Holder’s homily

Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris yesterday. Holder had time to make the rounds of the Sunday morning gabfests, but notto join the million-plus throng marching with more than 40 heads of state from around the world somewhere outside the studio with Holder’s satellite uplink. Both the New York Post and the New York Daily News note Holder’s absence from the march.

The gabfest maestros could have asked what Holder was doing talking to them rather than participating in the march. For some reason, however, they didn’t ask. They won’t say it, but I will: they coulda been contenders.

They did ask Holder whether we are at war with radical Islam; Holder came prepared to answer that question. As he put it to Todd (video below) and to Stephanopoulos (transcript and video here):

Well, I certainly think that we are at war with those who would commit terrorist attacks and who would corrupt the Islamic faith in the way that they do, to try to justify their terrorist actions.

So that’s who we are at — at war with. And we are determined to take the fight to them to prevent them from engaging in these kinds of activities.

Our president has indicated that we will be calling, on February the 18th, a summit, so that we deal with better ways in which we can counter violent extremism and really get at the core, come up with ways in which we prevent people from adhering to, being attracted to this terrorist ideology.

We certainly have to work, I think, in a dual way. We need to confront people who engage in these acts, hold them accountable. But we also have to somehow come up with a counter-narrative that too many people, especially young men, find attractive.

And, as I said, February the 18th, the White House will host a summit that I announced at the meeting here today in Paris.

I think that’s a “no.”

Video via Washington Free Beacon.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses