Barack Obama is being blasted for comments on why he avoids using terms such as “radical Islamic terrorism,” with one prominent voice saying the president sounds like a defense lawyer for the attackers.
“There’s no magic to the phrase ‘radical Islam,'” the president said Tuesday during remarks at the Treasury Department. “It’s a political talking point, not a strategy.”
He continued: “What exactly would using this language accomplish? What exactly would it change?”
“Would it make ISIL (ISIS) less committed to try and kill Americans?”
“Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above,” he said. “Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away.”
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See President Obama’s comments:
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In response, top-rated radio host Rush Limbaugh said, “It sounds to me like it’s the way defense lawyers talk. You know, when there’s a suspect, you got a defense lawyer saying, ‘Well, there’s no conclusive evidence here. We’re still looking for a motive. We haven’t found the right motive.’ Obama comes out after every one of these things, every one of these events, and Obama ends up sounding like defense lawyers speak on behalf of their clients. He doesn’t reflect the national mood about these things. It’s not even close.”
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“As far as he’s concerned, they’re just a bunch of ‘militants’ that got hold of some guns, as in Fast and Furious,” Limbaugh added.
“In his world, there’s nothing that sets these people apart from any other band of bad guys or criminals. And that’s how he talks about them, and that’s what makes me suspicious. There’s clearly a difference. These people announce their intentions, they announce their objectives, and then they go fulfill them.”
Limbaugh said Obama’s belief that the shooter who killed at least 49 in Orlando on Sunday was radicalized by the Internet is absurd: “It’s the guns. It’s the Internet. The guy was just an innocent flower living his life as an American citizen. Then the Internet and the NRA came along, and the rest is history. What a crock.”
Obama’s remarks Tuesday also took aim at Donald Trump, who on Monday reiterated the need to temporarily ban Muslims from coming to America until a system is in place to properly screen the entrants.
“The bottom line is that the only reason the Orlando shooter was in the United States in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here,” Trump pointed out. “Our dysfunctional immigration system does not allow us to know who we allow into the country and it does not allow us to protect our citizens properly.”
See Donald Trump’s speech from Monday, June 13, 2016, that sparked Obama’s reaction:
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“We’re startin’ to see where this kind of rhetoric and loose talk and sloppiness about who exactly we’re fighting, where this can lead us,” Obama said of Trump.
“We now with proposals from the presumptive Republican nominee for president of the United States to bar all Muslims from emigrating to America. You hear language that singles out immigrants and suggests entire religious communities are complicit in violence. Where does this stop? The Orlando killer, one of the San Bernardino killers, the Fort Hood killer, they were all U.S. citizens. Are we gonna start treating all Muslim Americans differently? We gonna start subjecting them to special surveillance?”
Limbaugh noted that it’s part of the strategy terrorists are using to infiltrate America and move about freely.
“Why does nobody see the fact that they’re all American citizens as something to investigate? It’s a cover! If they are sleepers, or members of sleeper cells, certainly coming here at a young age, becoming acclimated, establishing yourself as somebody unworthy of suspicion or threat, you’re ideal! You can pass all kinds of inspection. You can pass all kinds of investigations. ‘Yeah, he’s a citizen! Nothing to worry about here.’ Why does nobody see this as part of the strategy?”
Joining Limbaugh in his condemnation of Obama is former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who is also a supporter of Trump.
Bolton called Obama’s speech a “failure of presidential leadership.”
“We get a lecture from one of the most narcissistic individuals ever to hold that job about what’s wrong with the rest of us who don’t have the tolerance that he does,” Bolton said. “Instead of talking about the enemies of the United States and what he’s going to do, he talks about his political enemies. I just think that’s unpresidential, I think it shows the president to be a small man.”
Watch Bolton call Obama a “small man”:
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Regarding Obama’s comment that uttering the words “radical Islam” would not defeat ISIS, Bolton noted that “snark in a president is not an admirable trait.”
“And criticizing your political opponents in a speech to the nation at a time when they want to know what we’re doing to protect ourselves from other attacks like this is beneath the dignity of the office,” he added.
“He’s not qualified; he’s never been qualified.”
Watch more of Bolton’s response to Obama’s tirade:
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