Barack Obama: Class Clown and Defender of Islam

Always on the lookout for new ways to embarrass himself and the nation, Barack Obama used the recent Nuclear Security Summit—a pointless exercise in empty rhetoric and photo-ops—to find two.

During the class picture of all the assembled world leaders, the man the press is now calling the “class clown” detracted from the seriousness of the event by flashing a peace sign. The other world leaders were not impressed or amused. Yet again, the president diminished his office and our country by acting like an immature college student. The Prime Minister of Great Britain, pictured at the right, was not amused.

And then there was the kerfuffle over French president Francois Hollande. One recalls that the French socialist leader has been strong and resolute about standing up to Islamist terrorism. As opposed to his American counterpart, the feckless and pusillanimous Obama, Hollande has never had a problem calling Islamist terrorism by its name.

In a meeting with the American president the French president dared to pronounce the words “Islamist terrorism.” Well, you can imagine the horror that shot through the loins of the president and his flunkies. They apparently ordered someone somewhere to edit the tape of the French president’s remarks in order to blur out the words “Islamist terrorism.”

The Daily Mail sums it up:

The Obama administration is under fire for briefly censoring a portion of video footage in which French president Francois Hollande uttered the phrase 'Islamist terrorism' – a pairing of words that the president has consistently cut out of its homeland security lexicon.

Calling the omission the result of 'a technical issue with the audio,' a red-faced White House re-posted an unedited version of the footage late on Friday.

Hollande's remarks Thursday in Washington, following a bilateral meeting with President Barack Obama, urged continued cooperation between European nations and the United States to fight what the White House refers to as 'violent extremism.'

'But we're also well aware that the roots of terrorism – Islamist terrorism – are in Syria and in Iraq,' Hollande said, according to the official translation. 'We therefore have to act both in Syria and in Iraq, and this is what we're doing within the framework of the coalition.' 

The English transcript contained the correct version, and the White House, having been caught out in its own brand of Islamophobia, restored the deleted portion of the video.

But, what does it all mean. Allow me to suggest that Obama has shown himself to be afraid to pronounce the word Islam or Islamist or anything resembling Islamist in conjunction with the word terrorism because he is afraid of blaspheming the religion of the Prophet Mohammed. You know that Muslims are especially sensitive about such blasphemy, and, while Obama is not a Muslim himself, he seems to want to hedge his bets.

Remember when his flacks and flunkies insisted that the riots in Cairo and the murder of the American ambassador had been caused by a YouTube video.

Obama seems to feel that if he pronounces the word Islamist terrorism he will be blaspheming the religion of Islam. And he seems fear that that the wrath of Allah will be visited on him or on the American nation.

And now we also know that he was willing to damage relations with an American ally in order to make it appear that his precious ears had not been fouled by the expression: Islamist terrorism.

And the crushing irony in the scene was and has been that the socialist president of France understands the question of Islamist terrorism far better than Barack Obama.

We cannot rule out the possibility that Hollande was trying to confront Obama over his quivering fear of Islam. If so, it was well played. One can only wonder how the Obama White House could ever have imagined that someone in the French foreign service would not have noticed the censorship.