In his regular appearance on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show on Thursday, Mark Steyn, author of “After America: Get Ready for Armageddon,” noted what he said were absurdities in President Barack Obama’s address to the United Nations.
Obama carved out new territory for a U.S. president during that speech when he said, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”
“He also said, I believe, that the future belongs to those who empower women,” Steyn said of Obama, “and the power belongs to those who invest in education.”
“It doesn’t quite add up to me, all this. It sounds like as if he’s saying the future belongs to gay, feminist Muslims. I wouldn’t like to take a bet on it, but I’d bet that he’s wrong on that. The fact is the president of the United States had no business saying that. If you happen to be a believer in Islam, Muhammad is your prophet. If you’re not, he’s just a bloke who died in the 7th Century and it should be permissible to say as much.”
“It’s interesting, this, by the way,” Steyn continued. “The concept — the United States and believe me, I know, because I have a threatened legal suit against me from [Penn State climatologist] Dr. Michael Mann, the hockey stick fellow. And I’ve been through this a number of times in Canada and the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The difference, the law on slander and libel in the United States is very different from those in other English-speaking countries and the rest of the world.”
“And you’re basically free to say what you like about public figures,” Steyn continued. “And Muhammad would seem to me to meet the definition of a public figure — not withstanding the fact that he’s also been dead for getting on for a millennium and a half. … Imagine if he had stood up there and said the future will not belong to those who slander the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Steyn reminded host Hugh Hewitt, author of “The Brief Against Obama: The Rise, Fall & Epic Fail of the Hope & Change Presidency,” of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. this month, when delegates reacted with boos to a voice vote that put God and Israel back in the party’s platform. That, Steyn explained, provides a stark contrast between Obama’s remark’s about Allah and his party’s reaction to Christianity.
“Imagine the uproar there would have been from the party that just a couple of weeks ago was actually booing God,” Steyn said. “You know, God got booed off stage at the Democratic National Convention. God got given the hook at the Democrat Vaudeville show. But Allah — apparently it’s a whole different game.”
