Reuters
President Obama, catching intensifying flak from the political right for failing to utter the phrase “radical Islam” — sorry, no substitutions allowed (other than “Islamic extremism”) — gave every appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday of having heard his critics. And having decided to do, effectively, the opposite of what they’d demanded. If he did not exactly imply then he certainly granted his political adversaries the leeway to infer that he sees a moral equivalency between the murderous acts being committed under the banner of Islamic terrorist groups and centuries-ago Christian campaigns.
See: Terrorism poses no existential threat to the U.S., writes Stratfor security analyst
And: Obama calls ISIS a ‘vicious death cult’ at prayer breakfast
He not only avoided, again, the prescribed terminology in his comments on the recent wave of terrorist acts committed by the so-called Islamic State and by Boko Haram and others but, in an attempt at contextualizing those acts, included a passage that he had to assume would trigger a visceral reaction from foes:
“Humanity,” Obama said, “has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our "high horse" and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”
