Althouse: "And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition..."

February 6, 2015

"And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition..."

"... people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."

Said Obama, causing some anti-Obamists to get on their high horse.

219 comments:

1 – 200 of 219 Newer› Newest»

tim in vermont said...: Yeah, he's right. Us white people should all just kill ourselves and get it over with.; 2/6/15, 11:18 AM
rhhardin said...: Some of us saw he was a moron way back in 2008.; 2/6/15, 11:19 AM
damikesc said...: I love that he uses the National Prayer Breakfast to remind Christians how bad we are while still not condemning Islam.

...he also seems to ignore that abolitionists were, almost universally, quite devoutly religious.

I cannot imagine why some people thought Obama was Muslim. He gives nobody any reason to wonder.

"You think Muslims are bad? Well, Christians did really bad stuff --- several hundred years ago. Sure, Muslims ALSO did the same stuff then and are still doing it now, but it's all Christians' fault anyway"

Well, his old minister had it right. We elected this fucking idiot and our chickens have come to roost indeed.; 2/6/15, 11:20 AM
chillblaine said...: Anti-Obamists! Clever. Then what we are against is the Obamacy.

I resent when he channels his inner Howard Zinn.; 2/6/15, 11:22 AM
Revenant said...: People keep quoting those lines from Obama's speech. Those are the wrong lines to quote.

For starters, this is a rare case where taking the lines out of context -- like this post did -- actually makes them LESS objectionable. People *did* commit terrible deeds in the name of Christ; that's a historical fact. White southern churches *did* defend slavery and Jim Crow on religious grounds. That's a historical fact, too.

What made Obama's comments offensive was the stuff he said before and after the quoted section -- where he says that the crimes of ISIS aren't really Islamic, where he tries to draw a false equivalence between Christianity and Islam.

In fact, the entire argument is incoherent. We're expected to believe that Muslim atrocities aren't really "Muslim", but the Inquisition and Jim Crow *were* really "Christian". Say what?; 2/6/15, 11:24 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I love that he uses the National Prayer Breakfast to remind Christians how bad we are while still not condemning Islam."

Seems to me to be pretty consistent with the way Jesus spoke to people. We're all sinners. Take the beam out of your own eye. Essence of Christianity. Learn it. Know it. Live it if you want to, but to fail to recognize it when you see it... what would Jesus say?; 2/6/15, 11:25 AM
Shanna said...: ...he also seems to ignore that abolitionists were, almost universally, quite devoutly religious.

I read an interesting book last year by a writer I later found out worked for a very liberal magazine. The book was King Leopolds Ghost about the congo and the mistreatment of the native people by the belgians,particularly having to do with the rubber trade. He goes very into how the anti-slavery movement in England and the US contributed to changing conditions but mentions religion only lightly.

In the update forward or afterward, he says that he realized later he downplayed the role of religion in this and that he was wrong to do so.; 2/6/15, 11:26 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "condemning Islam."

That's what you think the President should do? Ridiculous.; 2/6/15, 11:27 AM
MadisonMan said...: I don't see why a Prayer Breakfast should include a history lesson.

Nobody likes to be lectured before coffee.; 2/6/15, 11:27 AM
Guimo said...: Inquisition lasted 350 years & resulted in about 4,000 deaths. It did not apply to Muslims or Jews, only converts to Christianity.; 2/6/15, 11:28 AM
Shanna said...: Seems to me to be pretty consistent with the way Jesus spoke to people. We're all sinners. Take the beam out of your own eye. Essence of Christianity. Learn it. Know it. Live it if you want to, but to fail to recognize it when you see it... what would Jesus say?

Obama is pretty far from Jesus.; 2/6/15, 11:29 AM
holdfast said...: This would seem to be the logical result of Obama having attended a hate-cult instead of a real Christian Church.

And how come nobody ever mentions the fact that the Crusades, as misguided and otherwise messed up as they were, were a response to Islamic expensionism?; 2/6/15, 11:30 AM
dreams said...: Who and what are you going to worry the most about, something that hasn't happened in 500 years or something that is happening more and more in our lifetimes. We don't have to worry about the Christians but we do have to worry about the islamic terrorists.; 2/6/15, 11:33 AM
Revenant said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/6/15, 11:34 AM
Revenant said...: Seems to me to be pretty consistent with the way Jesus spoke to people. We're all sinners.

Heh, no. Jesus did indeed speak that way, but pointing out wrongdoing by the *ancestors* of the people you're speaking to is either off-topic or a half-assed attempt at invoking blood guilt.; 2/6/15, 11:34 AM
traditionalguy said...: Obama is far too smart for Americans who love a good fight and cling to their guns and religion.

He even refuses to take sides in fights against the USA and the dumb Christians. As if it matters to Americans he says European midieval knights reconquered Jerusalem from a Mohammedan occupation forces 800 years ago, but were unable to hold it themselves for long.

Line of the day: according to two NYT stories Kris Jenner ( formerly Bruce) is "courageous" for utting off his dick, but Chris Kyle was "insane" for fighting three volunteer tours in Iraq requiring that he recover from post traumatic stress.; 2/6/15, 11:34 AM
Thorley Winston said...: Seems to me to be pretty consistent with the way Jesus spoke to people.

Please show us where Jesus ever rebuked someone by referring to actions taken by some third party decades or hundreds of years earlier.; 2/6/15, 11:35 AM
lemondog said...: **teeth grinding**

Just in the early 20th Century, at the hands of the Ottoman Empire:

Armenian Genocide
Deaths 1.5 million[note2]

Assyrian genocide
Deaths 275,000–400,000

Greek genocide
Deaths 750,000[1]–900,000; 2/6/15, 11:36 AM
James Pawlak said...: 1. The crusades were a very delayed reaction to Muslims stealing the "Holy Land" from its Christian/Other inhabitants.
2. The crusades occurred about a 1.000-years ago, during which time non-muslim/tyrannical nations have developed such standards as are presented in the "Geneva Conventions" and "just war THEORY".
3. Military conduct in those times allowed what are now "war crimes", especially when demands for surrender were not met and attacking forces were forced to, at a great cost in suffering, to take a city by assault.
4. Obama's statements are: More of his Islam/Muslim protecting TREASON; And, should have had him booed off the stage.; 2/6/15, 11:36 AM
DrSquid said...: Hey here's a good one! What do Obama and Jesus have in common? They have he same middle initial. (rimshot!); 2/6/15, 11:37 AM
Mark said...: Obama is trolling his opponents, hilarious.; 2/6/15, 11:38 AM
Alex said...: Yes let's cite 500 year old crimes by the Spanish to defend the current atrocities committed by devoted Islamists.; 2/6/15, 11:39 AM
Revenant said...: Something else I like to point out, when people invoke Jim Crow as an example of American evil, is that under Jim Crow black Americans had more rights than most of the people on Earth.

If you had a choice between being a black person in 1960 Alabama or, say, a Muslim in 1960 Syria, a Chinese person in 1960 China, or a black person in 1960 Nigeria... take the first option. You're better off in every way.

Hell, a black man in 1960 Albama -- or 1910 Alabama, for that matter -- had more rights than a Muslim man in most of the modern-day middle east.; 2/6/15, 11:40 AM
Anonymous said...: The only thing wrong with the Crusades was that they failed.; 2/6/15, 11:40 AM
n.n said...: Christianity does not demand its followers spread its philosophy through domination nor justify its use over other men. Islam and left-wing regimes (e.g. Marxism) are different in that their religions are based on a principle of coercion. So, Obama can criticize individuals, but not a class because there is no unifying principle.

Anyway, Obama is being Obama is knocking down people/competing interests by marginalizing or neutralizing their standing in polite company.

Forward, Obama, abortionist in chief, head of the abortion party.; 2/6/15, 11:40 AM
Alex said...: According to the black book of Communism, between 70 and 100 million people were killed in the name of the Bolshevik God in the 20th century.; 2/6/15, 11:41 AM
dreams said...: What did we expect from a closet Muslin, anti-American, affirmative action President with a socialist father and a fellow traveler mother? I know we got what I expected.; 2/6/15, 11:41 AM
Big Mike said...: That's what you think the President should do? Ridiculous.

Why is that ridiculous? Holding the alleged "moderate Moslems" partially responsible for the actions of the terrorists might just convince them they've got some skin in the game. Perhaps they'd even help the rest of us track them down and deal with them. What a thought!

(Mind you, I am personally inclined to lump the alleged "Moderate Moslems" with the Ivory Billed Woodpecker in the "people claim they exist but no one has seen one for years" category.)

I don't see that holding modern Christians responsible for events that took place 1000 years ago or 500 years ago or even 50 years ago is reasonable per the notion that "we are all sinners" but the notion that all of Islam is responsible for ISIS is not. Modern Moslems who don't wish to be lumped in with extremists could start by teaching their brethren in the UK and Scandinavian countries not to rape underage girls (in fact not to rape, period). They could try to explain to the extremists that they are misinterpreting the Qu'ran when they light a fellow Moslem on fire.

Whereas I, for one, have no ability to convince Richard Lionheart not to sail to the Holy Land. Perhaps your time machine works fine, Professor, but mine has a broken wingdinger and the part's been on back order for years.; 2/6/15, 11:42 AM
Alex said...: n.n. Christians were once compelled to dominate other people. Hence the Crusades. The interesting thing about the original Crusades is that when it started out of France, the first thing they did was slaughter the Jews well before they got to the Middle East.; 2/6/15, 11:43 AM
Alex said...: Ann Althouse said...
"condemning Islam."

That's what you think the President should do? Ridiculous.

Yet he just condemned Christianity. Can you even hear yourself?; 2/6/15, 11:44 AM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: We can't judge all Muslims based on the behavior of some (ostensible or otherwise) Muslims.

But we can assign collective guilt or responsibility on all Christians today because of what Tomas Torquemada did 700 years ago.

That's not just silly it's wrong.

Is that the first Torquemada reference on Althouse?

If so, I should win something.; 2/6/15, 11:45 AM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: Torquemada: circa 1500.

Okay, 500 years ago.; 2/6/15, 11:46 AM
Shanna said...: We can't judge all Muslims based on the behavior of some (ostensible or otherwise) Muslims.

But we can assign collective guilt or responsibility on all Christians today because of what Tomas Torquemada did 700 years ago.

It's bonkers.

And that use of 'high horse' is purposefully inflamatory. I will continue to think poorly people who are actively murdering others in vile ways, no matter what some people completely unrelated to me were doing 1000 years ago. Sorry.; 2/6/15, 11:47 AM
rhhardin said...: Althouse thinks Obama means well.

Foolishness is the feminine failing.; 2/6/15, 11:48 AM
TreeJoe said...: If there were extemporaneous remarks, I'd be more forgiving. But this was a planned speech.

Instead of using Christianity as a counterpoint, why not say almost all religions have points in history in which their followers used their religion as a basis for horrific deeds.

Why not bring up the fact that the way these things were overcome was either:

1. Domination/winning by the other religions or secular groups or
2. Stigmatization of those beliefs within the religion itself to minimize and ostracize those who would twist it.

Thus to avoid #1 - war - we need a dramatic increase in #2 - condemnation by the vast majority of Muslim clerics.; 2/6/15, 11:51 AM
Anonymous said...: Part of the reason the whole motes-and-beams thing doesn't work here is that it depends crucially on the fact that a beam is a lot bigger than a mote.; 2/6/15, 11:54 AM
Anonymous said...: Revenant said...
Something else I like to point out, when people invoke Jim Crow as an example of American evil, is that under Jim Crow black Americans had more rights than most of the people on Earth.

and remember that the persecuting power structure imposing Jim Crow was a 100% Democrat.

It was mostly Christians and Northern Jews who risked their lives opposing the Democrat evil in the South.

One thing you can always count on from our President is to take every opportunity to denigrate America and in particular patriotic White Males.; 2/6/15, 11:55 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: What would Jesus say? He would be expressing love for the Muslims, while telling them that they were on a path to eternal destruction.; 2/6/15, 11:55 AM
Michael The Magnificent said...: Missing is the "liberal guilt" tag.

You don't recognize liberal guilt for the same reason a fish doesn't recognize that water is wet.

Also missing is the "moral equivalence" tag.

"Take the beam out of your own eye."

Which beam would that be? The 500 year old "crusades" beam was never in my eye, nor was the Jim Crow beam.; 2/6/15, 11:55 AM
Revenant said...: and remember that the persecuting power structure imposing Jim Crow was a 100% Democrat.

Only if you want to restrict "Jim Crow" to refer exclusively to southern racist laws, and not to racist laws in the other states.

The South was the last holdout, but pretty much every state had some embarrassing anti-black legislation on the books at some point.; 2/6/15, 11:59 AM
Tank said...: Michael The Magnificent said...

Missing is the "liberal guilt" tag.

You don't recognize liberal guilt for the same reason a fish doesn't recognize that water is wet.

Also missing is the "moral equivalence" tag.

"Take the beam out of your own eye."

Which beam would that be? The 500 year old "crusades" beam was never in my eye, nor was the Jim Crow beam.

If you take the beam out of your eye and put it into your Jim Crow, you might get Jim Beam, then you could have a Manhattan.

Whenever I hear or read about Zero, I need a Manhattan. Couldn't we have a President who likes Americans and Christians?; 2/6/15, 12:00 PM
Matt said...: Crusades, Inquisition, slavery, Jim Crow. It's like I'm being lectured by a seventeen-year-old. Maybe next he's going to tell us that he just learned in his civics class that women didn't used to have the right to vote! That and sometimes Shakespeare has dirty puns.; 2/6/15, 12:02 PM
Anonymous said...: and remember that the persecuting power structure imposing Jim Crow was a 100% Democrat.

One of the things you have to believe to be Obama is that the Christians of 2015 are more like the Christians of 1115 than the Democrats of 2015 are like the Democrats of 1955.; 2/6/15, 12:02 PM
kcom said...: He really does sound like a parent with a misbehaving child in a room full of people offering excuses instead of doing some parenting. Some parents minimize bad behavior and make excuses for it and others work to end the bad behavior. He's pulling the "my child is not that bad" card.

So other religions had bad behaviors? How were they fixed? Why don't you make that your goal. Just saying others were bad, too, is no help. Especially if those others have long since cleaned up their problem.

As Sesame Street would say, "Can you guess which thing is not like the other?"

Choice A - 400 years ago
Choice B - today
Choice C - yesterday
Choice D - last week
Choice E - last month; 2/6/15, 12:06 PM
JackWayne said...: Obama proves once again what a pedestrian, cliched mind he has.; 2/6/15, 12:08 PM
Rocketeer said...: One of the main differences between Obama and Jesus is that Jesus knew how to put together a cabinet that actually worked.; 2/6/15, 12:12 PM
Big Mike said...: That and sometimes Shakespeare has dirty puns.

As you Like It, Scene II, the forest:

"He that sweetest rose will find
Must find love's prick in Rosalind"; 2/6/15, 12:13 PM
West Texas Intermediate Crude said...: 99% of the world's Muslims are peace-loving and tolerant.
That leaves only 15 million bloodthirsty barbaric savages for us to concern ourselves with.
I feel better already.; 2/6/15, 12:14 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: ...and this this is unique to some other place...

It is unique - today - to some other place and some other ideology, however distorted or bastardized it is.

African Americans have to be humble in denouncing slavery because at that same time Africans were enslaving people? Or blacks in America need to be restrained in condemning mistreatment because blacks in Africa are mistreating blacks?

How far out does this go?

Anyone saying the above would be run out of the room.; 2/6/15, 12:17 PM
traditionalguy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/6/15, 12:18 PM
traditionalguy said...: No one needs to condemn Islam. Islam condemns itself every time a Muslim acts entitled by their superior religion to despise and rob infidels of life and property whenever and wherever they can sneak up acting righteous and get away with it.

The big deal about the pilot from from Jordan was that Sunni Muslims despised and robbed another Sunni Muslim.

And Obama and his personal media organs is all smoke and mirrors as usual. Even now confusion is Obama's goal, and that is what makes rational people suspect that Obama is a Muslim agent.; 2/6/15, 12:19 PM
paminwi said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/6/15, 12:26 PM
SteveR said...: Seems to me to be pretty consistent with the way Jesus spoke to people. We're all sinners. Take the beam out of your own eye. Essence of Christianity.

No

The only beam Obama needs to speak of is his own, not mine, not America's, not Christianity's.; 2/6/15, 12:27 PM
Known Unknown said...: Only if you want to restrict "Jim Crow" to refer exclusively to southern racist laws, and not to racist laws in the other states.

Frederick Douglass wrote about taking the "Jim Crow" car on a train in late 1830s Massachusetts.; 2/6/15, 12:27 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Most voters would be astonished to learn how deeply and intensely Leftists hate the United States, and how blameless they hold Islam for the crimes Muslims commit in its name.

he new Islamophobia Studies Journal (a bi-annual publication sponsored by Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender), in an editorial in its second issue, identifies the source of the trouble:

For some, rising anti-Muslim sentiments are immediately explained away as a “natural” outcome of the many violent events in the Muslim world and “terrorism” in general. However, we maintain that the rising negative sentiments may have to do with the presence of a well-organized and well-funded Islamophobic industry that has managed to invade and capture civil society and public discourses without serious contestation. Up to this point, anti-racist and progressive voices have not been effective in challenging this industry, nor have they been able to provide the needed resources to mount regional and national responses.

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/islamism-and-the-left; 2/6/15, 12:30 PM
Known Unknown said...: Remind me why we have a National Prayer Breakfast?; 2/6/15, 12:31 PM
n.n said...: Alex:

Yes, Christians, as in individuals. The religion or moral philosophy neither compelled nor justified their actions, other than in self-defense. So, since there was not a unifying principle, neither the religion nor the people as a class can logically be criticized. Also, the inheritance of sin is a principle of a regressive religion that denies individual dignity.

Some notable aspects of Judeo-Christian philosophy, is the separation of God and state, of faith and science, other than when God was to have once ruled the state, and the change in moral rights it engendered. The change can be summarized as principled tolerance, rather than selective exclusion.; 2/6/15, 12:33 PM
Anonymous said...: "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood ... the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago - when I was 8 years old - somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense." --Obama, discussing a crusader of a different kind.; 2/6/15, 12:36 PM
kcom said...: "Up to this point, anti-racist and progressive voices have not been effective in locating this "industry"..."; 2/6/15, 12:40 PM
kcom said...: Except in their own minds, of course.; 2/6/15, 12:41 PM
kcom said...: Total zing, Paul! Classic.; 2/6/15, 12:42 PM
kcom said...: Islamophobia Studies Journal

Just call it what it is. The Propaganda Studies journal. If you start with a baseless premise, you're not likely to discover anything useful. Islamophobia is a propaganda term, not a serious attempt at describing a real world phenomenon.; 2/6/15, 12:44 PM
Amichel said...: Seems to me that Christians have already taken the beam out of their own eye regarding these issues. While nowhere near perfect, if we are talking about terrorism, and barbaric executions, the Christian world is shockingly less violent than the Muslim world.; 2/6/15, 12:46 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: Obama is trolling his opponents, hilarious.

Yeah, classy guy. Hilarious. His maturity and character are impressive indeed.; 2/6/15, 12:49 PM
bleh said...: The Inquisition was terrible, but it helped make charcuterie what it is today. Wonderfully delicious way to sniff out crypto-Muslims.; 2/6/15, 12:52 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: Some interesting projection going on here. There is pretty high correlation between those taking umbrage and those who think that the religion of Islam is to blame for the actions of the radical militants.

President Obama is talking about terrible things people have done through history in the name of religion. His point is that indicts the individuals doing those things, not the religion itself.; 2/6/15, 12:52 PM
Sloanasaurus said...: By stating that Christians (in the past) have also committed atrocities in the name of religion, maybe he was just pointing out that committing atrocities in the name of religion is nothing new. And therefore, we should look at ISIS as less of a religious problem and more of a bunch of bad guys that need to be killed.

The problem I think is that Islam is more than just a religion, it carries a cultural part as well. This cultural aspect is not really working in the West as we can see in France and other places. That is the problem our leaders need to acknowledge.; 2/6/15, 12:52 PM
Lawler Walken said...: Fortunately no one looks to Barack Obama for spiritual guidance. I can just see him and the speechwriter now, uh...prayer breakfast, let's see, we need something kind of religious but we want to sound intellectually superior and above it all, so let's go with insulting Christianity.

The polling must show that it's evangelicals and their fellow travelers who are most upset about ISIS and its butchery and most insistent that the US should try and help the Yazidis and others being persecuted and killed. It's certainly not the secularists, like Obama himself, who simply (and simplistically) frames the problem as an philosophical one, a struggle humanity has endured throughout history. See? We're all in this together!; 2/6/15, 12:52 PM
Hagar said...: It seems to me there is a lot of failure to distinguish between more or less normal Moslems and the Pol Pot kind of crews running Boko Haram and the Islamic State.

The commenters above don't - but neither does Barack Obama.; 2/6/15, 12:53 PM
Trashhauler said...: "what would Jesus say?"

Jesus would probably stick to sins being committed when you asked Him about it. And He certainly wouldn't gloss over current wrongs based on the fact that others had sinned in the past.

It is not correct to use Jesus' love to argue that silence is appropriate in the face of tyranny and atrocity.; 2/6/15, 12:56 PM
Known Unknown said...: President Obama is talking about terrible things people have done through history in the name of religion. His point is that indicts the individuals doing those things, not the religion itself.

So then why not generalize rather that specifically call out Christian acts of transgression?; 2/6/15, 12:58 PM
Known Unknown said...: "what would Jesus say?"

Whatever is convenient to the conclusion I am attempting to justify.

-Modern (Secular) Progressivism; 2/6/15, 12:59 PM
Hagar said...: And there is no need to go back to the Crusades or the Spanish Inquisition to find mindless butcheries going on in "the Christian world." The most recent in the news is probably the break-up of Yuogaslavia just 20 - 30 years ago. Less publicized and much larger scale violence between groups A, B, C, and D, etc. - some with a religious connection, some not - in Eastern Europe almost continuously through the 20th century.; 2/6/15, 1:02 PM
CWJ said...: Obama said -

"And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ."

So his immediate examples offered to refute "some other place" each happened in some other place. Sure he mentions an American example in the next sentence, but that's not what he offers in this one.

His speechs are crafted to sound like he's saying something thought out and high minded, but the key word is "sound." They actually say almost nothing substantial, or if they do, it falls apart upon actual examination like above.; 2/6/15, 1:04 PM
Robert Cook said...: Heh...so many reg'lars here continue to display their obtuseness and/or determination to willfully misinterpret anything said by those they don't like or about that which they hold rigid, black and white opinions.

I don't like Obama, either, but bviously, he is not condemning Christians while absolving Muslim extremists. He is making the entirely valid and elementary point that Christianity has, in its history, led to violence, torture and murder by adherents claiming to act in the name of Christ, and that they were wrong, and were not representative of Christianity or of most Christians, so the violence committed today by Muslim zealots should not lead to the condemnation of Islam as a whole, or to our believing the extremists represent all Muslims.

His point is well-made, despite his own hypocrisy: he now calls the Bush administration "enhanced interrogation" techniques "torture," which they were, though he has refused to use this correct term for years, and he has violated his obligation under the law to pursue and prosecute those who committed torture; and he continues the murder of innocents in the middle east through his expansion of drone bombing, which, along with our larger, ongoing wars in the region, are greatly responsible for destabilizing the region and inflaming greater hatred of the U.S., and leading to the growth of such groups as ISIS and others.; 2/6/15, 1:04 PM
LilyBart said...: Seems to me to be pretty consistent with the way Jesus spoke to people. We're all sinners. Take the beam out of your own eye. Essence of Christianity. Learn it. Know it. Live it if you want to, but to fail to recognize it when you see it... what would Jesus say?

You approve of his remarks?

He is not our spiritual leader. He is the leader of a strong country, speaking at a prayer breakfast!

RIGHT NOW Christians are being persecuted and killed. RIGHT NOW Children are being raped, enslaved and killed in brutal ways. Only this week a priest just had his head cut off in Syria. And all he can say is, 'Hey, you Christians aren't so great yourselves!'.

AND YOUR SUPPORT THIS? WTH is wrong with You?; 2/6/15, 1:05 PM
Anonymous said...: Revenant said...
The South was the last holdout, but pretty much every state had some embarrassing anti-black legislation on the books at some point.

agree, with the caveat that replaces "anti-black" anti-minority, among them in different places

Japanese
Chinese
Jews
Catholics
Italians
Quakers
Mormons
Irish
Mexicans
Indians
French
English
Filipinos
immigrants (generic)

remembering that the Liberals Earl Warren (R) and FDR (D), threw the Japanese-Americans into camps; 2/6/15, 1:06 PM
Hagar said...: Anyway, it is the butcheries we want stopped - regardless of religions or other group identities - and sanctimonious claptrap delivered at prayer meetings are not going to help with that.; 2/6/15, 1:08 PM
Shanna said...: RIGHT NOW Christians are being persecuted and killed. RIGHT NOW Children are being raped, enslaved and killed in brutal ways. Only this week a priest just had his head cut off in Syria. And all he can say is, 'Hey, you Christians aren't so great yourselves!'.

Yes. "High Horse" is his response to that. Ancient history is his response to that.

This is not a WWJD moment and Obama ain't Jesus.

However, we maintain that the rising negative sentiments may have to do with the presence of a well-organized and well-funded Islamophobic industry that has managed to invade and capture civil society and public discourses without serious contestation.

So, they're all a bunch of conspiracy theorists, right? What nonsense.; 2/6/15, 1:11 PM
tim in vermont said...: If Barack "I won" Obama gave the first hint of introspection in his own views, he would have the first glimmer of credibility on the subject of motes and beams.; 2/6/15, 1:11 PM
chillblaine said...: "His point is that indicts the individuals doing those things, not the religion itself."

Then his point is shit.; 2/6/15, 1:12 PM
n.n said...: Left Bank of the Charles, Hagar:

Unfortunately, Islam is a universal Church that calls its followers to remain in a perpetual state of war in order to spread itself throughout the world. The Muslims who do not participate in this form of "proselytization" are out of compliance with their religion.

The same is true of Marxism and derivatives (i.e. left-wing religions). They are also universal Churches that are spread through the sword and are established and maintained on a principle of coercion rather than voluntary compliance.

Anyway, Obama needs to promote the right choice before he criticizes other people's choices. Neither Islam nor its fanatical adherents are keeping pace with his own secular religion that terminates wholly innocent human lives at a rate exceeding one million annually in America and millions more globally. Not to mention his support for selective exclusion, rather than principled tolerance.; 2/6/15, 1:12 PM
Sloanasaurus said...: "His point is well-made, despite his own hypocrisy: he now calls the Bush administration "enhanced interrogation" techniques "torture," which they were, though he has refused to use this correct term for years"

Except is wasn't torture. People on the Left love to use the term "torture" because it brings up medieval images in the simple minded, and the Left knows that it can only be successful through deception.; 2/6/15, 1:12 PM
Kylos said...: Revenant, Thorley,

See Luke 11:47 and Matthew 23:31; 2/6/15, 1:13 PM
CWJ said...: Yeah. With a liberal dollup of anachronism one can find moral equivalence everywhere.; 2/6/15, 1:15 PM
tim in vermont said...: Heh...so many reg'lars here continue to display their obtuseness and/or determination to willfully misinterpret anything said by those they don't like or about that which they hold rigid, black and white opinions.

Say that looking in a mirror a few times, then think about motes and beams in various people's eyes.

What's the use? You will never see the irony in your own words.; 2/6/15, 1:15 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: "His point is that indicts the individuals doing those things, not the religion itself."
Yet, somehow, to find examples of Christians "doing these things", he had to go back centuries.
Iran is an Islamic Republic. It actually calls itself "The Islamic Republic of Iran" is a theocracy, ruled by religious leaders. The head of state of Iran is a mullah named Khamaenei. Iran is constitutionally an Islamic state.
Hezbollah was created by Iranian Islamic Clerics. "Hezbollah" means "Party of God". It is funded by Iran's government. Hezbollah is a terrosist organization. It is dedicated to the destruction of the United States and Israel.
Obama thinks that Hezbollah has "nothing to do with Islam".; 2/6/15, 1:16 PM
tim in vermont said...: If pouring a ladle of water over somebody's mouth is "torture," what word is reserved for burning a captive alive in a cage?; 2/6/15, 1:18 PM
chillblaine said...: "His point is well-made."

Bull. Shit. The only reason to bring up the Inquisition would have been to remind everybody that Christianity underwent a reformation. Something Islam needs.; 2/6/15, 1:18 PM
Revenant said...: and were not representative of Christianity or of most Christians

The obvious problem with your argument is that he didn't say the acts were unrepresentative of Christianity.

so the violence committed today by Muslim zealots should not lead to the condemnation of Islam as a whole, or to our believing the extremists represent all Muslims.

This, again, is not what he said. He said that we shouldn't identify this as a problem limited to certain groups of people.

Except, of course, it IS limited to certain groups of people. There is no religious mass-murder taking place in most of the world. It is currently confined to certain specific religious groups and cultures.

Just as it isn't racist to not that most American homicides are committed by black Americans, it isn't Islamophobic to note that most religious genocide is carried out by Muslims.

Not "has been carried out by". "Is carried out by". Present tense, not 15th century.; 2/6/15, 1:20 PM
Trashhauler said...: Another point relevant to a law professor's blog: From a legal viewpoint, international law being what it was at the time, what made the Crusades inappropriate? People act like there was a UN somewhere to which the subject of Islamic aggression should have been referred.

The Catholic Church, acting in its then-recognized secular authority, urged a military course of action, based on much more than religious concerns. A shifting coalition of allies responded, for various reasons, good and bad, depending on their national concerns. That this call to action was often misused and misdirected does not mean the reason for the Crusades was wrong, even in a modern sense.; 2/6/15, 1:20 PM
tim in vermont said...: Islam was all sweetness and light before the Crusades. Everybody knows that.; 2/6/15, 1:22 PM
grackle said...: Islamists a small minority? Not really. Feast your eyes:

Pew Research (2007): 26% of younger Muslims in America believe suicide bombings are justified.
35% of young Muslims in Britain believe suicide bombings are justified (24% overall).
42% of young Muslims in France believe suicide bombings are justified (35% overall).
22% of young Muslims in Germany believe suicide bombings are justified.(13% overall).
29% of young Muslims in Spain believe suicide bombings are justified.(25% overall).

Pew Research (2013): Only 57% of Muslims worldwide disapprove of al-Qaeda. Only 51% disapprove of the Taliban. 13% support both groups and 1 in 4 refuse to say.
83% of Pakistanis support stoning adulterers
78% of Pakistanis support killing apostates

Center for Social Cohesion: 40% of British Muslim students want Sharia

GfK NOP: 28% of British Muslims want Britain to be an Islamic state

NOP Research: 68% of British Muslims support the arrest and prosecution of anyone who insults Islam

World Public Opinion: 81% of Egyptians want strict Sharia imposed in every Islamic country

Pew Research (2010): 77% of Egyptian Muslims favor floggings and amputation
58% of Jordanian Muslims favor floggings and amputation
36% of Indonesian Muslims favor floggings and amputation
82% of Pakistanis favor floggings and amputation
65% of Nigerian Muslims favor floggings and amputation

Pew Research (2010): 82% of Egyptian Muslims favor stoning adulterers
70% of Jordanian Muslims favor stoning adulterers
42% of Indonesian Muslims favor stoning adulterers
82% of Pakistanis favor stoning adulterers
56% of Nigerian Muslims favor stoning adulterers

Policy Exchange: 61% of British Muslims want homosexuality punished

Wenzel Strategies (2012):

58% of Muslim-Americans believe criticism of Islam or Muhammad is not protected free speech under the First Amendment.

45% believe mockers of Islam should face criminal charges (38% said they should not).
12% of Muslim-Americans believe blaspheming Islam should be punishable by death.

32% of Muslims in America believe that Sharia should be the supreme law of the land.

http://tinyurl.com/ctcu24c; 2/6/15, 1:24 PM
Robert Cook said...: "If pouring a ladle of water over somebody's mouth is "torture," what word is reserved for burning a captive alive in a cage?"

Murder.; 2/6/15, 1:28 PM
Sloanasaurus said...: IN reference to Grackle's point above: Immigrants tend to bring their culture with them when they move elsewhere and tend to try and adhere to many of the things they see as virtues in their own culture. With European immigration this was often about food, and dress, and in some case religion (catholic vs. protestant). But with Islam, it is so much more. Islam is a foreign culture to the west. It isn't about church doctrine or what bible is read, its about the things Grackle points out.; 2/6/15, 1:30 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Except is wasn't torture. People on the Left love to use the term "torture" because it brings up medieval images in the simple minded, and the Left knows that it can only be successful through deception."

Of course it was, though "the right" loves to hold up the most egregious of medieval tortures as the standard which must be met before something is or can be called 'torture."; 2/6/15, 1:33 PM
tim in vermont said...: egregious of medieval tortures as the standard which must be met before something is or can be called 'torture."

The left wants the connotations that come with the word "torture" while changing its meaning.

Sure, like calling take home pay a "tax expenditure."

Or calling consensual sex between high people "rape." Having sex while baked on pot is pretty fun. But fun is not the thing for your generation, I know.; 2/6/15, 1:38 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Just as it isn't racist to note that most American homicides are committed by black Americans, it isn't Islamophobic to note that most religious genocide is carried out by Muslims."

It is racist to assume most black Americans are violence-prone potential murderers,and it is Islamophobic to assume that most Muslims support religious genocide or are themselves latent terrorists, murderers, or suicide bombers.; 2/6/15, 1:40 PM
tim in vermont said...: It is an irrational fear of Muslims to expect that out of the next five acts of terrorism, four or more are going to be committed by Muslims?; 2/6/15, 1:43 PM
tim in vermont said...: I love how Obama uses "we" when he means "you"

"And lest we get on our high horse..."; 2/6/15, 1:43 PM
Balfegor said...: Honestly, I think the Crusades, the Inquisition, and Jim Crow are terrible analogues to what we are seeing in the Middle East today. A better analogue, in my opinion, would be the blood-drenched spread of Protestantism. There were horrible atrocities committed then both by the Protestants and by the Catholics -- regular looting and pillaging by mercenary troops, whole cities laid waste (Magdeburg), people accused of witchcraft tortured and executed and all that. Wahhabi-ism, Al Qaeda, and ISIS are Islam's Protestant reformation. And though my sympathies are largely with the Empire, the Imperial forces did their fair share of wanton blood-letting (again, Magdeburg).

It will all calm down in a century or so -- this sort of fervor burns itself out eventually. If only because everyone is dead.; 2/6/15, 1:44 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: Robert Cook cannot condemn waterboarding because his leftwing predecessors defended Stalin's Great Terror. Or Mao's crimes.

The analogy is imprecise but not entirely.

Obama believes in some sort of collective guilt or responsibility or a penitence of humility of Christians today for acts done several centuries ago. But then tells us we must not engage in collective responsibility against Muslims today for acts done today.

That is sophomoric and illogical.; 2/6/15, 1:53 PM
Trashhauler said...: "[I]t is Islamophobic to assume that most Muslims support religious genocide or are themselves latent terrorists, murderers, or suicide bombers."

Most Nazis did not commit murder or take part in the Holocaust. Most Germans weren't Nazis. We nonetheless bombed the crap out of Germany, invaded them, and changed their entire government. Now that governments are loath to officially declare war does not mean that we must ignore their surrogates.; 2/6/15, 1:57 PM
mtrobertsattorney said...: If Obama's purpose was to remind us all of the past atrocities committed by the West, why didn't he mention Stalin?; 2/6/15, 1:58 PM
damikesc said...: Seems to me to be pretty consistent with the way Jesus spoke to people. We're all sinners. Take the beam out of your own eye. Essence of Christianity. Learn it. Know it. Live it if you want to, but to fail to recognize it when you see it... what would Jesus say?

...except he isn't mentioning anything Christians are doing now.

He's mentioning things from long ago.

What people in the past did is hardly a reflection on me. I didn't have any say in Jim Crow laws. I had no say in the Inquisition.

That's what you think the President should do? Ridiculous.

The West basically has to do this. Stop coddling them. Stop this whole "This isn't real Islam" nonsense.

Their culture is barbaric. Their culture would certainly hardly be charitable to Obama or you, professor. We've seen what will happen in the "civilized" world if people persistently excuse their behavior (hello Rotherham)

Until we can face what we're dealing with, then we can never deal with it. If moderate Muslims want to save their faith, then they'd best get to work. As it stands, I see precious little evidence that the "majority" of Muslims has any impact on what Islam does...making one wonder how much of a "majority" they are.

And how come nobody ever mentions the fact that the Crusades, as misguided and otherwise messed up as they were, were a response to Islamic expensionism?

It's a fight not even worth having now. The worst excesses of Christianity were DEFENSIVE measures against Islam.

...and Islam is STILL doing the same thing now.

By stating that Christians (in the past) have also committed atrocities in the name of religion, maybe he was just pointing out that committing atrocities in the name of religion is nothing new. And therefore, we should look at ISIS as less of a religious problem and more of a bunch of bad guys that need to be killed.

Except Islam was committing those atrocities back then also.

They're committing them now.

They've had A THOUSAND YEARS to resolve their issues.

It is fairly clear that they are not going to do so on the current path.

It seems to me there is a lot of failure to distinguish between more or less normal Moslems and the Pol Pot kind of crews running Boko Haram and the Islamic State.

What would you label the kiddie rape ring in the UK? They weren't "violent" per se.

Why is that the first thing out of some people's mouths after some Muslim commits an atrocity is "Man, I hope they don't suffer a backlash".

They've never suffered one before. Even after 9/11, Jews were more frequently hate crime victims than Muslims.

Of course it was, though "the right" loves to hold up the most egregious of medieval tortures as the standard which must be met before something is or can be called 'torture."

And the left trivializes actual atrocities by defining them down. See torture. See rape also.; 2/6/15, 2:06 PM
damikesc said...: A better analogue, in my opinion, would be the blood-drenched spread of Protestantism. There were horrible atrocities committed then both by the Protestants and by the Catholics -- regular looting and pillaging by mercenary troops, whole cities laid waste (Magdeburg), people accused of witchcraft tortured and executed and all that. Wahhabi-ism, Al Qaeda, and ISIS are Islam's Protestant reformation. And though my sympathies are largely with the Empire, the Imperial forces did their fair share of wanton blood-letting (again, Magdeburg).

...400 years ago.

It's not like Islam has ANY record of being peaceful. They either subjugate or slaughter. Peaceful Islamic societies are exceedingly rare. Peaceful ones not basically run as colonies are rarer still.; 2/6/15, 2:07 PM
Shanna said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/6/15, 2:11 PM
ron winkleheimer said...: For some reason, whenever I read an Obama speech I am reminded of this.

http://southpark.cc.com/clips/154822/college-know-it-all-hippies#source=473fef35-48a7-434c-afc6-207874c7f1a3:f11c932a-ed00-11e0-aca6-0026b9414f30&position=4&sort=playlist; 2/6/15, 2:11 PM
Robert Cook said...: "If Obama's purpose was to remind us all of the past atrocities committed by the West, why didn't he mention Stalin?"

His purpose was not to "remind us all of the past atrocities committed by 'the West;'" he was talking specifically about violence committed by zealots in the name of religion, and cautioning against assuming the worst acts of such zealots represent the religion as a whole or its believers.; 2/6/15, 2:12 PM
Shanna said...: "If pouring a ladle of water over somebody's mouth is "torture," what word is reserved for burning a captive alive in a cage?"

Murder.

The part where he was burned alive was torture. The part where he died of it was murder.; 2/6/15, 2:12 PM
ron winkleheimer said...: and this

http://southpark.cc.com/clips/154825/hippie-hostages#source=473fef35-48a7-434c-afc6-207874c7f1a3%3Af11a6d2a-ed00-11e0-aca6-0026b9414f30&position=5&sort=playlist; 2/6/15, 2:14 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: The death toll of the Crusades pales to the modern abortion totals the Left has gifted us with. It is fun to compare and contrast.

I am Laslo.; 2/6/15, 2:14 PM
JHapp said...: From now back to the beginning of history it's been Brian Williamses all the way down.; 2/6/15, 2:17 PM
Chef Mojo said...: That was then. This is now.

Because Obama didn't get on HIS "high horse" in response to ISIS, they are now the "strong horse" that attracts a devoted, fanatic and savage Muslim following.

Obama using the past failings of Christianity is merely a cynical deflection away from responsibility for his actions and inactions, which allowed ISIS to metastasize into what it is now.

The phenomenon of ISIS I'd nothing new in Islam, and is very typical, in fact. When a "strong horse" in the form of a kallif or mahdi emerges, Muslims have gathered for the slaughter. For Obama to state that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam is just plain stupid.

But, hey. If it gets donations to the DNC from another grievance group, then it's alldood, right?; 2/6/15, 2:18 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Robert Cook cannot condemn waterboarding because his leftwing predecessors defended Stalin's Great Terror. Or Mao's crimes.

"The analogy is imprecise but not entirely."

????

The "analogy" is beyond being imprecise, it is "entirely" incoherent. I don't even know what it's supposed to mean.

I do condemn waterboarding; it is torture. It is most commenters here who do not condemn waterboarding, and think of it as just slightly more intense than a refreshing dowsing by water on a steaming hot day.; 2/6/15, 2:18 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: damikesc:

...400 years ago.

Well, yes -- but Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity. They're just coming due for their Martin Luther, give or take a century.; 2/6/15, 2:20 PM
Revenant said...: It is racist to assume most black Americans are violence-prone potential murderers,and it is Islamophobic to assume that most Muslims support religious genocide or are themselves latent terrorists, murderers, or suicide bombers.

In other words, Obama was attacking a straw man.; 2/6/15, 2:23 PM
Anon82 said...: "Said Obama, causing some anti-Obamists to get on their high horse."

If their criticism of him is "getting on their high horse" then your criticism of them is you getting on your high horse. Very often as we point out other people's hypocrisy we reveal our own.; 2/6/15, 2:24 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Obama believes in some sort of collective guilt or responsibility or a penitence of humility of Christians today for acts done several centuries ago. But then tells us we must not engage in collective responsibility (sic) against Muslims today for acts done today."

That's not at all what he means.; 2/6/15, 2:25 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/6/15, 2:27 PM
Anonymous said...: They've had A THOUSAND YEARS to resolve their issues.

It is fairly clear that they are not going to do so on the current path.

Islam was designed not be be changed from its blood drenched roots. The Koran is the last, perfect, Word of Allah. That talk in there about the House of Peace (e.g. Islam) permanently at war (though it is allowed to pretend otherwise) with the House of War (e.g. the rest of us infidels), until we are all subjugated or dead. That's God's Plan. Any deviancy from the Plan is apostasy (and you know how that turns out.) Just read the book; 2/6/15, 2:28 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: "The "analogy" is beyond being imprecise, it is "entirely" incoherent. I don't even know what it's supposed to mean."

Your personal moral standing to condemn waterboarding is not affected by your ideological predecessors failure to condemn Stalin.

Just as today's Christian's standing to condemn Islamic acts of terror is not affected by their predecessors acts during the Crusades.

There is no such thing as collective guilt or responsibility, especially for acts done centuries ago.

One's standing to condemn acts is based on the individual's character and actions not the acts of a generation ago.; 2/6/15, 2:29 PM
Lyle said...: Ann our President should condemn Islamists and explain the Islamist civil war going on between Sunnis and Shia.

You don't think bringing up the crusades is ridiculous?

And the ignorant audacity you have for comparing Obama to Christ. You are a nimrod on this.; 2/6/15, 2:33 PM
damikesc said...: Well, yes -- but Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity. They're just coming due for their Martin Luther, give or take a century.

Simple question: When was Islam EVER peaceful? Even their "peaceful" times are just them subjugating others.

And Christianity has basically more and more come into line with the teachings of Jesus as literacy grew.

Sadly, so has Islam.; 2/6/15, 2:38 PM
Anonymous said...: So who exactly are these people who don't know about the Crusades or the Inquisition, American slavery, or Jim Crow, and why does every event need to be devoted to supplying remedial history lessons for them?

I don't think I've ever met anyone whose views are predicated on lack of acquaintance with information about the Crusades, the Inquisition, American slavery, or Jim Crow. But a competent response to the world's jihadi problem is somehow being chronically subverted by these people, as every atrocity committed by a Muslim is apparently the result of these incredibly powerful and influential people not knowing diddly about history, and the problem can only be addressed by pouring all of our energies into educating them on the sins of their ancestors.

So who are they, why are they so important, and what's up with them that it's so god-damned, bone-crushingly necessary to always and everywhere shut down any and all reaction/discussion of misbehavior by those of an Islamic persuasion, and replace it with this same short-bus history lesson, over and over and over and over and over again?

Do these powerful people have some kind of weird neurological disorder such that, not only can't they remember what they were taught about the Original Sin and unique evil of European Man in every history class they ever sat in when they were in school, but they can't even remember this stuff when they are helpfully reminded of it each and every day when they turn on a tee-vee program, watch a movie, read a news site, or listen to a politician?

What, are the people running our incompetent foreign policy re Muslim countries the people who've never heard of the Crusades, the Inquisition, American slavery, Jim Crow? Well, if that's why our foreign policy is insane, then, by all means, let's corral these people and sit them down in a remedial history class. (Not recent and current affairs, mind you, but stuff that happened centuries, if not a millenium, ago.)

Whew, and I thought all that incoherence, corruption, and incompetence constituted a far more intractable problem than just a few uninformed civil servants! But all we really need to do is to get these highly influential but regrettably retarded people with memory problems to remember and admit to the sins of their ancestors. Problems solved!

I shall sleep better tonight, finally understanding the noble tutelary purpose of the last decade-and-a-half's all-pervasive drone of "...but but but the Crusades!"; 2/6/15, 2:38 PM
Shanna said...: And Christianity has basically more and more come into line with the teachings of Jesus as literacy grew.

The original christians were peaceful and mostly martyrs, iirc. So I'm not sure that they grew more peaceful, so much as that they ebbed and flowed with history.; 2/6/15, 2:41 PM
Anonymous said...: @Anglelyne said...

Short version: Dead European White Men's Guilt; 2/6/15, 2:42 PM
tim in vermont said...: and think of it as just slightly more intense than a refreshing dowsing by water on a steaming hot day.

It is different enough from burning a man alive in a cage to warrant a different term. Enhanced interrogation technique comes to mind.

How about making somebody stand for extended periods of time? Is that the same thing as burning them alive? Is torture the right word for both things?

Your problem with the term "enhanced interrogation" is that it does not bring to mind the same mental images of medieval torture techniques that the word "torture" does, so you jigger the definitions.

If "enhanced interrogation" is a crime against humanity, say so. Don't hijack a word for a different thing.; 2/6/15, 2:44 PM
Sloanasaurus said...: " A better analogue, in my opinion, would be the blood-drenched spread of Protestantism. There were horrible atrocities committed then both by the Protestants and by the Catholics -- regular looting and pillaging by mercenary troops, whole cities laid waste (Magdeburg), people accused of witchcraft tortured and executed and all that."

This is true, but 500 years ago, not much was known of how the world works. Everyday people woke up to a giant mystery staring them in the face. No one knew about germs, or viruses, or what caused the weather. Today we know all these things and realize that a hurricane or illness is not caused by us not being catholic enough. (Except for maybe the global warming crowd).

Yet, Islam more than any other "sect" hasn't received this message. They still long for a kind of purity and are willing to die for it. What for?; 2/6/15, 2:45 PM
ron winkleheimer said...: @Anglelyne

Well said.

Also, no matter how much I peruse it, I fail to find where in the Constitution the President is tasked to be the Scold In Chief.; 2/6/15, 2:48 PM
Joe said...: Pres. Obama's words are terrible history (the Crusades were defensive in nature), worse theology (Christ never admonished us to be repentant for our great**n grandfather's sins) and academia at it's current finest, it seems.; 2/6/15, 2:50 PM
President-Mom-Jeans said...: "Robert Cook cannot condemn waterboarding because his leftwing predecessors defended Stalin's Great Terror"

You don't have to invoke any predecessors, Cookie is an unrepentant Stalin apologist.; 2/6/15, 2:51 PM
I Callahan said...: Islamophobia is a propaganda term, not a serious attempt at describing a real world phenomenon.

The ironic thing? It's pure projection. The people who bandy that term are the ones who are so AFRAID of causing Muslims pain that they're the ones who fit the term best.; 2/6/15, 2:52 PM
Lyle said...: Yep... all us sinners in the name of Christ used to throw gays off tall buildings.

We are all just sinners. Who the hell are we to criticize and lament people who throw gays off tall buildings?

Brilliant and totally heartfelt commentary Althouse. Jesus Christ!!!; 2/6/15, 2:57 PM
ron winkleheimer said...: I don't find Obama's constant attempts to improve my mind, body, and soul via history lessons that are both soporific and sophomoric offensive. I find them tedious. If only the constitution had defined the President's role more fully instead of just stating, "whatever man, whatever."; 2/6/15, 2:58 PM
n.n said...: Obama is establishing a moral equivalence and motive between the Christian Crusades and ISIS. He is arguing that ISIS is fighting a defensive war to reclaim conquered lands and protect conquered people. In his effort to legitimize ISIS, he is delegitimizing the current native regimes. I wonder if they will notice. His slight of Christians, and Americans in particular, is merely icing on the cake.; 2/6/15, 2:59 PM
Dan Hossley said...: He claims terrible things were done during the Crusades, but doesn't cite one example.; 2/6/15, 3:00 PM
walter said...: How can I get my "Apology Tour 2015" T-shirt?; 2/6/15, 3:02 PM
Robert Cook said...: "It is different enough from burning a man alive in a cage to warrant a different term."

Yes, the latter is a torturous execution, the former just torture.

There are greater and lesser gradations of torture just as there are greater and lesser gradations of any kind of punishment, or of hot and cold or happy and sad, or kindness or cruelty. The only reason there is this fake debate whether waterboarding is torture is because we have admitted to using waterboarding, and Americans don't want to accept that we have committed torture. Of course, this fake debate distracts attention from the reality that waterboarding is hardly the only torture we have inflicted on our prisoners, or that there were many more tortured than just the "three" (or whatever figure has been bandied about) "high level" al Qaeda honchos who were waterboarded.

Torture is rampant in our society. When a police officer tazes someone for little or no reason, that is torture, (just to name one common-place method of torture). It is short-term, non-lethal (well, usually) electrocution. When cops pile on subdued or non-resisting suspects and beat them up, that is torture. It is childish denial of reality for us to say "we don't torture."; 2/6/15, 3:02 PM
Robert Cook said...: "You don't have to invoke any predecessors, Cookie is an unrepentant Stalin apologist."

You can be a dope without also being a liar, President Mom Jeans.; 2/6/15, 3:03 PM
Anon82 said...: "Said Obama, causing some anti-Obamists to get on their high horse."

If their criticism of Obama's statment is them "getting on their high horse" then your criticism of them is you getting on your high horse. You're no different than they are. Very often, when we attempt to point out others faults we reveal only our own.; 2/6/15, 3:03 PM
damikesc said...: The original christians were peaceful and mostly martyrs, iirc. So I'm not sure that they grew more peaceful, so much as that they ebbed and flowed with history.

True.

I was referring to the corrupt shit show the Catholic Church morphed into before Guttenberg's press opened up literacy.

So who are they, why are they so important, and what's up with them that it's so god-damned, bone-crushingly necessary to always and everywhere shut down any and all reaction/discussion of misbehavior by those of an Islamic persuasion, and replace it with this same short-bus history lesson, over and over and over and over and over again?

Sadly, that would not even anger me that much if they were at least ACCURATE.; 2/6/15, 3:04 PM
gerry said...: Well, yes -- but Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity. They're just coming due for their Martin Luther, give or take a century.

Sorry. What is going on today is the Islamic Reformation, an attempt to return Islam to its roots, its fundamental origins.

Read the Koran. Read what Muhammad taught about how to treat nonbelievers and how to propagate Islam.; 2/6/15, 3:12 PM
ron winkleheimer said...: "He claims terrible things were done during the Crusades, but doesn't cite one example."

Horrible things did happen during the Crusades. Just as horrible things happened in WWII. Just ask the people who lived in Dresden, the few left alive after the Allies fire bombed the city from the air. Horrible things happen in war.

And the Crusades lasted around two hundred years while WWII lasted six years, so a lot more time for horrible things to happen.

The thing is, the Muslims won the Crusades, so I don't understand why they are always whining about it. You would think they would be bragging about how they kicked our butts.; 2/6/15, 3:13 PM
Anonymous said...: RC wrote;

He is making the entirely valid and elementary point that Christianity has, in its history, led to violence, torture and murder by adherents claiming to act in the name of Christ, and that they were wrong, and were not representative of Christianity or of most Christians, so the violence committed today by Muslim zealots should not lead to the condemnation of Islam as a whole, or to our believing the extremists represent all Muslims.

This only works if you assume that when those people were committing those crimes in the name of Christianity, Muslims weren't committing similar crimes in the name of Islam.

If they were, then you have a problem comparing to what one group was doing then (While ignoring what the other group was also doing) to what the other group is doing now.

Unfortunately for Obama and Robert Cook, people were committing atrocities in the name of Islam back then, just as people were doing in the name of Christianity.

But only one of those religions had a reformation.

Therefore, the only apt thing to say about it is, Islam needs to follow in the same path as Christianity and get rid of it's adherents who pervert the religion.; 2/6/15, 3:16 PM
walter said...: To be fair, high horses were very valuable back then.; 2/6/15, 3:18 PM
tim in vermont said...: and Americans don't want to accept that we have committed torture

Sorry, but I don't accept the judgment of a man who springs to the defense of the Soviets as easily as you do Robert.

I don't have a problem with what we did. Full stop.; 2/6/15, 3:21 PM
MayBee said...: If you can't get on your high horse about having a culture that currently doesn't behead people or burn them alive, what *can* you get on your high horse for?; 2/6/15, 3:25 PM
MayBee said...: I want to know what Obama thinks about the arc of history being long and what it's currently bending toward in the Middle East.; 2/6/15, 3:25 PM
MayBee said...: I bet during the Inquisition, the leader of the Muslim world was standing before his people, imploring them not to see their opponents as Real Christians.; 2/6/15, 3:33 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Balfegor wrote:
"Well, yes -- but Islam is 600 years younger than Christianity. They're just coming due for their Martin Luther, give or take a century."

I hear a lot of variations on this. "Islam needs a Reformation".
The reformation was accompanied by about a century and a half of European war and vicious religious persecution by Catholics and reformers alike. Who would ask for such a thing?; 2/6/15, 3:35 PM
Anonymous said...: Ann Althouse wrote;

Seems to me to be pretty consistent with the way Jesus spoke to people.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that it's perfectly reasonable to get psychology lessons from Sigmund Freud but there is no reason to listen to Freud about Math, or History, or any other number of subjects where he is not an expert.

We would be wise to ignore the professor when she professes to know what is consistent with Christ.

You're only half right, Professor Althouse, in that Christ did speak to us about our own sins and about fixing ourselves.

He condemned the hypocrites. He didn't say, "Hypocrisy is ok because we're all bad people." or, "It's ok for you to be a hypocrite, because our forefathers did bad things."

God is not only merciful, he is also just. In a world without justice, you cannot have mercy.

Christ came to show God's mercy by condemning sin. Showing us that we were all sinners, guilty, but could receive mercy. This mercy was attainable through repentance.

President Obama rightly points out that the Christians of the past have repented of their sinful ways (The crusades and whatever other examples he wants to bring up). In order to be Christ like, he would have to call for Islam to repent today as Christianity did many centuries ago.

If that was his message at the prayer breakfast, that's not what I heard. Sounded more like he was telling Christians to repent of noticing that Muslims can be quite the demons.; 2/6/15, 3:35 PM
Sebastian said...: Christians did bad things 100 or 500 or 800 years ago; therefore, no Christian can get on her "high horse" to condemn violent Islamism or Islam in general. Got it.

But:

1. Why does Obama, as a Christian, condemn the crusades?

2. Why does Obama, who treats ISIS et al. as a distortion of Islam, appear to treat the crusades and Inquisition as representative of Christianity?

3. If Christian apologies for slavery prevent Christians from climbing on their high horse, does the more intense, longer-lasting, and effective Christian opposition to slavery and segregation justify it?

4. Since only the evils of Christianity forbid high-horse-climbing, I take it Jews and atheists can climb all they want -- correct?

5. Since the Christians-did-bad-things- in-the-past-millennium argument can be applied to anything, is there any issue Americans can address with any moral authority in the Progressive Age of Barry Just-Like-Jesus Obama?; 2/6/15, 3:38 PM
Lydia said...: ISIS is “selling, crucifying, burying children alive”.

And Obama's telling us not to get on our "high horse”. Don't we in fact have a moral obligation to do just that? Nothing our culture did hundreds of years ago has any bearing at all on what's actually happening now.; 2/6/15, 3:47 PM
Hagar said...: Peggy Noonan gets something right: “This is just the moment to dilate on Christendom’s sins, isn’t it? While Christians are being driven from the Mideast? [Obama] always says these things as if he’s the enlightened one facing the facts of the buried past instead of the cornered one defeated by complexity, hard calls and ambivalence. He is lost. His policy is listlessness punctuated by occasional booms.”; 2/6/15, 3:49 PM
Drago said...: I'll bet Karl Rove is actually carrying out these islamist atrocities. We will have to wait for Cookie to fully flesh out all the conspiratorial details.; 2/6/15, 3:49 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Sebastion, I don't think that Obama's prayer breakfast remarks condemned Christianity but let Islam off the hook. He seemed to take the position that all the bad things done in the name of Christianity (in the past) and Islam (in the present) are not expressions of Christianity or of Islam.
This puts him in the odd position of believing that there can be no "bad" religions, at least not "bad" religions that are believed by millions of people and are centuries old.
There is no part of the definition of religion that says it must follow modern Western ideas about individual freedom, religious freedom, equality of the sexes, and the wonders of diversity.
Obama really is not that smart. He thinks in cliches.; 2/6/15, 3:50 PM
Drago said...: Selling, crucifying and burying children alive is simply par for the course for todays adherents of the lefties favorite religion.; 2/6/15, 3:52 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: Terry:

I hear a lot of variations on this. "Islam needs a Reformation".
The reformation was accompanied by about a century and a half of European war and vicious religious persecution by Catholics and reformers alike. Who would ask for such a thing?

Oh, I don't think they need a Protestant Reformation. I just think the wave of Islamic terrorism and Sharia absolutism is their Protestant Reformation. 150 years of slaughter sounds about right -- and I think we're about 50 years into it, only another century to go.; 2/6/15, 3:53 PM
Shanna said...: Sebastion, I don't think that Obama's prayer breakfast remarks condemned Christianity but let Islam off the hook. He seemed to take the position that all the bad things done in the name of Christianity (in the past) and Islam (in the present) are not expressions of Christianity or of Islam.

If he really believed that he would not have told christians to 'get off their high horse", he would have said all individuals are blameless for the sins of others. that is not what he said. Because that is not what he believes.; 2/6/15, 3:54 PM
Jupiter said...: dreams said...
What did we expect from a closet Muslin, anti-American, affirmative action President with a socialist father and a fellow traveler mother? I know we got what I expected.

Obama's father, Frank Marshall Davis, was not a socialist. He was a card-carrying Communist, and a Soviet agent. With a lot of very good friends in Chicago.; 2/6/15, 3:56 PM
Robert Cook said...: "This only works if you assume that when those people were committing those crimes in the name of Christianity, Muslims weren't committing similar crimes in the name of Islam."

No, it still works. It doesn't alter the point at all.; 2/6/15, 3:57 PM
Anonymous said...: eric: Unfortunately for Obama and Robert Cook, people were committing atrocities in the name of Islam back then, just as people were doing in the name of Christianity.

But only one of those religions had a reformation.

Non sequitur. The Reformation was not about reforming Christianity away from fundamentalist intolerance, nor did it stop "reformed" Christians from carrying on in, er, non-progressive ways.

Therefore, the only apt thing to say about it is, Islam needs to follow in the same path as Christianity and get rid of it's adherents who pervert the religion.

I can think of few historical analogies less apt than that of comparing Wahhabism to Counter Reformation Catholicism.

Islam isn't Christianity. It has its own history and its own dynamics. The idea that it needs to "reform" itself along the unique developmental lines of European Christianity is an absurdity. (And people who have no interest in having their own cultures Islamized have better ways of defending themselves against such a thing than either invading and bombing Islamic countries or sitting around talking twaddle about how Islam needs to "reform" itself to their liking.); 2/6/15, 3:59 PM
Anonymous said...: Anglelyne wrote;

The Reformation was not about reforming Christianity away from fundamentalist intolerance

I didn't capitalize it on purpose. I meant, we repented and they haven't. We changed our behavior. We reformed our ways.

This isn't to say that they can.

The idea that it needs to "reform" itself along the unique developmental lines of European Christianity is an absurdity.

Well, I was attempting to work within an absurd comparison made by our President.; 2/6/15, 4:07 PM
Anonymous said...: Robert Cook wrote;

No, it still works. It doesn't alter the point at all.

That's weird, I could have sworn you just wrote, "I know you are but what am I?"; 2/6/15, 4:09 PM
UNTRIBALIST said...: The level of ignorance in our culture about the crusades is inexcusable yet understandable.

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/inventing-the-crusades; 2/6/15, 4:11 PM
Anonymous said...: Robert Cook: No, it still works. It doesn't alter the point at all.

You're right, it doesn't. But the "point" was banal. It did not illuminate, it did not clarify, it did not move anything forward or provide any new bases for action, it did not tell anybody anything they didn't already know. You can hardly fault people for getting annoyed at having their intelligence insulted by a trite, self-regarding scold.; 2/6/15, 4:25 PM
Revenant said...: No, it still works. It doesn't alter the point at all.

If Obama was trying to make the point you claim he was trying to make, he made it incoherently.

When you are trying to encourage tolerance by pointing out that the group you are speaking to has some of the same flaws as the another group, you do that by pointing out flaws the groups have, today.

You don't say "that group kills people now, but our group killed people centuries ago". Guess what? Sane people don't hold themselves accountable for blood guilt.

You say "those people act on hate, but you sometimes act on hate too". You don't say "those Muslims are murdering Christians in the name of Islam, but your great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather killed a Muslim in the name of Christianity".

That's not drawing a parallel. That's grasping at straws. That is conceding "Islamic radicalism is so much worse than Christian radicalism that I have to look centuries in the past to find Christians doing anything even remotely as bad".; 2/6/15, 4:26 PM
Paul said...: Wasn't the Muslims defeated by Charles Martel 'The Hammer' near Paris?

Battle of Tours in 732.

Yes Paris.

And now the Muslims are killing again there.

Obama does not know shit about history, or really anything else including 'constitutional law'.; 2/6/15, 4:27 PM
Anonymous said...: The level of ignorance in our culture about the crusades is inexcusable yet understandable.

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/06/inventing-the-crusades

It's been many years since I read a concise history of the crusades. Even so, this line sounds way off to me:

Historians have long known that the image of the Crusader as an adventurer seeking his fortune is exactly backward. The vast majority of Crusaders returned home as soon as they had fulfilled their vow. What little booty they could acquire was more than spent on the journey itself. One is hard pressed to name a single returning Crusader who broke even, let alone made a profit on the journey.

While it is true that the Crusades were an act of charity, this fails to recognize human nature and motivation.

Just because they came back broke doesn't mean there weren't many crusaders who were in it just for the money. It's like saying the gold rush wasn't about money, because so many died in their poverty.

I've no idea whether it was 5% or 50% of the crusaders who set off on crusades for fame, wealth and glory, but I assure you, there were families who went crusading for just those reasons.; 2/6/15, 4:30 PM
Revenant said...: The idea that it needs to "reform" itself along the unique developmental lines of European Christianity is an absurdity.

It doesn't need to reform itself along Christian lines, no, but it absolutely does need to reform itself.

A better parallel is Judaism, not Christianity. Once upon a time, Judaism was an Islam-like religion that quite strongly believed in the idea of killing infidels in holy wars. Modern Judaism doesn't hold with that; it has reformed itself, interpreting away the original passages to mean something else entirely.

Christianity had a distinct advantage, reform-wise, because the actual gospels come down quite firmly on the "it isn't your job to kill sinners and infidels" side of things. Jesus made that pretty crystal-fucking-clear, and it is a testament to the power of human rationalization that Christians still found excuses to do it anyway.

Islam doesn't have that advantage. Like "old school" Judaism, its holy texts and its prophet are absolutely, indisputably in favor of killing infidels when called upon by God to do so. Worse yet, while Judaism had numerous prophets preaching somewhat different things (thus leaving wiggle room to downplay the more bloodthirsty ones), Islam has the whole "one prophet to rule them all" thing in the form of Mohammed. And Mohammed not only supported religious war -- he conducted it.

This means that a Muslim reformation will, among other things, require repudiating or radically "reinterpreting" the teachings of Mohammed himself. That's a much nastier task than Christianity faced.; 2/6/15, 4:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Rev wrote;

This means that a Muslim reformation will, among other things, require repudiating or radically "reinterpreting" the teachings of Mohammed himself. That's a much nastier task than Christianity faced.

It's quite the reverse, isn't it?

Mohammed teaches almost exactly the opposite of Christ.

Whereas Christians need to justify Just War and understand how violence isn't inherently evil, Muslims need to do the exact opposite.

With our human penchant for war, it seems like an impossible task.; 2/6/15, 4:41 PM
hombre said...: Kneejerks aside, maybe the trigger here is that while we continue to look for the leader/statesman in our President, this jackass bounces from divider to race-baiter to Israel hater to profligate and now to wannabe historian.

Did we elect him to ponder on the past sins of Christians or to formulate sensible foreign policy in the face of Islamist atrocities? God, what a schmuck he is.; 2/6/15, 4:41 PM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, I believe that Peggy Noonan has refuted you and Obama both:

"Everything’s frozen. When you ask, 'What is the appropriate U.S. response to ISIS?' half the people in Washington answer: 'George W. Bush broke Iraq and ISIS was born in the rubble. There would be no ISIS if it weren’t for him.' The other half answer: 'When Barack Obama withdrew from Iraq, ISIS was born in the vacuum. There would be no ISIS without him.'

These are charges, not answers, and they are getting us nowhere. Bitterness and begging the question are keeping us from focusing on what is. We’re frozen in what was.

There’s plenty to learn and conclude from the past. ... But at a certain point you have to unhitch yourself from your predispositions and resentments and face what is happening now."

Time you and Obama and ISIS all three reconciled yourselves to living in the 21st century.; 2/6/15, 4:46 PM
Big Mike said...: @hombre, him and Cookie both.; 2/6/15, 4:48 PM
Anonymous said...: Revenant: It doesn't need to reform itself along Christian lines, no, but it absolutely does need to reform itself.

Islam can very likely trundle along nicely without ever reforming itself, but at any rate the West has neither the power nor any moral obligation to help "fix" Islam.

We (the West), on the other hand, absolutely do need to reform our delusional attitudes about multiculturalism in general and Islam in particular. (For example, whether "Islam" can, or should, be reformed is probably not something you should leave off cogitatin' about until after you've allowed mass migration of Muslims into your historically non-Muslim continent.); 2/6/15, 4:59 PM
hombre said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/6/15, 5:10 PM
Jon Burack said...: I really do not care what Obama thinks about Islam, Christianity, the Crusades or slavery. He appears appaling superficial about all of them. What gets me on my high horse is to be told not to get on my high horse about a man being burnded to death. Ride your horses high.; 2/6/15, 5:10 PM
hombre said...: Althouse: "Seems to me to be pretty consistent with the way Jesus spoke to people. We're all sinners. Take the beam out of your own eye. Essence of Christianity. Learn it. Know it. Live it if you want to, but to fail to recognize it when you see it... what would Jesus say?" (11:25)

Really, Professor? Really?

So the logical extension of this is what, Professor? We have ordained Obama pastor and selected him to expand for us Jesus's thoughts about inherited Christian sin?

Or is it that Barack H. Obama, Sr, was really God and anointed Junior, his begotten son, to save us from getting on our high horse?; 2/6/15, 5:14 PM
grackle said...: What is going on today is the Islamic Reformation, an attempt to return Islam to its roots, its fundamental origins.

Bingo!

I don't have a problem with what we did.

Me neither. If it were me and mere waterboarding didn't work, that's when I would reluctantly but resolutely revert to real torture until they talked. After 3,000 innocent Americans murdered in NYC and expecting more of the same at any moment I expect my leaders to pull out at least some of the stops, if not all of them.

But waterboarding DOES work, thankfully. The beauty of the method is that it leaves the terrorist unmarked, hale and hearty.; 2/6/15, 5:30 PM
Revenant said...: It's quite the reverse, isn't it?

Mohammed teaches almost exactly the opposite of Christ.

No, not really. It is more complicated than that.

What we know about Christ was written after he died, by people who didn't personally know him. Then the Bible was assembled by picking the most theologically consistent materials. So the Jesus of the Bible presents a fairly consistent view.

With Islam it is different. Mohammed lived a long time, and became a hugely successful religious leader during that time. Like all people, he was imperfect. Like all people, his attitudes changed over the course of his life.

If you read the Quran in chronological order (not the order it is normally printed in), the picture that emerges is one of a person who started out emphasizing things like service to others, and who believed that everyone would naturally be drawn to the new faith. The later writings point to a guy who had grown frustrated that not everybody was willing to "see the light". Most of the "screw it, kill 'em if they mess with us" stuff is from towards the end of his life.

There's an obvious "out" there for Islam, and it is one that many Muslims take. Specifically, recognizing that Mohammed was a man, not a perfect being -- that he made mistakes, *including* mistakes about what God wanted.

Of course, in most of the Muslim world it is illegal to say that. Penalties vary from "fines" to "death".; 2/6/15, 5:40 PM
Revenant said...: Islam can very likely trundle along nicely without ever reforming itself, but at any rate the West has neither the power nor any moral obligation to help "fix" Islam.

I never said we had a moral obligation to fix them, or that we could.

You are, however, wrong to think Islam can "trundle along" like this indefinitely without being put down one way or the other. Cultures that cannot play nicely with other, more powerful cultures get put down one way or the other.; 2/6/15, 5:47 PM
Curious George said...: "Mark said...
Obama is trolling his opponents, hilarious."

Every state of the Union that this asshole has done has been watched by fewer Democrats in the Chamber.

Funny!; 2/6/15, 5:49 PM
George said...: Honestly, it demonstrates his utter shallowness and poor education more than anything else.; 2/6/15, 6:24 PM
Anonymous said...: Revenant: You are, however, wrong to think Islam can "trundle along" like this indefinitely without being put down one way or the other. Cultures that cannot play nicely with other, more powerful cultures get put down one way or the other.

Well, sure. The Chinese, say, are unlikely to take any crap from an assertive Islam messing around in their bailiwick. There do seem to be a lot of well-placed "collabos" in the West, however, who seem to be peachy-keen with the idea of Islam re-trundling itself all over Europe. If they prevail, "not playing nicely with other cultures" will be a winning strategy.; 2/6/15, 6:41 PM
Michael K said...: "That leaves only 15 million bloodthirsty barbaric savages for us to concern ourselves with.
I feel better already."

Thank you. I feel better, too.; 2/6/15, 6:48 PM
Trashhauler said...: Re a Muslim Reformation: "They're just coming due for their Martin Luther, give or take a century."

Unfortunately, there is no central authority to reform. Any reformer merely becomes another sect.; 2/6/15, 6:49 PM
Michael K said...: "those who think that the religion of Islam is to blame for the actions of the radical militants."

Another Quran scholar. Thank you. May I have another ?; 2/6/15, 6:50 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: It is a mistake to equate reformation with modernization. The motives of the reformers, as much as they can be said to have had a common motive, was to reject an international church and replace it with churches controlled by the State.; 2/6/15, 6:52 PM
Chef Mojo said...: Bobby Jindal nails it in his response to Obama's uncalled for false moral equivalence and lecturing:

“It was nice of the President to give us a history lesson at the Prayer breakfast. Today, however, the issue right in front of his nose, in the here and now, is the terrorism of Radical Islam, the assassination of journalists, the beheading and burning alive of captives. We will be happy to keep an eye out for runaway Christians, but it would be nice if he would face the reality of the situation today. The Medieval Christian threat is under control, Mr. President. Please deal with the Radical Islamic threat today."; 2/6/15, 7:19 PM
Browndog said...: Obama set forth to remove the beam from the eyes of Americans, from which he was chosen.

Not just Americans, but Christians world-wide, and the world on whole.

What would Jesus say?

What would Obama say?

Althouse rightly chastises her reader for not adhering to the Teachings of Obama.; 2/6/15, 7:29 PM
Paco Wové said...: "the way Jesus spoke to people. We're all sinners. Take the beam out of your own eye. Essence of Christianity. Learn it. Know it."

So Obama was the Lightworker after all, eh, Professor?; 2/6/15, 7:33 PM
chickelit said...: grackle said...But waterboarding DOES work, thankfully. The beauty of the method is that it leaves the terrorist unmarked, hale and hearty.

Agree. And Cook et al. know this too -- that's why they scream so loudly against it.; 2/6/15, 7:40 PM
Browndog said...: "We are summoned to push back against those who would distort our religion for their nihilistic ends," Obama said during remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. He singled out the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, calling the militants a "death cult," as well as those responsible for last month's terror attacks in Paris and deadly assault on a school in Pakistan.
-AP

Yea, probably nothing-; 2/6/15, 7:41 PM
dreams said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/6/15, 7:44 PM
chickelit said...: Althouse's comparison of Obama to Jesus was both smug and ugly. She's still hoping against hope that the man she believed in back in 2008 will somehow come through for her.; 2/6/15, 7:50 PM
traditionalguy said...: The guaranteed way to start a Reformation in Arabia is the same way it was done in Northern Europe after 1500 AD.

Simply translate the Bible from Greek, Hebrew and Latin into Arabic and other local languages and print up 100,000,000 of them and give them away in Arabia. That will do it; 2/6/15, 7:53 PM
Anonymous said...: This is the bigotry of low expectations. If a murderer says he is killing for Islam, who are we to judge? Let him be killing for Islam. Then kill him and arrest his accomplices. Also, spy on them to stop the next attack.

I am a Christian and I see nothing in my Bible that says I am supposed to allow my neighbors and family to be harmed. I am to love everyone and be a provider and protector. The fact that a threat comes from a Muslim instead of a backsliding Christian does not change my responsibilities.; 2/6/15, 8:14 PM
Dale said...: You, Ann Althouse are a self righteous prig, judging the offense of others to be ridiculous because you don't see one. Your brand of mix and match brand of Christianity may lead you there, but not millions of other Americans. They need no lecture from the President to remember things they have not only never participated in, but have spent there lives seeking to do good works and truly follow Christ.

And I resent completely your implication that because I found offense that I am anti-Obama. Where do you get off? Talk about not looking at the log in your own eye, hypocrite.

The President of the United States was invited to participate, it is not mandatory for him. He had an excellent opportunity to lead in hope and inspiration the gathering of people MOST unlikely to hate Muslims and pray and work for peace, instead purposely chose to offend them. WHY? How about this President stop lecturing good people who actually come in good faith?

I guess its what to expect from pro-Obama Evangelical haters like you, eh? Bet this bit ashamed of his wife.

Hey, by the way, how did you like Mother Teresa's dressing down of pro-aborts like yourself at the Prayer Breakfast when Clinton was there? It was wrong of her to use that opportunity in my opinion, even though I agree with her.

Or does your idea of free speech lead you to the beleief that anything can be said anytime anywhere? Are there no inappropriate areas that things should wisely be better left not said? We know the answer to that because if you weren't such a hypocrite about this you wouldn't have moderation on this blog.

Ashamed that I bragged about your great evenhanded blog for years. And yes, you know I have been here for years.; 2/6/15, 8:35 PM
Barry Dauphin said...: Isn't someone who pretends to call out unnamed people getting on their high horse actually getting on a high horse himself?; 2/6/15, 9:32 PM