Obama given pass on stirring up bias
Former President Barack Obama received praise for his response to the recent murder of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Obama tweeted: “We grieve for the Americans murdered in Pittsburgh. All of us have to fight the rise of anti-Semitism and hateful rhetoric against those who look, love or pray differently.” Many described Obama’s words as a powerful call for “unity.”
Meanwhile, leaders of Bend the Arc, a Pittsburgh Jewish advocacy group, said President Trump is not welcome in their city until Trump “denounces white nationalism” — the white supremacist movement that many believe Trump is guilty of either supporting or at least providing aid and comfort.
Speaking of “hateful rhetoric,” critics of President Trump have apparently forgotten about Obama’s 20year relationship with his anti-Semitic pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Wright and Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan have long been friends. In 2007, the publication founded by Wright’s church, Trumpet Newsmagazine, awarded its annual “Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award” to Farrakhan, a man who, it said, “truly epitomized greatness.” Farrakhan, in a February 2018 sermon, proclaimed the era of Jewish influence was near its end. In 2005, Farrakhan posed with a smiling freshman senator named Barack Obama. Fortunately for Obama, the photograph was not released until after Obama completed his two terms in the White House. Longtime Democrat Alan Dershowitz says that had he known about that photograph, he would not have campaigned for Obama.
Obama often denounced cops. In Ferguson, Mo., Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, was killed by a police officer. A friend and witness claimed that Brown held his hands up and pleaded with the cop, “Don’t shoot.” A grand jury later found the assertion a lie and completely exonerated the officer. But before the investigation was complete, Obama invoked Ferguson during a United Nations address as an example of the systemic racism blacks allegedly face in our criminal justice system.
President Obama, commenting on the 2016 police shootings of unarmed blacks, said: “These are not isolated incidents. They are symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system.” But recent studies, including one done by a black Harvard economist, show the opposite. Cops, the studies found, are more hesitant to use deadly force on a black suspect than a white one.
In 2014, two NYPD officers were killed — literally executed — while sitting in their squad cars. In 2016, five Dallas cops and three Baton Rouge, La., cops were also killed. All three suspects in these cop killings were black men, motivated, according to their own social media postings, by Black Lives Matter’s claim of anti-black systemic racism in the criminal justice system.
After the Dallas shootings, William Johnson, the executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, said, “I think (the Obama administration’s) continued appeasement at the federal level with the Department of Justice; their appeasement of violent criminals; their refusal to condemn movements like Black Lives Matter actively calling for the death of police officers ... while blaming police for the problems in this country has led directly to the climate that has made Dallas possible.”
Trump’s critics argue that his alleged “hateful rhetoric” inspired the pipe bomb suspect and the suspected Pittsburgh synagogue shooter. As for the cops murdered in New York, Baton Rouge and Dallas, does the same logic apply to Obama and his anticop rhetoric? Larry Elder is a best-selling author and nationally syndicated radio talk-show host.