You could see it coming a mile away, the latest example of today’s extreme liberal, ultra-PC, Islamophilic sentiments.
No sooner does a professing Muslim commit a violent, murderous act “in the name of Islam” then an elected official jumps up to say, “This has nothing to do with Islam.”
How interesting that these political leaders, from former President George W. Bush to current President Barack Obama and from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to current Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, are all authorities on the Quran and Islam.
How interesting that they seem to know more about Islam than many devoted adherents of Islam, including some leading Islamic theologians and clerics.
To be sure, we know that there are millions of Muslims who also deplore these violent acts, including leading Islamic theologians and clerics, and they are rightly concerned that some Americans think that all Muslims want to kill and behead them.
So by all means, we can say that the killers do not speak or act for all Muslims and that the radical imams who call for the slaughter of all infidels do not represent all Islamic leaders.
No one is arguing with that.
But it is almost painful to listen to these vacuous defenses of Islam by people who, for the most part, have probably not read a chapter of the Quran for themselves (let alone in Arabic) and cannot even list the five fundamental pillars of Islam.
Yet they’re going to lecture us on Islam. Seriously?
I remember seeing a press conference held by the Taliban in Afghanistan after President Bush declared that Islam was a religion of peace.
To paraphrase the words of these austere Islamic leaders, “Mr. Bush, are you telling us you understand the Quran better than we do?”
To add insult to injury, Democratic leaders today, including Obama and Hillary, are now pointing back to Bush’s words for verification. As Hillary said, “George W. Bush was right.”
How ironic. I had always thought that Mr. Bush served as president, not ayatollah. I guess I must have missed something somewhere along the line.
Today, as ISIS continues its onslaught, justifying its every action with citations from the Quran and Islamic tradition, we are told that the terror group has nothing to do with Islam, which raises the question: Then which religion is it?
I have already raised the question of whose opinion of Islam we should trust, that of President Obama or that of a lifelong, Arabic-speaking Muslim who allegedly holds a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from Iraq University, none other than Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS.
Now we must ask if we should trust the opinion of the mayor of Philadelphia, Jim Kenney.
Last week, after a man described by his mother as a devout Muslim (albeit with mental issues) tried to murder a policeman in cold blood at point blank range, Mayor Kenney said: “In no way, shape or form does anyone in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam has anything to do with what you have seen on that screen. That is abhorrent, it’s terrible, and it does not represent the religion in any way, shape, or form or any of its teachings. This is a criminal with a stolen gun who tried to kill one of our officers, has nothing to do with being a Muslim or following the Islamic faith.”
Remember that the killer, dressed in Islamic garb, said he carried out his acts “in the name of Islam” and also spoke of his allegiance to ISIS. Yet the mayor still made his categorical comments, while MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow opined that the attacker’s motive was “murky.” (Earth to Ms. Maddow: The correct analysis is that he may have been mentally unstable but his stated motives were crystal clear.)
Judge Jeanine Pirro was flabbergasted with Mayor Kenney’s comments, accusing him of bringing “nonsense [and] apologetic, politically incorrect baloney” to a law enforcement press conference. She labeled it “one of the most astounding asinine statements that I’ve heard since the last time I listened to a White House press conference.”
Sen. Marco Rubio also had some choice comments for the mayor at a recent town hall meeting: “This is ridiculous,” he said. “This is absurd. This is a radical person, living in [the] United States, who became radicalized. This is the new face of the war on terror, and it is dangerous and we need to confront it and defeat it. …”
Precisely so.
I’m fully aware that these Islamophilic political leaders may have Muslim friends and colleagues who inform them about Islam and that, on the presidential level, they certainly have advisers from the Muslim world and colleagues in the Muslim world who inform them about their faith as well.
So, when they make statements about Islam, they are not shooting entirely in the dark.
But they are shooting largely in the dark, at the least living in denial of a multitude of violent religious texts and centuries of violent religious history and countless thousands of violent religious incidents all confirming that Islam is not simply “the religion of peace.”
Why can’t our political leaders do what Charles Krauthammer calls for, namely, recognize this as one strain of Islam, even if it does not represent Islam as a whole (although many believe it does represent Islam as a whole)?
Is this too much to ask?
Krauthammer’s sarcasm was certainly merited when he remarked, “It’s good to know that the mayor of that city [Philadelphia] is a Quranic scholar.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
