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Obama: The First Amendment? Never Heard Of It
All of Obama’s promises come with expiration dates as Jim Geraghty would say; some of them much shorter than others:
President Barack Obama used Air Force One to conduct a policy loop-de-loop Wednesday, asserting in a CBS interview that he supports Americans’ right to criticize Islam, following almost 18 hours of determined condemnation from Team Romney and damaging news from Egypt and Libya.
“We believe in the First Amendment,” Obama told CBS’s Steve Kroft during an interview arranged days earlier.
“It is one of the hallmarks of our Constitution that I’m sworn to uphold, and so we are always going to uphold the rights for individuals to speak their mind,” he said, according to a transcript narrated by White House spokesman Jay Carney.
– The Daily Caller’s Neil Munro on Wednesday, in a piece titled, “Obama caves to Romney, embraces free speech for critics of Islam.” As I wrote at the time linking to the story, could there be a more grudging and reluctant defense of the First Amendment, from a president with two books to his name?
In addition to the Joint Chiefs dialing up Koran-burning Pastor Terry Jones earlier this week, we now know that Mr. Obama’s defense of the First Amendment is very reluctant indeed. Or as Munro is reporting today, “Obama submits to Brotherhood, asks for suppression of anti-Islam video:”
President Barack Obama has bowed to the Muslim Brotherhood’s demand that the federal government suppress a satirical video of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad.
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told the Washington Post that the White House has “reached out to YouTube to call the video to their attention and ask them to review whether it violates their terms of use.”
The request complies with the Sept. 13 demand and threat by the brotherhood, which now governs the Arab’s world’s largest country, Egypt.
“Hurting the feelings of one and a half billion Muslims cannot be tolerated, and… we demand that all those involved in such crimes be urgently brought to trial,” according to an English-language statement on the brotherhood’s website.
The brotherhood’s demand included a threat of additional violence during Obama’s re-election campaign.
“The people’s anger and fury for their Faith is invariably predictable, often unstoppable,” said the website.
The submission came shortly after White House spokesman Jay Carney publicly disavowed any plans to curb free speech.
“We cannot and will not squelch freedom of expression in this country — it is a foundational principle,” he told reporters at a 11.15 a.m. press conference in the White House.
The First Amendment? For the Obama Administration, it’s merely a legal term of art, as Carney would say.
