If someone is looking for a phrase to encapsulate the Obama years, I suggest the “tug of war presidency.”
Every issue that has arisen — from whether to allow people from Ebola-stricken countries into the U.S. to whether opposition to abortion on religious grounds is reasonable — has been a fight Barack Obama was “willing to have.”
One of the most recent struggles has been over whether mass shootings by ISIS members and its sympathizers are acts of terror. The president made his mind up on this question long before the San Bernardino massacre by a couple who swore their allegiance to the Islamic State. When Nidal Hasan, a crazed U.S. Army major and psychiatrist opened fire on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, killing 13 and injuring 30, the Obama administration promptly declared the killings an act of “workplace violence.” The fact that Hasan was a Muslim who screamed “Allahu Akbar” as he fired off shots was irrelevant.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Flash forward to last week when Edward Archer, a convert to Islam, fired 30 rounds at a Philadelphia police officer as he sat in his patrol car, the White House wasn’t willing to connect the dots, which included Archer’s own claim that he was “acting in the name of Islam.”
Late yesterday, the FBI completed its initial investigation of the incident. Their verdict? It was a terrorist attack:
FBI: Shooting of Philly officer by man who says he pledged allegiance to ISIS now investigated as terrorist attack https://t.co/QAIZG4WVyk
— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) January 13, 2016
Don’t be the least bit surprised if the Justice Department orders a second, and if need be third, investigation just to make sure.
