Obama Going to Turkey

It’s a new dawn. Barack Obama will never have to answer to the voters again so he is, as Michael Rubin reports, doubling down on Islamism.

For those who missed the point when the American Secretary of State was the first foreign official to offer her blessing to the Islamist government of Mohamed Morsi in Egypt, Obama will make the first foreign trip of his new administration to newly Islamized Turkey.

If you thought that Obama would be heading to Tel Aviv you have been seriously duped.

Rubin explains:

Today, Frank Ricciardone, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, announced that Obama’s first trip of his second term will be to Turkey, a country which has witnessed under its increasingly Islamist government an unprecedented roll back of basic freedoms. The Turks are looking at Obama’s choice as an endorsement. They are probably right. On top of this, Ricciardone’s announcement comes right after Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that he would soon travel to Gaza, in recognition and support of Hamas.

As for the current state of Turkey, Rubin wrote in The Daily Caller:

One in five Turkish generals are now in prison on charges that, at best, are dubious. As Erdoğan expanded party control over the police and judiciary, he turned his guns on the press. Simply lampooning Erdoğan in a political cartoon sparks retaliation. Turkey now imprisons more journalists than Iran and China and, according to Reporters Without Frontiers, ranks below Russia, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe in press freedom. Last year, police arrested investigative journalist Ahmet Şıkand and confiscated pre-publication drafts of a manuscript detailing Islamist infiltration of security forces. To rally supporters, Erdoğan embraces crude anti-American propaganda. Pew Global Attitudes Survey now finds Turkey consistently among the most anti-American countries.

Surely, Erdogan's record merits the Barack Obama seal of approval.

Anyone who is surprised has not been not paying attention.