The American Spectator

Political Hay

President Obama, speaking at Tuesday's memorial, described the Fort Hood attack as "incomprehensible." But what's incomprehensible about it? Nidal Malik Hasan telegraphed his treachery. The drip-drip-drip of reports reveals that Hasan self-identified himself as a threat to the military and authorities still hesitated to investigate him.

A PC-addled military and Defense Department simply froze: fellow soldiers didn't want to risk the appearance of intolerance; investigators worried about incursions upon recent First Amendment jurisprudence.

General George Casey's staggeringly inane comment after the shooting captures the atmosphere that explains it: "Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

Diversity at this point is a synonym for mindlessness and self-hating hypocrisy. Were Hasan a virulent and outspoken Christian military chaplain, he would have been branded a hate criminal and whisked away. But since he is a Muslim, since Obama isn't at "war with Islam," and since Islam is so obviously a religion of peace, he was given a wide swath.

Under the paralysis of a PC culture, all Muslims are moderate Muslims and anyone who says otherwise is a bigot. If Hasan didn't define Islam as a religion of peace but as a religion of jihad, that was okay; he would come around in time to the superior liberal understanding of Islam as non-violent.

The irresponsible frivolousness of such attitudes is mind-boggling. While Obama's Homeland Security was issuing dilettantish warnings about disgruntled, Timothy McVeigh-style soldiers coming back from war and pro-life activists at abortion clinics, the Defense Department was ignoring a deadly threat in plain sight.

While Obama was rescinding George Bush's protection of the conscience rights of Christian doctors and nurses, the Defense Department fretted over the freedoms of an open jihadist. While Obama was attaching a "hate crimes" provision to his defense spending bill, aimed not at radical Muslims but at the left's usual list of conservative "bigots," a proponent of suicide bombings was plotting the worst shooting on a U.S. military base ever.

And after it all occurs, his administration doesn't even pause in its political correctness. The priority now is to ensure that Muslims don't suffer a "backlash" from Americans and that "diversity" thrive in the military, according to Casey.

Liberalism as death wish has never been clearer. Completely unwilling to engage the facts, Evan Thomas and company competed for the most obtuse explanations of the shooting: maybe Hasan had been victimized by anti-Muslim prejudice; then it was Hasan as shared (through his patients) trauma victim of the Bush years; finally Hasan as "just a nut case," Thomas's contribution to the discussion.

For General Casey, a diminished commitment to diversity loomed as the greater tragedy; for Evan Thomas, the greater tragedy was that Hasan would "get the right wing going."

There it was: the real threat to America, the "right wing."

The war against jihadists is not nearly as worrisome to the left as the culture war at home. The only ideology the left seeks to reform is conservatism; the only theology it considers dangerous is Christian. Islam is peaceful; conservatism is divisive.

But sometimes the doctrines of Christianity do come in handy for liberal pols in need of bracing rhetoric. At Tuesday's memorial, Obama departed momentarily from his Oprahized Christianity and seemed to imply that Hasan was headed for hell: "It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know -- no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. For what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice -- in this world, and the next."

topics:
Nidal Malik Hasan, Evan Thomas, Gen. George Casey