A Taste of Their Own Medicine

For years we’ve listened to the Right whine that President Obama won’t call terrorism by its name. Of course, sometimes he does (see: Mittens gets schooled), but the point is that righties seem to think there’s something magical about using the word terrorism that strengthens us and confounds our enemies. Except that only applies to Muslims, apparently.

But, somehow, they are less bold in other contexts. See Judd Legum, The Wildly Different Ways One Senator Responds To Terrorism: Boston Versus Charleston. The Senator in question is Miss Lindsey Graham.

In response to the Boston bombing of 2013, Senator Lindsey Graham demanded that the government do everything it could to learn from the attack and prevent future attacks.

This man, in my view, should be designated as a potential enemy combatant and we should be allowed to question him for intelligence gathering purposes to find out about future attacks and terrorist organizations that may exist that he has knowledge of, and that evidence cannot be used against him in trial. That evidence is used to protect us as a nation.

Many people took issue with Graham’s claim that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is a U.S. citizen, could be designated as an enemy combatant. But Graham’s conviction that the attack was part of a more systemic problem, based on Tsarnaev’s Muslim faith, was unmistakable. Tsarnaev’s attack killed three people and injured over 250.

Graham’s reaction to Wednesday’s attack on a black church in his home state of South Carolina was very different. (His niece, coincidentally, went to school with the shooter). Graham is adamant that the attack is not evidence of any larger problem.

Graham, who is on his way to Charleston, said his niece did not recall Roof making any statements that were related to race.

“I just think he was one of these whacked out kids. I don’t think it’s anything broader than that,” Graham said. “It’s about a young man who is obviously twisted.”

They were all young men who were obviously twisted; IMO the object of violent peoples’ twistedness often is the cart, not the horse. In any event, terrorism experts apparently saw no connection between the Tsarnaev brothers and any larger terrorist organization, but of course some on the American Right would love to waterboard every Muslim on the planet.

There’s no doubt Dylann Roof is one of these whacked out kids, but so was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. We seem to have a lot of whacked out kids these days.

By the same token, if the Tsarnaev brothers were terrorists, then so is Dylann Roof. And so is Scott Roeder, who murdered Dr. George Tiller. Let’s be consistent, Miss Lindsey. Intimidating, threatening, and actually killing people on behalf of some Cause is pretty much what terrorism is.

I say we all pressure the righties to call the shooting in Charleston an act of terrorism.