The Cold Light of the Day After the Speech

There’s a  number of people last night heaping praise on Obama’s speech at Ft Hood yesterday.  Predictably,  Marc Armbinder is one of them:

Today, at Ft. Hood. I guarantee: they’ll be teaching this one in rhetoric classes. It was that good. My gloss won’t do it justice. Yes, I’m having a Chris Matthews-chill-running-up-my-leg moment, but sometimes, the man, the moment and the words come together and meet the challenge.

Oh, puullllleeese…..

(Sigh)

I suppose there will always be the amen chorus in the press for a leftist President. That’s pretty much a given.  But we need to consider a few things in the cold light of the following day:

• Let’s remember first of all, that the speech wouldn’t have been required but for a misbegotten attitude of what we as a nation should be doing about identifying Islamic terrorists, and dealing with them. Candidate Obama spent a good deal of time trying to convince us that Islamic terrorism was not a threat to these United States. He was convinced, he told us, that  the civil rights of the terrorists were the larger issue.  The speech was required yesterday, because of the reality of the situation, which was at least out of sync with the pre-election rethoric of Obama. With the bodies laid out before him as he spoke, we were all treated to a spectacle that if nothing else,  proved  with graphic horror  how wrong the left, Obama included, has been. It was an error in judgment and in policy that cost the lives and livelihoods of a number of Americans.  We need is a nation to understand that fact, and make adjustments accordingly.  The speech, for all its rhetorical gloss, failed to address that.
• Secondly, let’s consider the idea that Obama desperately needed to hit a home run with this one, in large part because of his shocking tone deafness in his initial response to the tragedy. Clearly, he had some ground to make up, here.  Granted, from a rhetorical standpoint he succeeded in doing so.  Then again, nobody has ever doubted Obama’s ability in terms of speaking rhetorically.  At least, so long as there’s a teleprompter around.
• We need ask ourselves, what policy changes will occur as a result of this tragedy. This blog and many others have documented the links between Hasan and the mosque in Washington DC attended by a number of the terrorists involved in the 911 attack. We have also documented the emails and other incidents which were clearly missed warnings.  So again, the question: what policy changes will occur as a result of this tragedy? Will  President Obama start taking Islamic terrorism more seriously, now, than he did as Candidate Obama?  Will, for example,  he publicly say that his estimate of the threat of terrorism was wrong and that policies that came from that estimate should now be reversed?  If not, it seems clear to me that we’re still in danger .   The answer,  on the basis of the history of Obama would seem to be ‘no’, given his historical reluctance to accept the concept that he might not be able to walk on water, after all.
• This incident would seem to be yet another example of the real effects of leftism on America.  Very few will point this out, mostly because it doesn’t fit in with the usual leftist dogma, but the attack in question occurred in a gun free zone.  At some point, we need to get the idea into our heads that a lack of guns does not make one safer.
• I will not diminish the sacrifices made by those who died and those who are irreversibly injured in this attack.  Yet, it seemed a little out of place for Obama to be praising those who were killed as American heroes.  They were such for having served, certainly, but their deaths were not an act of heroism, but rather were caused by a misbegotten collection of polices of political correctness that put them needlessly at risk   They were victims of a war that the leftists now in control of our government, refuse to acknowledge, for fear of losing the votes of their political base… a collection of anti-war know nothings.  It’s the same group of people Obama is so reluctant to offend, that he now delays giving his ground commanders the troops they need to do the job Candidate Obama told us was so important… moreso, he said than Iraq.  In short, just like the troops dying daily in Afghanistan, those people at Ft Hood got shot so that Obama could continue getting the support of the far left.  Just roll that one around a while and see what pops out, OK?
• This incident, these shootings, were not a crime. They were an act of war, and since the creature was wearing one of our uniforms, of treason. We will never see Hasan charged with treason, because to do so would bring into sharper focus the misbegotten policies of this administration which are directly responsible for the deaths and injuries that day.   Instead,  he will be tried for murder, which ignores the fact that like it or not this country and this world, is at war with radical Islam.  It is a war that was declared on us some years ago… a fact that has been denied as a matter of routine by the left for decades, now. Going for a murder conviction as opposed to a treasonable offense, and an act of war,  gives the left the cover it needs to continue under the illusion that we’re really not at war, and that everything can be handled by the criminal justice system.