Fort Hood Massacre - 13 killed; dozens wounded

Just horrible ... my prayers for the families of those killed and wounded.

A spectacular failure by the military hierarchy which seems to have ignored many warnings concerning the shooter. Is the Pentagon to PC ?

Obama: "Let's not jump to any conclusions ...."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/fort_hood_xjP9yGrJN7gl7zdsJ31vnJ

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/11/lt-colonel-allen-west-tells-it-straight-on-fort-hood-jihad-the-worst-islamic-terror-attack-since-911.html

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/11/major-muslims-dawah-before-jihad.html


Mr. President, Is It Getting Any Better as the Answers Come In? [Andy McCarthy]

President Obama today in the Rose Garden, speaking about the Muslim mass-murderer who killed many more Americans yesterday than were killed by the Muslim mass-murderers who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993: "We don't know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts."

So, at the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Steve Emerson marshals some of the answers that have come in about Nidal Malik Hasan: "Born in Virginia, sent to medical school by the U.S. Army, the psychiatrist was chastised for proselytizing to his patients about Islam. Asked his nationality, he didn't identify himself as an American but as a Palestinian. He appeared pleased by the shooting death of a Little Rock Army recruiter in June and reportedly was heard saying, 'maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Times Square.' In the fateful moment before he opened fire on his unarmed victims, he shouted Allahu Akhbar!'"

President Obama has had no problems jumping to conclusions about everything from the stimulus (it was going to keep unemployment below 8 percent) to Honduras (the administration pronounced it a lawless coup when, as the answers came in, it was shown to be the opposite of that). In fact, based on what it acknowledged was no "specific information," his Homeland Security Department concluded that the country was about to experience a surge of violence from "rightwing extremists." I don't know what further answers the president is going to need here, but it seems some pretty obvious conclusions are in order.

By the way, as Steve points out, CAIR has also weighed in. They say . . . we don't know all the answers yet and we shouldn't jump to conclusions.



Shooting Raises Fears For Sanity Of Entire Western World [Mark Steyn]

The Headline of the Day, from the BBC:

Shooting Raises Fears For Muslims In US Army

Really? Right now the body count stands at:

Non-Muslims 13
Muslims 0

I was reading from some of this kind of coverage on the Rush Limbaugh show today. Even if you are concerned that it would be terribly unfair if all Muslims were to be tarred by Major Hasan's brush, it is, to put it at its mildest, the grossest bad taste to default every single time within minutes to the position that what's of most interest about an actual actrocity with real victims is that it may provoke an entirely hypothetical atrocity with entirely hypothetical victims.

I refer you yet again to this note-perfect parody:

British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow's Train Bombing

This kind of media coverage is really a form of mental illness far more advanced than whatever Major Hasan's lawyers eventually enter in mitigation, and apparently pandemic, at least among the western media.

On a related note, from David Horowitz: "Is everybody out of their mind?"

Bonus: "We're the ones who love death - our own."


Are All Religions Equally Violent? [Michael Rubin]

Regarding the ongoing discussion of Islam's role in terrorists' justification of their actions in general and Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's self-justification in particular, there's a tendency among the government, academics, and the media to engage in religious equivalency and suggest that Islamic extremism is really no different than Jewish and Christian extremism.

To counter such notions, Raymond Ibrahim's article, "Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam?," is certainly worth a weekend read.


An Intelligent Voice on Ft. Hood [Ramesh Ponnuru]

Check out Thomas Kenniff's Q&A with Washington Post readers.


Obama's Aloofness [Jonah Goldberg]

Yesterday when the Fort Hood news was breaking, at least a couple of the networks broke to President Obama's remarks at the Tribal Nations Conference, expecting a statement from Obama on the shootings. What they saw for a few long, uncomfortable, minutes was Obama making routine political introductions and pandering to his audience.

Here's how Robert A. George puts it:

But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and, inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a "shout-out" to "Dr. Joe Medicine Crow — that Congressional Medal of Honor winner." Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?

Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That's the least that should occur.
Indeed, an argument could be made that Obama should have canceled the Indian event, out of respect for people having been murdered at an Army post a few hours before. That would have prevented any sort of jarring emotional switch at the event.

Did the president's team not realize what sort of image they were presenting to the country at this moment? The disconnect between what Americans at home knew had been going on — and the initial words coming out of their president's mouth was jolting, if not disturbing.
I don't know. I'm about 3/5ths with Robert on this. I agree it was horribly disconnected from the drama of the moment and Obama didn't help himself. Indeed, this is one of the areas — emoting and empathy — where the Obama White House's vaunted communications operation has a real blindspot. Moreover, I think the White House's blind spot reflects Obama's own deficiencies. He really is a bit of a cold fish. His eulogy for Ted Kennedy, for example, showed that he lacks the ability — so common in politicians — to fake a certain kind of lachrymose sincerity plausibly. This shortcoming is not necessarily a bad thing in my book, but in Obama's case it can become a liability, particularly in cases like this because it can feed other negative perceptions of the man.
Still, this incident seems like just one of the perils of the presidency in the media age. I can't quite recall an example, but I'm sure that president Bush had similar moments when the cameras got to him in politician-mode during a national crisis.

Last year, when McCain halted his campaign to deal with the financial crisis, Obama said presidents need to be able to do a lot of things at once. He was right. I can give Obama a pass on this one, but I also think there might be a trend in the making.


9/11 v. Fort Hood [Jonah Goldberg]

In response to my post on Obama's aloofness, a lot of email like this:

Surely you recall the media making hay of Bush reading abook to some group of small children on Sept. 11, chastisinghim for "going on reading while the US was being attacked"among other things. Wanna bet the same spin is put onObama's meeting with AmerIndians during an attack on USsoldiers?

Yeah, me either.

And:

How about when Bush was informed of the WTC strikes on 9/11, and he finished reading to the children? I believe the left and the media were pretty hard on him for this.
I think this is an absolutely fair point about the shabby double standards of the press and left. But I always thought Bush's response was fine. It was also very different than Obama's, at least as I understand it. Obama was briefed on the shooting before he went out. He opted to do the schmoozy stuff. Bush was presented with staggering news and kept his cool. Not that these readers disagree, but this example works in Bush's favor and against Obama. And it makes a lot of Bush's critics look even worse for politicizing that moment on 9/11.

Update: From a reader:

I've never understood the 'scandal' of George W. Bush's "My Pet Goat" moment. He was in a room full of small children. What was he supposed to do? Break down sobbing and scream 'we're all going to die'? He spared the kids unnecessary trauma, and the couple minutes spent finishing the story didn't really count for anything in the long run. In short, he acted like an ADULT. Obama's response was bizarre. He was speaking to a group of adults, many of whom probably already knew about the shooting. He seems to have no idea what constitutes a 'big' event or a 'presidential' response. It's like we have a 14 year old running the country, and while Joe Biden is OLD, he's not mature enough to reign Obama in..... It's going to be a loooooooong couple of years, IMO......

Contrasting W's Reaction to 9/11 and The One's to Ft. Hood [Andy McCarthy]

An interesting column at Newsmax by our pal Frank Gaffney on the "politician-in-chief."