Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer panned President Barack Obama’s speech on extremism Wednesday, saying on Fox News’ “Special Report” that Obama’s ISIS rhetoric sounded more like a community organizer doing outreach. (RELATED: Ben Carson On Defeating ISIS: ‘There’s No Such Thing As A Politically Correct War’)
KRAUTHAMMER: It sounds like a community organizer talking about outreach to aggrieved communities. If you listen to the president today and his emphasis on Islamic grievances, on reaching out and making the Muslims feel comfortable and not excluded, you would think that we are responding to the execution and the beheading of 21 Muslims on behalf of 21 extreme Christians somewhere in the world.
It is so divorced from reality, as if the problem is the lack of understanding of the Muslim grievances, particularly in the Middle East. We talk about root causes, as if that’s going to make any difference whatsoever. There are rich people in ISIS, there are poor. There are educated, there are uneducated. The idea that if you can attack and you can eradicate poverty-which in and of itself is an absurdity, that it would make a difference — is sort of a fantasy. It’s a way to avoid the issue, as is the president’s language.