Obama: Daniel Pearl’s Beheading ‘Captured the World’s Imagination’
Greg Halverson of the American Thinker reports that President Obama recently signed the Daniel Pearl Press Freedom Act, “which authorizes the State Department to include information about attacks on journalists in its human rights reports.”
Pearl, as you recall, is the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered — beheaded in a gruesome manner — by Islamic terrorists. In January of 2002, Pearl was on his way to what he thought was an interview with Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani in downtown Karachi, Pakistan. Kidnapped by a group called “The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty,” Pearl was accused of being a CIA agent. The group then used a Hotmail e-mail account to send the U.S. a number of demands, including the freeing of all Pakistani terror detainees. They threatened to kill Pearl if their demands were not met. Photos of Pearl in handcuffs with a gun held to his head were attached.
Nine days later, Pearl was beheaded. A month later, a grisly 3-minute video was released showing Pearl admitting to be an American Jew and stating his captors’ demands. It then portrays his horrible murder. Nearly four months later, his remains were discovered in a shallow grave about 30 miles north of Karachi.
Angelina Jolie starred in 2007’s A Mighty Heart, which focused on Pearl’s pregnant wife Mariane’s search for her husband after he went missing.
In this era of Obama signing objectionable legislation, who could complain about the Daniel Pearl Press Freedom Act? Greg Halverson doesn’t, nor do I. No matter how irritated I may get with certain journalists, I certainly don’t like attacks on their persons, especially attacks that could turn deadly. Freedom of the press is a cherished tradition here in America and anything that promotes that freedom and the safety of those who practice it is all right in my book.
So what’s the problem? It lies in Obama’s comments as he signed the legislation:
Obviously, the loss of Daniel Pearl was one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination because it reminded us of how valuable a free press is.
The loss of Daniel Pearl didn’t exactly “capture” my imagination. Rather, it sparked a combination of indignation, anger, and horror that this barbaric act which hearkens back to the 7th century (where, if Islamists had their way, we would travel back as though in a time warp) was visited upon anyone, much less a fellow American. That it was a group of Islamic terrorists who kidnapped a Jew makes it even more upsetting, considering the hatred encouraged by Islamists toward Jews, going back to the days of Mohammed.
They say actions speak louder than words. In this case, the action is laudable, but the words that accompanied it are unfortunate at best and loathsome at worst. Halverson sums it up rather neatly:
Imagination is captured by triumph. Redemption. Beheading doesn’t qualify, nor does it “remind us” of anything besides evil. The president’s refusal to acknowledge evil empowers evil.
Had Obama said something along the lines of, “The horrendous death of Daniel Pearl at the hands of Islamic terrorists captured the world’s attention because it reminded us how ruthless and dangerous the enemy we face is,” I would not be in the middle of this commentary. But Obama didn’t even see fit to mention the manner of Pearl’s death, nor did he bother to mention who was responsible. As Mark Steyn reminds us, the man who actually wielded the knife was none other than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. “But Mr. Obama is not the kind to take ‘guilty’ for an answer, so he’s arranging a hugely expensive trial for KSM amid the bright lights of Broadway,” says Steyn.
Obama and members of his administration have a strange aversion to pointing the finger of blame at Islamists when they perpetrate their acts of horror in the name of Islam, even going so far as to ban “Islamic extremism” from the national security lexicon.
Meanwhile, Obama and his minions scolded Israel for constructing homes in the West Bank and Obama treated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu like something he found in the litter box when Netanyahu visited the White House in March — holding back red carpet treatment, not posing for official photos, and leaving him on his own at dinnertime.
You know, Obama not only has a thing for supporting anti-Semites. He appointed an anti-Israel lobbyist as his anti-Semitism czar. And he’s been accused of being an anti-Semite before.
So the question remains: is Obama just an insensitive boob, or is he an anti-Semite?
It seems that whenever he goes off message — or rather, off Teleprompter — his true feelings come out. Spreading the wealth. Bitter clingers. At some point, you’ve made enough money.
Daniel Pearl’s terrible, unwarranted death doesn’t capture my imagination. What is does capture is the idea of Obama being swept out of office in 2012. Now that’s change I can believe in.
Muslim.
Nuf said
If there’s one thing you didn’t need to watch Daniel Pearl get his head sawed off, it was imagination.
It was right there, in front of your face.
Did Obama watch it?
at heart, he’s muslim. he probably said alluh akbar when he watched the atrocity.
Like getting up at 3 am to watch the POW’s from Vietnam get off the planes back in the 70′s, watching the video of Daniel Pearl being murdered was something I chose to do. obama is a vile, disgusting, ignorant, arrogant, self-centered, immature, childish fool who doesn’t have a clue about the realities of life or death as played out on the international scene. I don’t think it matters whether he watched the video or not. And if he did watch it, I certainly do not want to have to hear what his take on it was. Like another said, probably “allahu akbar” or whatever murderous thing it is that muslims constantly mutter.
“So the question remains: is Obama just an insensitive boob, or is he an anti-Semite?”
The two are not mutually exclusive: I’d say that Obama is both an insensitive boob and a Jew-hater.
Mr. Obama’s deliberately badly worded eulogy to Daniel Pearl certainly trivialized poor Dan’s horrific murder, and even managed obfuscate just what exactly happened, a brutal and callous murder, and who did it, a gang of Arab Islamic terrorists. Indeed, one sees the same conscious misuse of language and obfuscation whenever Mr. Obama somehow has to discuss Islam, the Arab world, and especially the Palestinians.
And since Mr. Obama doesn’t mince words in such a way when he condemns Israel for various and sundry policies, I must assume that he has a special loathing for the Jewish State and even the Jewish People.
But then again Mr. Obama probably isn’t even aware that he deeply dislikes Jews and Israel, or that he accepts the New Left and Arab narrative of Israel as a colonial oppressive state, forced on the Arab world by the Europeans and Americans. After all, he sat in the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church for twenty years, and even though he considers the good reverend his mentor, he never heard good ‘ol Jeremiah even once condemn America as a fascist and racist state, nor Israel and the Jews as the oppressor of the Arabs and in America, the Blacks.
Mr. Obama is so deeply anti Semitic and anti White that can no longer even recognize that he is.
Bingo! This is not the first and won’t be the last time 0 and his strap-hangers do something like this. Twenty year of Reverend Wright must have an influence on a person. So far as I can tell, 85 percent or more of my synagogue voted for 0. Somehow, I don’t think the number will be more than half that next time. Barack Hussein Obama….that about covers it.
The author writes: “is Obama just an insensitive boob, or is he an anti-Semite?”
The two are not mutually exclusive.
The answer is “yes”!
Ah, yes. The mathematical use of “or”.
Sometimes I believe we say things in today’s society that are so horrible that we think we know what they mean, but we really don’t. For example, we say that Daniel Pearl was beheaded, but has anyone actually seen what’s involved in beheading a person the way Daniel Pearl was beheaded?
There was another American who was beheaded by al Qaeda that nobody ever mentions today, and his name was Nicholas Berg. He was another one of those unfortunate souls who had his life snuffed out on video in Iraq for the simple fact that he was an American. Yet does Obama remember, let alone even know, who this man was?
I bring this up because Americans seemed to be numbed to words these days. They don’t understand, really understand, the true horror of what happened here. If they did, they would be a lot more outraged at what happened to Daniel Pearl, and they certainly would have precious little pity for any of the al Qaeda animals held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
During Nelson’s time in the Royal Navy, if you were guilty of a crime or major infraction on board a ship, you were tied to the mainmast and lashed. The difference was, the entire crew was ordered to come on deck and witness the punishment. The crew wasn’t “told” that a person was lashed, they actually had to see it so that they would remember it and, possibly, think twice before committing a similar crime. Imagine if the president of the United States gave a harsh speech condemning the horrific murder of Daniel Pearl and behind him was the video showing what the man actually went through?
Too rough you say? Too gory? Way, way, over the top and violent? Well, I don’t think Daniel Pearl would have thought so. And I believe that if Americans actually saw what happened to Daniel Pearl, they would not ignore it, belittle it, and certainly not forget it. They would remember these images when confronting this barbarous enemy of ours and it would show that the only way to stop such cruelty is to destroy the people who commit it. You can’t offer platitudes to people who think nothing of cutting off the heads of others. Words do have meaning, and the word “beheading” has to be one of the worst in the English language. Americans should really, really, understand that and not just say that they do.
Yes indeed. Well stated.
Funny how our “intellectual” elite thinks it’s good to show graphic images of the Nazi death camps so that our children understand how evil the Nazis were, but they oppose showing what Islamic terrorists do because it would foster “intolerance” and “islamo-phobia”.
The statement betrays his worldview. Unfortunately, the reaction to Islamic terrorism is often seen through an outdated Marxist paradigm that has overwhelmingly been discredited. While I think Obama is less of a traditional Marxist and more of a modern European social democrat, the problem is that interpreting conflict largely as a fight between the “haves” and “have-nots” leads you to think everything is economic. Islamism is not the result of an “unequal” division of wealth in the world, but many in the west fail to understand any other type of motivating factor. They see the rich West and the impoverished East and draw the wrong conclusion. The lack of development in the East does NOT cause vicious anti-social and and violent tendencies; rather it is the vicious anti-social and violent tendencies that cause the lack of development.
“The horrendous death of Daniel Pearl at the hands of Islamic terrorists captured the world’s attention because it reminded us how ruthless and dangerous the enemy we face is”. This sounds like a winner to me.
The statement betrays his worldview.
I agree — I think Obama’s statement was a brief window into his soul. He hasn’t the slightest idea what true horror is.
What can we expect though? He is our first “world citizen” president that has spent his adult life living in an echo-chamber. “We are the one’s we’ve been waiting for?” Seriously. It only looks like he is the one our enemies have been hoping for.
He doesn’t think beheading is a horror, because he’s a Muslim. It’s business as usual for Muslims, even for one sitting in the WH.
How can you comment on this? It’s so disgusting it leaves one speechless. Obama is slime, but we know that already. And his administration is full of slime just like him, a bunch of really creepy characters.
“… is Obama just an insensitive boob, or is he an anti-Semite? ” He is a man (sic.) with neither virtue, morals or honor, an insatiable appetite for adulation and power, and ego capable of plugging an Avogadro’s number of blown oil holes, and a blind spot to match. He has no leadership sklls whatsoever, and only reacts to events by asking the question, “How can I benefit politically?” When a catastrophic event that even the bunghole lickers of the press cannot ignore overtakes him, he will flail and vibrate with indecision and noise. He talks only.
Is the president an insensitive boob? Or an anti-Semite?
I’m going to say he’s both.
Ms. Meister,
You might have cited my article “Beheading in the Name of Islam” (MEQ, 2005: http://www.meforum.org/713/beheading-in-the-name-of-islam). I think that BHO is not so anti-Semite as he is pro-Muslim. And of course like everyone else in this Administration, BHO treats Islam from the perspective of a dhimmi.
Although Obama’s use of the passive voice and continual refusal to name our enemies or acknowledge their actual motivations for terrorist attacks and beheadings, it seems more than a tad unfair to call an anti-Semite.
As so often, I found the actual information in your essays quite valuable. The tone, however, seems far too harsh and the judgments rather severe. A more generous interpretation of Obama’s perceptions and values certainly seems possible – even if he’s quite disappointing on many, many levels. Understatement has its advantages too.
Again, thank you for sharing your insights.
Cuffy at Perfunction made the very same point ten days ago, albeit in slightly more earthy tones.
Insensitive boob?
Or an anti-Semite?
Umm, I’m thinking ‘Insensitive anti-Semite boob’? Where’s my prize for the correct answer?
Obviously, the election of Obama was one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination because it reminded us that even enlightened liberal democracies are vulnerable to the cancer of progressivism. What a disgusting little creep he is.
Not really a surprise coming from Obama, the guy makes George Bush look like Marcus Aurelius.
Strangely enough in that strange world of synchronicity which often proves its own theory, I watched a DVD of A Mighty Heart on Saturday.
My long shot hope of any redemptive value in this film was dashed time and time again as missed opportunities presented themselves with dismal regularity.
No real motive was offered. No example of the barbaric wrongness was present. Merely a sprawling apology of a film which basically was an homage to Angelina Jolie’s photogenic character.
It was all so casual and apart from Jolie’s embarrassing attempt at grief, as if Pearl was second fiddle in the recounting of this tale of his own death.
The subsequent capture of the perpetrators was dealt with almost as afterthought, as if the existential, age old judicial matter of paying the price didn’t matter.
All in all a thoroughly modern, conclusionless stockholm syndrome of a film. Dirty Harry it wasn’t.
They’ll bang on around that old and tired saw, one mans terrorist is another’s freedom fighter but beheading an innocent man, with a knife and whilst his death agony is filmed has no excuse.
It is beyond, even the beyond these people inhabit.
Obama’s crassness is by now no surprise. His airy world view makes a mockery of right and wrong and by doing so excuses barbarism as a cultural anomaly. Fortunately , America is waking up to this man with not one scrap of a hinterland.
This oh so sophisticated void may please his eternal admirers but most are twigging.
When it suits he’s all there in his judgemental opinions. Without one scintila of information on the case, he called the Cambridge police ‘stupid’. He’s now castigating Arizona for actually enforcing America’s own laws on immigration. He berates Fox for having the temerity to challenge. He would rather go after innocent Tea Party members than real terrorists.
The list is becoming drearily obvious and this latest episode only adds and confirms his complete unsuitability for post.
“When it suits he’s all there in his judgemental opinions. Without one scintila of information on the case, he called the Cambridge police ’stupid’. He’s now castigating Arizona for actually enforcing America’s own laws on immigration. He berates Fox for having the temerity to challenge. He would rather go after innocent Tea Party members than real terrorists.
The list is becoming drearily obvious and this latest episode only adds and confirms his complete unsuitability for post.”
I respectfully wish to echo your words
Pam, of course BHO is an anti-semite. Not only did he equate a throat slitting, Islamofascist Jew murderer as someone capable of capturing the world’s imagination, (as if the sight was a spectacle of marvel and wonder)but he could not even bring himself to identify the political, theological doctrine which heralds beheading, throatslitting, suicide bombing and EVERY manner of killing infidels.
So even IF the entire world were clueless to his anti-semitic friendships/leanings (all his adult life) before the election, at this point in time there is NO room for doubt.
BHO is not only an anti-semite, but a gloating one too-notwithstanding his Jew-boys in residence!
Obama isn’t ‘insensitive’; he’s a pathological narcissist. That’s not the ordinary narcissism of the political hack; that’s a deep neurosis.
I suspect he moved into this as a young child abandoned by his parents; he moved into a psychological state where he must control all interactions with Other People. So, Obama will misinform (lie) constantly; he’ll manipulate any and all emotionally – using hope and fear as his key tactics; and if you reject his wishes, he’ll accuse you of..bias. Racial bias.
This also means that Obama is unable to feel empathy with other people. That’s why he comes across as ‘insensitive’ or ‘cool and aloof’. His coolness isn’t that he’s an intellectual because he isn’t an intellectual; he’s not someone who reads and researches and analyzes. Indeed, he’s ignorant of history, of economic and political theory, and has no curiosity in these themes.
Obama is unable to feel empathy with others because his only interaction with others is to ensure himself that he can control them. To feel empathy would be to put himself on an equal level with them. Obama can’t feel equal to others; he has to be in control.
“Is the president an insensitive boob? Or an anti-Semite?”
Um, yes?
Not only is The One incompetent, clueless, and arrogant, but he’s a rabid anti-Semite. Evidence of such is the trail of his associations and hostility toward Israel through the years.
Will you and all otherer members of the “courageous” press, stop it already? The charade that is, that this charlatan of a President is somehow just misguided or uses poor judgement! You all marvel about how smart he is, so start accepting that all these
actions, time and again, are deliberate and taken with full knowledge of their symbolism and impact in the Muslim world
Is the president an insensitive boob? Or an anti-Semite?
—
Both
While I’m sure most people aren’t going to be that bothered by the odd turn of phrase, but I believe the words one chooses are a signifier of the way one thinks. The President lived much of his life in the bubble of academia (and having surrounded himself with those types, still does). And of course, in academia, Islamic extremism is rendered practically mythical through the use of the language.
But I think he talks like this out of habit; I don’t know that he intentionally meant to diminish the acts of terrorists. I think he just did it automatically. “Thou shalt not speak of such things lest one unintentionally provide fuel to the right.”
You know, had Bush said something this horrifically awful and revealing, it would have been all over the news. But not this! Which is odd, because you’d think journalists would at least care about other jounaists. Guess not.
That would be like expecting elitists to care about other elitists. deep down, they think it won’t happen to them. why else journalists and leftist political hacks refuse to call islamic fascist murderers, terrorists?
Yeah – like all those lynchings in the Old South really “captured the imagination”, right? This sinister presence has been touted to all and sundry as the most brilliant man who ever lived in our galaxy and yet…. this phrase was chosen to express what was a calumny and malevolence almost beyond expression? He could not bring himself to say words he did not feel. So he skirted around them thinking he could express something so untethered to actual events, albeit in a “literary” fashion, that we would be
“captured” by the words rather than the lack of human feeling and outrage at act of barbarism. This man has become so “transparent” that one wonders if this is the true transparency we were “promised”. He is a despicable fraud, an imposter, and while not expressing his contempt for this country and its people, chooses words which will assuage his hatred, but no longer can hide what he is. Stupid people make the mistake of thinking they are smarter than everyone else. As the people awaken each day to the reality of this counterfeit, his misjudgment (stupidity) will become more shocking to behold. May God Have Mercy on the Soul of Daniel Pearl. He was a fellow AMERICAN. Our brother. And this bastard in the White House has no idea what that feeling is for the average American.
Although I do not share President Obama’s politics, and was skeptical of his suitability for the Chief Executive position, he represents a point of view that exists in America and was duly elected. Many people praised his character and intellect, and every President deserves the respect of the office. While many policy choices he has made were alarming, a plausible case could be made that those policy choices might be somewhat effective in the long run, assuming future moves on his part and the right set of circumstances. Accordingly, I have not joined those who vehemently bash him and every last detail of his life.
The accumulating evidence to date has been unsettling, and President Obama’s shockingly inappropriate comments regarding Daniel Pearl’s murder have completely flipped my willingness to be generous and give the President the benefit of the doubt.
There can be no explanation for his hideous commission and omission on this occasion that grants any relief from the obvious conclusion. That is, this man is lacking in the set of values and priorities necessary to the defense of civilization against barbarity. We cannot peer into his heart to determine if he is motivated by anti-Semitic feelings, or if it is just transnational progressive multi-cultural nonsense that is rotten to its core.
This is a turning point, and it is impossible any longer to rationalize or defend this man and his leadership. Too many of his critics are over the top and unhinged in their opposition, or insufficiently rational about the basis of their opposition. It is possible to share the strong revulsion without also sharing the wacky theories or base prejudices. There are good reasons to support the President in those times that he is right, but to push back in all legitimate ways at all other times.
Elections determine much of history, and the voters can make grave mistakes. Fortunately, there are other elections that can mitigate those past mistakes. And this President can be confined to a single term in office, as he must.
Do a poll and Both will win. Lord Obama could have at least mentioned what guts it took for Pearl to go where he did chasing that story. Of course, that would have meant casting doubt on the peaceful, loving nature of strict followers of Islam. He of Superior Judgement might as well have been discussing Cub Scout awards for all the interest he had in Pearl’s story.
Is the president an insensitive boob? Or an anti-Semite?
Insensitive boob, mouthing absurd words that some other insensitive boob wrote for him.
He may well be an anti-Semite, as well, but, here, the boob-ness takes precedence.
For the record, Obama has demonstrated he doesn’t especially value “freedom of the press”, particularly when said press is critical of him.
He’s trying to win an award for the most Boob-ishness in the history of Boobery.
No biggie. “Captured the world’s imagination” is just a media-ese throwaway line. Filler. Crap. It means Obama is a lazy thinker and speaker or has a lazy script writer.
“…captured the imagination…” That is possibly the singular most inappropriate and cryptic phrase ever uttered by an American President. It beggars the imagination how it ever even crossed the radar of acceptability in a speech. He is talking about a beheading here. A publicized, politicized beheading, complete with pleading, screams for mercy and bloody death, and our President makes a remark as if it were a Book of the Month Club recommendation.
US News and World Report quoted Rev. Jeremiah Wright as saying this in Virginia’s Daily Press about Obama severing ties with him prior to the Presidential election: “Them Jews ain’t going to let him talk to me …. He’s got to do what politicians do. And the Jewish vote, the AIPAC vote that’s controlling him, that will not let him send representation to the Darfur Review Conference, that’s talking this craziness on Israel because they’re Zionists, they will not let him talk to somebody who calls a spade what it is. Ethnic cleansing is going on in Gaza—the ethnic cleansing of the Zionists is a sin and a crime against humanity.”
Coming out of 20 years of Trinity Church which adores people like Farrakhan and Jim Cone, it doesn’t seem unlikely that Obama simply has no use for Jews. People tried to warn Americans about this Trinity thing and it didn’t stick. Considering Obama’s appointments by skin color and race since he took office, it seems as if it’s sticking now.
Some day America will have a real president, one that actually can make decisions influenced only by the Constitution and common sense, someday America will have a president with character and honest integrity,….. some day.
Regarding Comment 33 by James May
Most American voters have been well-trained by their schools and media to ignore the obvious when the obvious conflicts with some appealing narrative. Obama’s people created just the story line to captivate stupefied voters, who, as usual, did no digging into facts whatsoever.
Maybe I should rethink Obama’s statement that passing the Health Care bill “captured the imagination of Americans”.
“Is the president an insensitive boob? Or an anti-Semite?”
Yes.
“Freedom of the Press” isn’t what comes to mind when I think of Daniel Pearl’s murder.
I’ve rarely seen someone waste so much text and time over the use of one word—on an issue that you agree with the subject of your criticism on. This would be annoying if it weren’t for the fact that you’re such a horribly boring writer who would never capture anyone’s imagination, beheaded or head-on.
Charming retort, Principal. Please address your reply to the following:
Hundreds of millions of people murdered by Islamists who thought just like KSM, over the centuries.
Better yet, have a ‘religious dialogue’ with them. If they let you live, you’ll leave the room dhimmified more than you currently are.
Good post Larry, can you slap the toll harder next time please.
Thanks,
Thanks. Sigh.
Little Jenny The Principal Liar sleazits spews forth with the Modern Liberal version of a high society debutante who’s had its dorm castle toilet papered.
“Little Jenny: [crying]” “I’ve rarely seen someone waste so much text and time over the use of one word…”
Oh, like “you people”, or something like “bigot”? “Hillbilly”, maybe?
“Little Jenny: [brightening]” “…beheaded…” Always a favorite of The Wannabe Jihadist. Maybe you can practice beheading flies. They don’t scream like humans do. There’s plenty around the cesspool. If you give them cesspoolship, they may even vote for you.
Where are the other personalities? Loosen up. Be all that you are. Lay some “idiot” sewage out. Be a Target For Attention. Has the Kick Me sign nailed to your ass become an affirmative action issue within the cesspool community yet? Really, Little Jenny The Principal Liar sleazits, sharing is so important. Boom!
Le Van Jones has some green beheading jell for you. And damn, Mr. President is such a good leader. He can bail you out just like a Little Jenny Arlen Specter. But he can’t put new head on Little Jenny The Principal Liar sleazits. He lacks imagination. Besides, he’s in love with the same people that you are. Mmm, mmm, mmm.
You made your cesspool. Love it or leave it.
Whatever.
Is PeeBo anti-semitic? … Do bears poop in the woods?
In response to the question posed at the very top, I would say both.
It was a public murder by a group of savages in the name of a backward, fanatical cult. It’s a modern day KKK lynching. Our president refuses to acknowledge that the religion of peace is anything but. Or did I miss the part where mosques worldwide expelled the fanatics and cut off all support?
I have as much respect for Islam as it has for me.
“What it does capture is the idea of Obama being swept out of office in 2012. Now that’s change I can believe in.”
EXACTLY!!!
Note to Editors: I corrected the “is” for “it”.
Obama has been in office 16 months! Exhausting. Apparently he doesn’t know any better. gowest.com to keep your heads.
The phrase “captures the world’s imagination” is reserved for something heroic, something to lift the heart, something to be emulated.
That this turn of phrase even occured to a President regarding an act like this is the most disturbing thing this President has uttered. Who in their right mind would have his imagination captured by a gristly murder.
Now where’s David Thomson to say once more that Barack Obama is a shallow and badly read man? Truer words ne’er spoken, David. Obama is our Mimic-In-Chief, supercilious and conceited. He can’t quite achieve any true feelings as a man or as an American, which he is not, whether born in Kenya or Hawaii, An emptiness haunts his spoken words.
Michael wrote: The phrase “captures the world’s imagination” is reserved for something heroic, something to lift the heart, something to be emulated.
Thank you, Michael, for pointing out the complete misuse of the idiom. (Funny that no one in the MSM caught that.) This begs the question: Is the President not as smart as he thinks he is, or did he actually mean what he said?
I hope and pray that the man is simply a puffed-up bag of wind (AKA “intellectual”), because it is just too scary to contemplate that his imagination was really “captured” by the sight of Daniel Pearl’s gruesome death.
Insensitive? No doubt.
Boob? Of course.
“…captures the world’s imagination…” Photos from Hubble capture our imagination. Groundbreaking scientific achievments capture our imagination. Ignorant comments from a semi-literate politician do not.
You can’t cure stupid!
Its interesting. I remember where on this blog I counseled “give the man a chance.” That attitude has grow from an attempt at acceptance to total repulsion. I am amazed that ‘liberal’ Jews still support him and strongly so. The idea of being a liberal is to be open minded and hopeful. This man slams the door on any true liberal. Can it be that there are so many left wingers in this country? It seems to be the case of the myopic leading the blind. Still he plays his role like a marionette swinging in the breeze. One day he welcomes Calderon the next day he dispatches 1200 Nat’l Guard to protect the borders. Seventeen nations have offered us help to contain and clean up the Gulf oil spill. He hasn’t accepted help from any of them. Instead we have an ongoing ecological disaster which will not be corrected in our life time. It only takes one tiny drop of oil, pinhead size, on the eggshell of a bird to kill the chick inside. The shell is nothing but a rigid extension of the semi-permeable surrounding the egg which allows the oil to enter because of the lipid structure of the membrane. Multiply that to the flora and fauna, in fact all life forms. The man is more concerned of how he looks while giving a speech than to the substance or urgency of what is at hand. Yet there are a lot of fools that worship this ego maniac. G-d help us!
No one in their right mind, that’s true, Michael.
Obama is not in his right mind, and hasn’t been since he was in his pre-school years.
I’ve seen the beheading of Daniel Pearl. Even if I hadn’t, I would be blown away by this sick, “captured the world’s imagination” thing. Because it is sick. I doubt Obama has seen it, but as I say, even if he hadn’t, no one in their right mind would use the words he did to describe it.
I used to disregard comments about his mental health, but I no longer do. I do believe he is quite off his rocker. Just to not even have enough sense to not say something like this – even if it is how you view it – is evidence that he is.
While I’m at it, let me add that he is completely incapable of empathy or compassion – to humans. He has plenty for his “ideals,” which float about like gossamer angels in his reality, and are more real entities to him than any human. He cried at the funeral of the civil rights worker woman – but not because of her death; because of his cherished “ideals.” His keen sense of victimhood. He mourned the injustice of it all.
Even early on, I got the distinct impression that he lacked in empathy, to the point where I don’t even think he is very attached to his own wife and children. Actually, there is a psychological explanation for this lack of attachment. It’s something that can happen to people when they lose their significant others early in life.
There is a distance between him and his family that can be sensed, even from afar. It’s just not like most of the rest of us are with our families.
In any case, Obama is simply incapable of dealing with the reality of a beheading on any level. In fact, he must not. He cannot. He could only approach its reality if it fit in with his preferred ideology, which it does not in this case (featuring the “wrong” bad guys). Even if it did, with the “right” bad guys and good guys, he would not connect with it on a human level, as the rest of us do, but on a theoretical level, as an attack on his ideals which he holds to be truisms, in a circular sort of reasoning: he holds them to be true, therefore they are true, because it is he who holds them as true.
This same sort of thinking is the kind of thinking that leads to him wishing to raise capital gains taxes, even if it results in less revenue, because making things “fair” (which really means punishing people) is more important than any other goal.
In his mind, I daresay Daniel Pearl was somewhat culpable in the first place, simply for being Jewish; therefore it would bring Obama cognitive dissonance to view his beheading as the complete travesty and tragedy and outrage it was. Obama simply can’t do that. There are, and have to be, mitigating circumstances, in his mind. Therefore he can only paint it in the gauziest of phrases; and indeed, in this case, in totally off-the-wall phrases flattering to the beheaders themselves.
Finally, I used to think those who said he is at base a Muslim were wrong, and I no longer do. He will stand with the Muslims if push comes to shove, as he said in his book; and he did spend those years in that church.
Because he is fundamentally Muslim in sympathies and outlook, he could no more paint this beheading as a bad thing than he could fly.
Altogether, I’ve become convinced we’ve got a sick, sick person as President. Everything he says or does fits into that view, and nothing he says or does contradicts it.
Well put, Alana. I agree. This is our Mimetic President.
Remember, this is the same guy who said Yad Vashem left him filled with hope.
I am NOT defending what Obama said, but I do want to point out that Daniel Pearl’s 8-year old son Adam was present, as was Mariane and Pearl’s parents, Judea and Ruth.
According to the interview with Judea Pearl in Haaretz, Adam has apparently not yet been told exactly how his father was murdered.
ok, go back to the critique.
“…. Adam has apparently not yet been told exactly how his father was murdered.” True. And the president would have the young man know that his father was murdered in such a fashion as to “capture the WORLD’S imagination.”
“Is the president an insensitive boob? Or an anti-Semite?”
Both???????
That helps it somewhat, birdalone. Though there is still a large gulf between saying something that would upset the child and saying, “captured the world’s imagination.”
I believe the American Thinker author’s name is Halvorson. Signed, his mother
“Anti-Semite or insensitive boob”?
If I see the LAT video with Obama ‘shocking’ the Islam following guests with something alnog the lines of ‘cast aside your former grudges and embrace your Jewish neighbors for a chance at peace’ dialogue, I’m in the anti-Semite, insensitive boob camp.
I’ll be the first to admit to GWB negligence though the cover ups for Obama’s incompetence seems infinite. This lowly administration’s actions, inactions and their fawning masses is far worse than any ‘B’ movie starring Rutger Hauer or John Carpenter flick!
While people on this blog continue to view Mr. Obama from a political prospective, I believe they are mistaken.
He needs to be seen as a classic psychopath. We have elected a person to the highest office in the land who has no conscience. If someone were to ask Mr. Obama whether his words at the Pearl bill-signing were poorly chosen, he would not understand.
One of the key descriptors of psychopathy is the failure to react differently to words with or without emotional content: “Death” and “dinner” in the psychopath elicit the same level of neural activity in the areas of the brain associated with emotion, while in “normals” the activity level is increased when “death” is presented.
It is for the foregoing reason that Mr. Obama is able to make gaffes when dealing with topics that are upsetting to others. It is why he can honestly claim that he had been unaffected by his twenty years in Mr. Wright’s congregation. To Mr. Obama “friend” has the same emotional valuation as “enemy.” Does that explanation ring true for those who have seen him in action? I think it should! He lacks the judgment of a normal person and so should not be in the position he holds!
Obama is a total ass. He’s blase about Pearl’s murder, because he doesn’t really give a damn whether Americans are murdered or not. Too busy playing politica to care about that.
It appears that the gulf oil spill has also enraged er, uh, “captured the worlds imagination”
You would think that the sawing off of American Citizens heads would also “enrage”
our President instead of just “capturing his imagination”.
Does him and his crew really think that Americans can’t see beyond the BS spin they pass out everyday?
I pray everyday for our troops who must serve under such a hollow Commander in Chief.
God Bless & Protect America! God Bless & Protect our Troops!
I am so grateful to find some sanity here..Many of you are “outraged!” AND you should be!!! I was checking out a so-called mainstream media website called media matters where some inane liberal hack was going on and on about how Obama’s words couldn’t be considered anti-semitic because arabs are also a semitic people. OMG!
The utter stupidity that is most glaring in my opinion..was the fact that
Obama wanted to make the beheading about journalism and a free press! He speaks and acts as though all else is incidental and trivial.
Daniel Pearl was a just some journalist who happened to be Jewish!!! He was a Jew..and an American..who happened to be a journalist. This was a horrific murder of a Jewish American..simply because.. he was a Jew..and an American..
It really had nothing to do with journalism,&free press,except n “lib-spin”