On Tuesday, President Obama made his most adamant case yet against applying the term “radical Islam” to terrorist attacks in his speech addressing the Orlando nightclub massacre.
He said being challenged by Republicans to use the phrase “is a political distraction” and would accomplish nothing when it comes to military strategy:

“That’s the key, they tell us. We can’t beat ISIL unless we call them radical Islamists.

“What exactly would using this label would accomplish? What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to trying to kill Americans? Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer, is none of the above. Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. This is a political distraction.”

Instead of a full-throated condemnation of murder committed in the name of Islam, President Obama steps forward as an apologist for a religion he doesn’t claim for his own:

“Since before I was president, I’ve been clear about how extremist groups have perverted Islam to justify terrorism.”

During his entire presidency, he has defended against the so-called perversions of Islam, without ever once defending other world religions, even the religion to which he subscribes. The same Christianity he bashed during a prayer breakfast for its part in the Crusades. So, here we have a president who regularly defends the theology of Islam but never his own.

And yet there’s a greater problem in his approach: he should never, as leader of the free world, place himself in a position of theological authority for any religious texts.

On her blog, Ann Althouse explains this brilliantly:

This puts the President of the United States in the position of saying what is orthodox in religion. (I’m reminded — and this is Flag Day — of the Supreme Court’s Pledge of Allegiance case with the great line: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion…”.) But that’s his approach and he’s sticking to it.

Politicians should know their Constitutionally approved boundaries and only take on the job they were elected to do. We don’t elect a pastor-in-chief for good reason. By defending the theology of “true” Islam, the president is stepping out of bounds into a place he isn’t authorized to be.

H/T Instapundit

About The Author

Mark was a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, and served as the national coordinator. He left the organization to work more broadly on expanding the self-governance movement beyond the partisan divide. Mark appears regularly on television in outlets as diverse as MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC. He’s highly sought after for the tea party perspective from print and electronic media outlets, from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Examiner, Politico and the The Hill. Mark blogs at MarkMeckler.com, and his opinion editorials regularly run in many of the leading political newspapers both on and offline. Mark has a BA in English from San Diego State University and graduated with honors from University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1988. He practiced real estate and business law for almost a decade. For the last eleven years of his legal career he specialized in Internet advertising law. When not fighting for the future of our nation, Mark is an avid horseman, and lives in rural northern California with his wife Patty and two children.

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