Extreme Measures - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Extreme Measures
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Unless a trio of columnists from two major newspapers lied, the scope of President Obama’s foreign-policy fecklessness has now been revealed. According to the Washington Post’s David Ignatius, Obama has reduced the fight against ISIS to a “cost-benefit calculus” because the president “does not think this is an existential battle that is worth the cost to the United States of an all-out war.”

Furthermore, say New York Times columnists Peter Baker and Gardiner Harris, “Mr. Obama indicated that he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and made clear that he plans to step up his public arguments.”

Make that originally according to the New York Times. The paper’s editors, no doubt sensing that a president stating his need to get information from cable news shows sounds utterly ridiculous, surgically removed the paragraph from the story going forward. Moreover, until they received a firestorm of criticism for doing so, they refused to acknowledge the change. And when they ultimately did, they lied and said it was due to “space constraints.”

Really? “The section that was removed contained 66 words,” the Federalist reveals. “The section that was added in its place contained 116 words. If the New York Times was indeed ‘trimming for space’ in that particular revision, it will need to explain why its revision to that section added 50 words.”

No, they won’t, any more than Obama will have to explain the horrifying concept that a certain threshold of domestic terror must be realized before he changes course. “What would cause Obama to change his mind and treat the war against the Islamic State as an existential crisis requiring a major U.S. military intervention?” Ignatius writes. “Probably the trigger would be a big, orchestrated terrorist incident that so frightened the public that it began to prevent the normal functioning of America. At that point, Obama might decide there was no alternative to taking ownership of the Middle East mess with tens of thousands of U.S. troops.”

That would be another big, orchestrated terrorist incident, David. That’s because leftists, whose latest trope is ”only” 45 people have been killed by domestic terrorists in the last 14 years, apparently believe the murder of 2,977 people in the World Trade Centers precipitated an overreaction that must not be repeated. Thus a “nothing burger” like San Bernardino can apparently be tolerated, because “Obama has shown he wants to limit U.S. involvement (in the war against ISIS) so that it doesn’t become all-consuming.”

Or as the Times put it in their revised edition of that off-the-record conversation, Obama believes “the response should be measured.” Does any sentient American believe ISIS is engaged in measured aggression against America and the West in its quest to realize a worldwide Islamic caliphate, calling for a measured response?

Leftists have made it plain that Americans must accept “reasonable” levels of murder, rape, sexual molestation  — and now terrorism  — to maintain multiculturalism, diversity, sanctuary cities, open borders and political correctness. Any resistance to that agenda constitutes war-mongering, bigotry, xenophobia and/or religious intolerance.

The last bit couples ignorance with arrogance: Islam is overwhelmingly a political system, one that governs every aspect of peoples’ lives under the banner of Sharia Law. The same Sharia Law 51 percent of American Muslims believe they should have the option of living under, according to a poll released last June by the Center for Security Policy.

Just before he left for his Hawaii vacation, Obama informed us there is no “specific and credible information about an attack on the homeland” over the Christmas holidays. That would be the same Obama who assured us ISIS was “contained” after the attack in Paris, while his cohort Jeh Johnson resisted calls to allow immigration officials to examine social media because it might generate bad public relations. Tashfeen Malik gained entry into America, despite posting jihadi messages on her social media accounts, putting a feather in the cap of the administration’s “vetting” process.

One is left to wonder if Johnson believes 14 dead and 21 injured in San Bernardino constitutes worse public relations.

It doesn’t matter. The President is committed to a “sustained but limited campaign [that] may be slow and politically unsatisfying, but ultimately will be more successful, he contended,” states the Times.

While that slow campaign is unfolding, ISIS remains a viable attraction, able to recruit with impunity—as well as plan its next attack. And as long as it isn’t “a big, orchestrated terrorist incident,” there will be no deviation from the plodding, incomprehensible status quo.

This leaves us with bad news and worse news about the next domestic terror attack. The bad news is the response will be measured. The worse news is the President is the one doing the measuring!

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