard there has been a tragic shooting at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas." "This morning I met with FBI Director Mueller and the relevant agencies to discuss their ongoing investigation into what caused one individual to turn his gun on fellow servicemen and women," he said. "We don't know all of the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all of the facts.One word is all you need to know, Mr. President: Islam. Obama isn't the only one pretending that this incident is beyond understanding or akin to some sort of "tragedy" or horrible accident nor is he the only one pretending that Islam has no role in Hasan's murderous crime. As Obama called this a "tragic shooting" many in the Old Media followed suit. Instead of characterizing this as what it truly is, a crime motivated by religious zealotry, many Old Media outlets tried to pretend that this was somehow a "tragedy," a mere unfortunate accident that befell our troops, one with no obvious motivating factors. The Chicago Tribune, for instance, characterized Hasan as a "disturbed single gunman" instead of an Islamiofascist. For the Trib, Zeenat Rahman tired her best to pretend that Islam had nothing at all to do with Hasan's crimes. Ignoring Hasan's many examples of Islamic radicalism, The Dallas Morning News' Jacquielynn Floyd forcefully scoffed at anyone claiming to know his motivations and warned against drawing conclusions, dismissing Hasan's actions as "a special kind of crazy." And then there were the labeling of this incident as a mere "tragedy." The Minnesota Daily Editorial Board headlined one of its posts on the incident a "tragedy developing." For Newsweek, Rabeika Messina worried about how we should address these situations before "tragedy strikes." Even the Christian Science Monitor called the incident a "tragedy" that "unfolded Thursday." This sort of rhetoric is not merely imprecise it is a cover up of the truth. This was not tragic as if a mere accident. It was a murderous crime. Yet even worse than all the above, renowned moron Ron Reagan, extremist left-wing talk show host, coupled the tax/healthcare protests being held by conservatives that day in Washington D.C. to an event that was "pure tragedy" (his words) at Fort Hood. Apparently when Ron Reagan thinks of peaceable protests against a socialist government takeover of our healthcare system and other onerous taxation he thinks of mass shootings by Muslim extremists. I guess Reagan sees no difference between the two since one so easily invokes the other to him. So we have the president and his friends in the Old Media mislabeling this as a tragedy even as they try as hard as possible to pretend that Islam had no role in the Hasan murders — one of them, Ron Reagan, feeling that tea party protesters are just the same as a Muslim mass murderer. No wonder the left is struggling to understand what went on here. Am I saying that all Muslims are crazed murderers? Of course not and I add this as a postscript because hatemongers like Ron Reagan will immediately launch into such a charge against me. But to pretend that Islam is a mere accidental factoid in the Hasan incident is not just absurd, but criminally negligent on behalf of the president and his lackeys in the Old Media.Islam is integral to this criminal act. There is no other way to assess this incident.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
He is also the owner and operator of Publius’ Forum.