President Obama’s statement last night on events in Boston (with postscript on the Texas catastrophe) conveys at its heart the obligatory multicultural teaching:
Obviously, tonight there are still many unanswered questions. Among them, why did young men who grew up and studied here, as part of our communities and our country, resort to such violence? How did they plan and carry out these attacks, and did they receive any help? The families of those killed so senselessly deserve answers. The wounded, some of whom now have to learn how to stand and walk and live again, deserve answers.
And so I’ve instructed the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and our intelligence community to continue to deploy all the necessary resources to support the investigation, to collect intelligence, and to protect our citizens. We will determine what happened. We will investigate any associations that these terrorists may have had. And we’ll continue to do whatever we have to do to keep our people safe.
One thing we do know is that whatever hateful agenda drove these men to such heinous acts will not — cannot — prevail. Whatever they thought they could ultimately achieve, they’ve already failed. They failed because the people of Boston refused to be intimidated. They failed because, as Americans, we refused to be terrorized. They failed because we will not waver from the character and the compassion and the values that define us as a country. Nor will we break the bonds that hold us together as Americans.
That American spirit includes staying true to the unity and diversity that makes us strong — like no other nation in the world. In this age of instant reporting and tweets and blogs, there’s a temptation to latch on to any bit of information, sometimes to jump to conclusions. But when a tragedy like this happens, with public safety at risk and the stakes so high, it’s important that we do this right. That’s why we have investigations. That’s why we relentlessly gather the facts. That’s why we have courts. And that’s why we take care not to rush to judgment — not about the motivations of these individuals; certainly not about entire groups of people.
Given that it is the high-ranking officers of his administration who have determined that victims of the Soldier of Allah responsible for the Fort Hood shootings were casualties of “workplace violence,” I doubt that anyone who wants to understand wherefore and why will be looking for the answers from Obama and his crew. Howie Carr’s righteous indignation cuts through the blather:
I know you’re not supposed to paint with a broad brush, unless you’re a liberal, in which case you are not only permitted, but expected to make Adam Lanza the poster boy for 100 million law-abiding legal gun owners.
But please, before the Kool-Aid drinkers in the Senate try to get amnesty for at least 12 million undocumented Democrats, can somebody please consider how many more of these Dzhokhar Tsarnaevs we really need?
A better question: How many of these jihadist “refugees” can we as a society survive?
Victor Davis Hanson offers more understated reflections that nevertheless also belie the blather. President Obama’s statement arrived too late for dissection in Mark Steyn’s weekly column, but it deals expertly with the lesson for today. As Andrew McCarthy puts it: “Jihad will not be wished away.”
UPDATE: The video of Obama’s statement is below.
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