Bugs Bunny "What A Maroon!" Award VI

This time around the high coveted and hotly contested "What A Maroon!" award goes, not to pastor Terry Jones, who has proved himself too brilliant a captor of the media and world "leaders" beyond count to even enter the running, but to the President of the United States, Barack Obama. The Clueless Smiley Nice Young Man From Chicago has outdone his previous performances as Global Apologist In Chief with his cringing adoption of what might be kindly called, "a passive prevent-defense."

Handed a perfect opportunity to go on the offensive against the advocates of political Islam and their snivelling co-religionists currently holding purportedly responsible positions in governments from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan, Pakistan to Indonesia, Mr Obama instead went on the pure defensive. Instead of holding the banner of American "exceptionalism" high for the world to see, rather than proclaim the existence of the First Amendment for all ears to hear, Mr Obama retreated behind the cordon of fear.

He (correctly) stated that torching a pile of Korans would put American lives at risk. He (incorrectly) restricted the heightened risk to American military personnel in Afghanistan. It was alright when General Petraeus singled out the enhanced risks attending American troops in Afghanistan, for the POTUS to do the same was disingenuous at best, a means of framing the narrative in a way which attempted to invoke patriotism and evade the reality that most risks would pass on to the unarmed, the unprepared, the unsuspecting, the tourists, the business wallahs, the humanitarian workers.

By focusing on the presumed threat to troops, Mr Obama tried to place himself above the fray, above the most critical issue involved in the Great Jones Fire Threat. The real issue sits at the heart of the vast difference which separates the United States from the bastions of Islam, from the repressive Islamic states as well as the proponents of violent political Islam.

The issue is simply freedom versus submission. Had the current American president the backbone of a banana split, he would have pointed out that in the US unlike the feudal states of Islam (including those with a transparently thin veneer of democracy) a citizen is free to say what he thinks free of any governmental let or hindrance. In the US the basic law of the land protects even the most obnoxious among us to speak--either literally or symbolically--and there is absolutely nothing the federal or state governments can do about it.

The meaning of Islam is "submission." In states having a Muslim majority, the idea of submission goes far beyond that of the believer submitting to the perceived will of Allah. It embraces the notion that the government has the right to control the speech (and presumably the thoughts) of all those living under its sway. The proof of this contention is found in the numerous quotes from Muslim clerics to the effect that pastor Jones could not be contemplating this incendiary exercise absent the approval of Mr Obama's administration and the demand that pastor Jones be arrested and his church be permanently shut down.

Mr Obama ought to have had the moral and intellectual courage to state clearly that the First Amendment was one of the features which marked the exceptional nature of the US as well as the even more exceptional freedom of its citizens. He ought to have challenged the Muslim majority countries as well as the proponents of violent political Islam to demonstrate even one percent of the faith in citizens and their institutions which our First Amendment requires.

At the same time Mr Obama could have made a strong reference to the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy. In this affair as in the pastor Jones contretemps, the basic law of the US prohibits any governmental action beyond the requirements of local land use authorities to block the construction of a building, even one whose location is disapproved of by some three quarters of We the People. American freedoms, the freedoms still available under the Constitution, are an ax which cuts in all directions with remarkable equality. Mr Jones has his rights and the folks behind the mosque and community center have theirs. Neither must nor can be forced to submit to governmental dictate.

In his moronic use of the defense, Mr Obama threw away a fine chance to show the world--including Muslims--just what the US stood for. He tossed aside a way by which people around the globe, again including Muslims, could decide which side they supported or at least the side toward which they inclined.

Instead, by his example Mr Obama gave Americans and the world generally tacit permission to surrender to fear. To submit to the coercive effect of fearing what those Mad Muslims might do if they felt insulted, or if they did not get the fullest of their demands. His invocation of the defense and eschewing of the offense have served to make more potent the panic producing potential of even implicit Muslim threats.

The bully has won. Mr Obama may not have appeased as he has so many times before but he did the equivalent by going on the defense. A defense which admitted fear is not even one full step removed from fear induced appeasement. In either case the bully is emboldened. In either case the bully will be back ready to extort more, able to gin up fear--and capitalize on the fear he engenders.

There is a grain of truth in the hoary military maxim: "The best defense is a good offense." In this case Mr Obama chose to ignore the fine offensive platform provided by the First Amendment. He hid our freedoms behind the troops who have pledged their lives to protect those freedoms. By doing so he not only weakened us and our freedoms, he made mockery of the oath sworn by all military personnel, and, come to think of it, himself.