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Family Security Matters does not stand behind or endorse any candidate for president (or any other public office). However, as the President is also Commander-in-Chief and is responsible for setting national security policy, we will be publishing a variety of articles on both the Republican and Democrat candidates for President during this election year. As always, the opinions of our Contributing Editors are their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Family Security Matters.

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July 24, 2008

Exclusive: Like Sitting in a Classroom: Obama’s CNN Interview

Nicholas Guariglia

I am, admittedly, not up to date on the Nielsen Ratings, but if I had to venture a guess I would speculate that most people do not watch Fareed Zakaria’s new Sunday talk show on CNN (entitled GPS, or “Global Public Square”). Most people probably aren’t even aware that the show exists. Regardless, there I was this past weekend, mesmerized and stuck on local Channel 31, coercing myself to get through Zakaria’s interview with Barack Obama. The two were talking about the Middle East, a conversation which preceded Obama’s trip abroad.

But while watching Obama –with his long, pointing fingers – go through his usual let-me-make-it-perfectly-clear equivocations, an overwhelming sense of familiarity came over me. Then it hit me: I was back in a classroom. Sen. Obama was merely reciting every lecture of every international relations professor I’ve ever had.

It was the same relativism, the same amorality, the same ideas and concepts. The same pseudo-wit, the same scholarly braggadocio, the same emphasis on the same silly talking points that are thought to be things us lesser folk have never heard before, when in truth most students know where the professor is going three to four sentences in advance. (The trick is recognizing the key words and phrases. For example: “Iraq” – “Nothing to do with 9/11” – “Didn’t win the peace” – “Rampant looting” – “Eric Shinseki” – “Cheney and the neocons” – “Halliburton” – “No-bid contracts” – “Texas oilman.” Are you catching on?)

Sen. Obama was sitting there with Zakaria, and just like most I.R. professors, he was saying things which were logically consistent at first, but then failed to continue on to articulate the implications of what he was uttering to the fullest extent. Let me clarify: Sen. Obama might say X, and it might make sense, but when he omits whether or not X makes him believe Y and Z – which might then, in turn, make X wrong – he leaves some of us wondering.

See, as with most campus intellectuals, Sen. Obama seems to count on his listening audience to be unaware that Y and Z even exist, thus buying into his theory on X hook, line, and sinker… no questions asked. For those who are aware of Y and Z, this kind of preying on ignorance seems no more than a form of parasitic intellectualism – perhaps done subconsciously, perhaps not – that should be considered inexcusable in the realm of discourse.

What did I, along with probably a few dozen other people, learn from watching this interview on CNN? Well, for starters, we learned that Sen. Obama just finished reading Zakaria’s new book, entitled The Post-American World (I haven’t had the chance to pick it up yet, but at least it sounds optimistic).

We learned that expelling the increasingly autocratic Russia from the G-8 “would be a mistake,” because “we’ve got to get Russia involved.” Should we catch bin Laden, we should employ “not only U.S. justice” but “world justice” to try the al Qaeda chieftain.

Aw shucks, you mean world justice as in the big, broad, whole wide world? Gee golly. Only a student who enters class preparing to be under-whelmed can quickly identify, and fully appreciate, such intellectual cutie-pie global-test-passing credulity.

It is an interesting gambit. Whenever Obama answers a question, smart guy that he is, he states his position, then subtly re-asks the question to himself using different terminology, and plays devil’s advocate to state both sides of the coin, claiming each one to be his own. In dancing around questions, rather than answering confidently, he winds up expresses all views of an issue and ends his comments at that. The interview becomes a lecture and lesson plan. (Should you have a slim idea of what I’m referring to, pay extra attention the next time he’s “making things perfectly clear” for you in a television or online interview.)

Basically, sometimes, with some questions, he avoids answering and instead expresses all of the views that someone could possibly hold regarding the question.

While growing up in Indonesia, “there was not the sense that Islam was inherently opposed to the West, or inherently opposed to modern life, or inherently opposed to universal traditions like rule of law.” What, then, is to explain the rise of extremism in Indonesia today? Obama, a former university lecturer, sees “some correlation between the economic crash during the Asian financial crisis… and the acceleration of these Islamic extremist forces.” For current students, this is needless to say… but Obama’s explanation for Islamic militancy is astoundingly professor-like.

We should be “engaging the Islamic world,” Obama tells Zakaria, “rather than vilifying it.” We must “understand that not only are those in Islam who would resort to violence a tiny fraction of the Islamic world, but that also, the Islamic world itself is diverse.” It is an urge to see the world as something we wish it were, not as it is.

Never mind, for instance, that most of the 9/11 terrorists were Western-educated, had their doctorates, and were financially well off. Never mind that many Jihadists come from families of wealth and prestige. Never mind the lessons from the Hadith, or the violent Quranic scripture, literature, and text inculcated into the minds of young Muslim children in foreign madrassas and mosques funded by a $145 barrel of oil.

Never mind that in 2002, the respected Pew Research Center polled tens of thousands of people across the world, and discovered that the overwhelming majority of the planet’s Muslim population had polled in support of suicide bombings to kill non-Muslims (82% in Lebanon, 65% in Jordan, and 43% in Obama’s Indonesia for just a few examples).

This isn’t a “tiny fraction,” Mr. Obama. These are disturbingly high numbers (and keep in mind that this poll was only conducted in countries that “like” us; the governments of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, the Palestinian territories, and Saddam’s Iraq did not allow the poll to be taken).

Sure, only a small percentage of Muslims actually enlist in Jihadist organizations, but the overwhelming majority of the Islamic world is susceptible to fundamentalism – and the primary reason for this, Mr. Obama, is not due to pocketbook shortages or because “we” are “vilifying” them.

Sen. Obama often indignantly complains about false rumors that he is a Muslim. I have never heard anyone actually suggest this, but nevertheless, the rumor apparently persists. Obama’s Islam problem, though, as we see, is not that Obama shares the Islamic faith, but his post-modern naiveté, and his purely scholastic view that all theological doctrines are equally benign; a view regurgitated in the corridors of academia throughout my entire college experience.

At least allegorically, this election seems to be between the preachy campus academic, who seems to know a lot, and the older, quieter campus custodian outside in the hallway, whose scarred features, slower mannerisms, and sometimes distant gaze indicate that he’s seen a lot.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Nicholas Guariglia is a polemic and essayist who writes on Islam and Middle Eastern geopolitics. He can be reached at nickguar@comcast.net.

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