http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/see-no-random-evil/article/2560138See no 'random' evil
By Washington Examiner | February 12, 2015 | 5:00 am
In his recent interview with the editors of Vox, President Obama referred to the recent Islamic terror attack on a Jewish supermarket in France in an odd way. He spoke of zealots who “randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.”
Obama was criticized for this comment, which downplayed the explicitly anti-Semitic nature of the attack.
There is an easy, plausible and innocent explanation for Obama's remark. But the administration's failure to offer it immediately is both perplexing and troubling.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest could have explained that Islamic terrorists have shown a propensity to attack civilians indiscriminately rather than to assassinate specific ones. He could have explained how the very randomness creates additional fear, and that by attacking random Jews at a market, the terrorists were trying to send the message that no French Jew or anyone near them should feel safe.
But given the opportunity in Tuesday's press briefing, Earnest instead spent several awkward minutes trying to skirt around the fact that the attack was an obvious case of targeted anti-Semitic violence.
“The individuals who were killed in that terrible, tragic incident,” he said at one point, “were killed not because of who they were but because of where they randomly happened to be.”
Earnest would later drop this embarrassing pretense, but not until the State Department's spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, had embraced the defense during an excruciating press briefing too. “I believe if I remember the victims specifically,” she said, “they were not all victims of one background or one nationality.” In fact, all four victims were French Jews. Asked directly if the administration considered it an anti-Jewish attack, she said, "I don't think we're going to speak on behalf of French authorities."
It is never “random” when a presidential administration's communications team commits an error this harmful to a president. Earnest's comments on his feet reflect his own (admittedly, possibly imprecise) interpretation of his marching orders. And in recent weeks, those marching orders seem to include far more sensitivity than usual about anything about that might offend Muslim sensibilities, especially anything having to do with Islamic terrorism or Jews.
The Obama administration's failure to send any high-ranking representative to Paris for the Unity Rally after the attacks was not random. Nor was Obama's attempt at a recent national prayer breakfast to draw a crude, simplistic equivalence between the current rash of Islamic religious violence and Christian violence from centuries ago.
The White House also provoked a political and diplomatic crisis by suggesting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had violated diplomatic protocol. The New York Times, in a story citing administration sources, reported that Netanyahu accepted an invitation to address Congress without Obama's knowledge. This was not true, and the paper later quietly issued a correction to its erroneous report. But by that time, the White House had gotten its opportunity to broadcast Obama's displeasure with and disdain for the Israeli leader.
So what's going on here?
The White House awkwardness in matters pertaining to terrorism, Jews and Israel comes just as Obama tries to negotiate a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose supreme leader recently shared on Twitter his intention to cleanse Israel of most of its Jews. Obama is so eager for a deal with this leader that he has given up much ground on Iran's nuclear program and ignored Iranian violations of the terms under which negotiations are taking place.
It would really be a shame if a fear of offending such theocratic tyrants is also motivating the craven behavior behind this gaffe over the terrorist attack in Paris.
