The College Fix

OPINION

All of America was President Obama’s classroom Wednesday when the former professor stood at his podium to give us one of the most nauseating lectures on religious violence ever uttered by a U.S. president.

See, Obama thinks he’s our teacher. He thinks we all need to take a class on “Understanding Extremists 101.” His tone of voice during the “White House Summit to Counter Violent Extremism” was incredibly patronizing, but several of his remarks were far worse.

He essentially gave America a lecture on why we must understand where ISIS is coming from. Sure they rape and kill children, behead Christians, and burn people alive – but they have legitimate grievances that date back to colonialism and the Crusades, our president believes.

The fact that the word “terrorists” managed to come out of his mouth was physically shocking.

Writing on Hot Air, Noah Rothman points out in a piece titled “Theology professor Obama declares America is ‘at war with people who have perverted Islam,'” that “Obama gave the nation exactly what it never knew it needed: Another self-indulgent, pedagogical lecture from the president on the roots of religious violence.”

In that approximately 30-minute speech, Obama meandered aimlessly all over the theistic and sociological map, touching on a number subjects or theories popular in the faculty lounge but never for so long as to fully articulate a comprehensive philosophy. If that verdict sounds harsh, it should. There was no reason to engage in this solipsistic example of streaming consciousness but for the president to flatter himself, bare his inner professor, and indulge in what he apparently believes are his superior intellectual faculties. In the process, he might have made things worse.

The president’s refusal to acknowledge that the epidemic of violence spreading across the world today has its roots in a dangerous strain of Islam has been conspicuous. In fact, he seems inclined to go out of his way in order to assure the public that no self-described Islamic terrorist is representative of Islam. That’s a fine sentiment; it is one that has been said many times in the past by a variety of political actors from across the ideological spectrum. Obama certainly is not the first American political figure to engage in theatrical displays so as to convey that America is not participating in a religious conflict. …

Whether or not that interpretation of Obama’s comments sounds right to you, it is undeniable that the United States is not in a more advantageous position today as a result of Obama’s sybaritic speech. It is unlikely that America stands on more strategic ground in the global war against Islamic radicalism because of Obama’s tortured attempts to obscure the precise nature of the enemy. Now, he has given America’s adversaries a brand new propagandistic tool. The world and the nation might be better served if the president stopped talking and instead focused on his responsibilities as commander-in-chief.

This is what happens when we elect a leftist professor as president.

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