Politics

At Summit on Extremism, Obama Defends His Semantic Choices Regarding Islam

Published

9 years ago

February 19, 2015

President Barack Obama speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015. The president condemned those who seek to use religion as a rationale for carrying out violence around the world, declaring Thursday that “no god condones terror.” (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

(Los Angeles Times) – President Obama has talked about the deadly dogma infiltrating some Muslim communities and decried the acts of terrorism carried out in the name of what he calls a “distorted” version of Islam.

But as he presides over three days of discussions at the White House about the fight against terrorism, he and his staff are studiously avoiding making their efforts sound like a religiously driven campaign against the faith of more than 1 billion people.

Officially, the meeting is a summit on countering violent extremism. Nobody at the White House is talking about “Islamic extremism” or “Muslim terrorists,” a semantic distinction that has critics up in arms but that the administration contends is necessary to deprive extremist groups of the authenticity they crave.

“We must never accept the premise that they put forward because it is a lie,” Obama said in an address at the summit Wednesday. “They are not religious leaders. They are terrorists. And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”

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COMMENTARY: President Biden, The Constitution and Race

The Democratic Party needs to pause and reflect on the real issue, which is race and not an aging President. Once again, we see the Kool-Aid of division being swallowed, not by the MAGA Right, but by Democrats who know better and openly profess a love for democracy and the Constitution of the United States. So, the question is how can one love the Constitution and at the same time only obey those sections that agree with our way of thinking?

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1 week ago

July 19, 2024

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Dr. John E. Warren contends that it is the race of Biden’s successor, Kamal Harris, that is the real issue underneath the fearmongering about the president’s age. Courtesy photo.

By Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher
The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper

The Democratic Party needs to pause and reflect on the real issue, which is race and not an aging President.

Once again, we see the Kool-Aid of division being swallowed, not by the MAGA Right, but by Democrats who know better and openly profess a love for democracy and the Constitution of the United States. So, the question is how can one love the Constitution and at the same time only obey those sections that agree with our way of thinking?

When President Biden wins re-election, his age or any other issue will only become a problem when there are signs he is unable to fulfill the duties of the Office. The 25th Amendment to the Constitution handles the succession process setting out how the Vice President assumes the Office of the Presidency and how the Office of the Vice Presidency is to be filled. The elephant in the room is Vice President Kamala Harris, who happens to not only be a woman, but also Black.

This is the same Black woman who was Attorney General of the largest state in the Union. She was an elected U.S. Senator from that same state which had given us the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren and President Ronald Reagan.

She has been elected by the Democratic Party’s primary process which made Joe Biden the presidential candidate, and Harris the vice-presidential candidate.

So, is the real issue the age of a man who, in the last four years, rescued this nation from the brink of destruction?

Is it the Democrats opposing the President staying in the race who may have Alzheimer’s and memory loss, rather than the President who remembers what he has done and how he rescued a struggling nation?

Is it the Democrats complaining about the President and know that Trump has a better chance at winning against a last-minute replacement than running against a President who has already beaten him before? In knowing all these facts, especially the presence of the 25th Amendment, the only card left in the deck is race.

It appears that some White Liberal Democrats just don’t want a Black woman in the orbit of really becoming President and they would rather disgrace and destroy a good man because of a bad debate than take a chance on a Black woman running the White House.

Let’s not get it twisted. It was a Black Congressman from South Carolina, James Clyburn, who motivated Black America to vote for Joe Biden when it appeared that he was out of the race for the presidency.

It is the Black Vote that put him in office and it is the Black Vote of the Congressional Black Caucus who, in this race for the White House, is standing in unity with the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives in a Republican-controlled Congress against whimpering calls from a few democrats for the President to “step aside.”

Once again, the clarion call is to stand with the Constitution and not be like the Supreme Court who is now stomping upon all that it stands for in an effort to protect and insulate the convicted felon that we, the people, would keep out of the White House.

A move to oust President Biden would surely guarantee an election victory for Trump.