Charles Krauthammer slammed President Obama on Fox News Tuesday night, saying the president’s reluctance to use words like “jihadist” and “Islamist” to describe the threat of radical Islam to the country is “embarrassing.”
“I say I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I sure know what he’s saying and doing,” the Washington Post columnist said, appearing on “The O’Reilly Factor.” “The lengths to which he will go to avoid telling us the truth about the enemy is becoming comical and certainly embarrassing. For example, he will never — forget about use the word ’jihadist.’ He’ll never use that — but he refuses to use the word ’Islamist,’ which is used throughout the Muslim world. It’s used by journalists, by authors, on the street, in the parliament everywhere, in Egypt. It’s used in Lebanon. It’s used everywhere by Muslims. And yet, Obama won’t touch it because he refuses to use any words that might imply a connection between radical Islam and terrorism, which as anybody who is over the age of nine knows is the single greatest cause of terror in the world today.”
Mr. Krauthammer recalled a specific example when the president was giving a speech in Jerusalem, and he referred to the the rise of “non-secular parties.”
“What a weird word to use,” Mr. Krauthammer said. “The word is religious parties. The word is Islamist parties. Yet even in this trivial throwaway line in a speech in Jerusalem he refuses to use the obvious word.”
“You have to be clear with your own people about who the enemy is,” he continued. “Churchill did not speak about German extremists. He talked about the Nazi menace. He described it in detail. FDR didn’t speak about extremists in Tokyo. He talked about the Japanese imperialism and its threat to the whole region. You have to be able to be honest with the people if you’re going to get any support. Otherwise, you get an event here, an event there and you say we can’t jump to any conclusions? Within three days everybody understands that these brothers were jihadists.”
The Washington Post columnist went on to speculate that it’s more than just PR to keep people calm and that the president is being deliberately secretive about the threat of radical Islam.
SEE ALSO: Krauthammer rips Obama for calling Boston bombing a ‘tragedy’
“And every once in a while you get an attack in Boston, people say what’s going on? I thought Obama said the tide of war is receding. I thought we don’t even use the phrase the ’war on terror.’ I thought the guy who killed 13 Americans in the Fort Hood shooting who jumped up on a table and yelled ’Allahu Akbar’ — which is the signature of the jihad — is still today called by this administration officially ’workplace violence.’”
Host Bill O’Reilly agreed, calling it “absurd.”
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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