Ep. 229 dissects Ohio State attacker Abdul Razak Ali Artan’s radicalized Facebook posts praising al-Qaeda cleric Anwar el-Al-Waqi, mocking Tim Kaine and Jane Harmon for ignoring Islamist motives while CNN amplifies Muslim victimhood narratives under Trump. The host slams CAIR’s hypocrisy, contrasts Trump’s sharp cabinet picks with his "dopey" tweets, and ties Obama’s Iraq withdrawal to ongoing conflict denial via Bill McGurn’s WSJ op-ed—all while framing media’s fear of "Islamophobia" as complicity in evasion. [Automatically generated summary]
Around the country, left-wingers are doing some serious soul-searching, re-examining their beliefs in the aftermath of an election in which they were defeated at every level of government, while their ideas were utterly rejected almost everywhere, and their personal integrity was impugned,
plus their hopes and dreams crushed, while their opponents danced over the wreckage, breathing in the sweet, sweet perfume of their suffering and drinking the honeyed nectar of their tears and laughing in loud voices, saying, ha In academia, Columbia College professor Ludwig von Fatchuis re-examined left-wing behavior in a poignant essay in the New York Times, a former newspaper.
The essay read in part, quote, the truth is on college campuses we have been one-sided and small-minded and have closed ourselves off from ordinary Americans in a virtual bubble.
And it's just not enough.
We need to make the bubble real and possibly build it out of iron so we can't even see what's going on outside.
Also, when we shout down anyone who disagrees with us, we need to update our amplification equipment since some of their ideas are still audible, unquote.
In the news media, CNN anchorman Wolf Mendacity told his colleagues, quote, clearly, the problem is fake news and how to get more people to believe it.
I know some say that when we call people racist and sexist and anti-Semitic, we should have proof that our charges are true.
But that would mean completely abandoning our journalistic standards and traditions.
Also, it sounds like an awful lot of work, maybe even harder than making stuff up, which can take almost an hour and be very tiring, unquote.
Hollywood VIPs also joined in the self-examination.
Actress Lena Privilege, star of the hit HBO series Sluts and author of the memoir, It's a Hit, Even If No One Watches It, Because I Say So, penned a series of tweets saying, quote, only a bunch of racist buttheads would elect someone who constantly calls people names.
We should kick the crap out of every person who supported this bully.
And anyone who believes in his politics of exclusion should not be allowed to work in show business, unquote.
Ms. Privilege later announced she was checking into a rehab clinic in order to be with her fans.
Former corrupt Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has denied the electoral losses were her fault, saying, quote, I am calling for a recount because I cannot accept the election of a man who would not have accepted the election of a woman who will not accept the election of a man who would not accept my election.
I am, however, accepting donations to my foundation, and while I can no longer promise an ambassadorship in return for a thousand bucks, I'll come to your home and do your dishes while singing Danny Boy, unquote.
Mrs. Clinton did say she was committed to changing her life in the aftermath of her defeat.
She said her first step would be to form an exploratory committee for her presidential campaign in 2020.
Trigger warning, I'm Andrew Clavin, and this is the Andrew Clavin Show.
I'm a hunky-dunky.
Life is tickety-boo.
Birds are winging, also singing, hunky-dunkity-dee-doo.
Ship-shaped dipsy-topsy, the world is a bibliography.
It's a wonderful day.
Hoorah, hooray!
It makes me want to sing.
Oh, hurrah, hooray.
Oh, hooray, hoorah.
Song never gets old.
It's just like it's just better every time I hear it.
All right, it's mailbag eve.
Famous holiday.
Tomorrow is the mailbag.
You must subscribe to be in the mailbag.
But if you subscribe for just a lousy eight bucks a month, you can send in your questions and we will answer them all.
Personal questions.
You know that I got an email from a lady.
I don't know what to do about this, actually.
I got an email from a lady who looks very attractive, who is black and conservative, who heard somebody ask the question, saying he was white but was attracted to black women.
We couldn't find any black conservatives.
So now we've got to find a way to link these two people up.
So the guy who wrote me that question should email me and I'll put you guys in touch and you can take care of yourself.
I don't want to know what happens after that.
This is a full service podcast.
We match it up as a subscribe for just eight bucks.
You find the love of your life.
All right.
It's true.
She really did.
And she was nice looking.
All right.
Never mind.
By the way, Dave Rubin, Rubin's report has his interview with me is now up.
And it must be, you know, we talk a lot about God and atheism, and Dave has a lot of atheists in his audience.
I must have said something really intelligent because the atheists have been attacking me all day.
How could you say that?
So I thought I must have said something really good.
Believe me, if I did, it was totally an accident.
Don't blame me.
Crazy Statements and Followers00:15:30
All right, we're going to talk about Muslims, basically, in the aftermath of that Ohio incident, because really the way these stories are covered now has become so rote that we almost don't notice how stupid it is.
And I really want to talk about that.
We do have to pay a little bit of attention to Donald Trump and the transition, because I have to say, there's something getting to be almost surreal.
I mean, I know there's an overused word for you, but something getting to be almost surreal about this transition, because all the important stuff that's happening is great.
I mean, I love the guys he's picking, Jeff Sessions, I love the guy, you know, DeVos for education.
Yesterday, he picked for health and human services this guy, the House Budget Committee Chairman, Tom Price, who has been a vocal opponent of Obamacare and has even proposed his own law, his own version of how we would supply people with health care without forcing them on government.
It provides people with tax incentives to sign up for insurance.
Do we have that cut that I sent in?
That was the last cut.
Yeah, he explained why he was asked, well, isn't that the same thing?
But he explained why it wasn't.
It couldn't be more different.
Obamacare puts the government in charge.
We put people in charge.
We put patients in charge.
What we say is that the patient, every single American ought to have the opportunity to purchase the coverage that they want for themselves, not that the government forces them to buy.
You think about what we're moving toward.
We're moving toward a system where the federal government defines every single thing about your health coverage, about every single American's health care.
And as I mentioned before, when the federal government has the ability, the power to decide what health care is, then it has the power to decide what health care isn't.
And if you think something is health care that the federal government doesn't think is health care, the federal government always wins in that equation.
So this is great.
I mean, he's appointing people who are good people.
This guy's an orthopedic surgeon as well as a congressman.
Who are good people who are set up to do the things that he promised would get done, repealing and replacing Obamacare, one of them.
You know, it's really exciting.
Even the things that I'm worried about, like one of the things I'm worried about is that Trump is basically at heart a Democrat and I'm afraid he'll spend too much money.
But so far, his infrastructure plan looks like a really clever idea.
It's still taking shape and I'm not sure how it's going to come out and infrastructure is always very difficult because people picture all these shovel-ready jobs, but they don't really use shovels anymore to build infrastructure.
They use these machines and the guys who handle the machines are these technicians and they're like four of them on a, you know, it doesn't really create as many jobs as it used to and as people think it does.
But still, the thing that he's doing is, again, using tax incentives during the Obama administration, I don't want to get too much in the high weeds about this, but during the Obama administration, a lot of people who did not trust Obama as steward of the economy and steward of the country kept their money out of the country.
And I'm talking about trillions of dollars out of the country.
Trump is trying to arrange it so that these guys say, okay, we'll come back in.
You're not going to regulate us to death.
You're not going to hold up our plans.
You're not going to destroy our businesses with your regulations.
We'll bring our money back in.
If that money floods in, there will be jobs, and that'll work.
So, so far, all the important stuff he's doing really well.
Then, these tweets, these nutball tweets.
I don't even understand why somebody doesn't just take his phone.
You know, there's this recount effort on.
I don't even know, to be honest with you.
This is Jill Stein, who strikes me as just a complete flapdoodle.
I mean, it's like, you know, somebody needs to put her in a cage somewhere.
It's like, where's Jill?
Put her in the cage.
She sleeps better in the cage.
You know, it's like, I mean, she just needs to cage train this woman.
And she's calling for a recount in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania.
I think she missed the Pennsylvania deadline.
Hillary Clinton, who said the worst possible thing, she called it horrific, horrific, that Donald Trump would think about questioning the results of an election.
She has joined in this recount effort.
No one seems to feel, except some right-wing talk show hosts, who are making people panic about it.
No one seems to feel that there is just too many votes separating them out.
This is not going to happen.
I don't even think they're going to pull it off in some of these places.
I think it's just Jill Stein's way of raising money, paying off her campaign debt or something.
And by the way, if Jill Stein hadn't been in the race, Hillary Clinton would have won in some of these states.
I mean, she took enough votes from Hillary Clinton to prevent her from winning.
So the whole thing is crazy.
So then Trump comes out and he tweets: oh, I would have won even the popular vote if millions of illegals hadn't voted.
Which is like, huh?
What?
So poor Katrina Peterson, remember Katrina Peterson was his spokeswoman for a while?
She goes on Megan Kelly.
And Megan Kelly must do this for sport.
You know, like tearing apart Katrina Peterson trying to defend Donald Trump tweets is like what you do just to get kind of in shape for the real interviews.
I mean, listen to this.
It's embarrassing.
Where does he get his evidence that millions of illegal immigrants voted in this election, that millions of people voted illegally?
Well, I think it's a combination of things.
I mean, you can look at the Daily, the Daily Caller back in October, wrote an article about showing what voter fraud looks like, and they listed 23 states and the instances that happened there.
You can go back to the LA Times about a year ago where they talked about Governor Jerry Brown's voter motor registration, which automatically had people.
So it's a deserved vote.
It's a significant thing.
And they said 2 million.
Well, but there have been instances.
Like in Iowa, there was a woman who was convicted and prosecuted for voting, and she was an illegal money.
A woman, well, a woman does not equal millions.
And that's the things possible.
Months or a year earlier does not make it actually happen on November 18th.
Well, I also think that's something we should look at.
You know, the argument here is that you can't prove it.
Well, how about we disprove it?
You want anyone looking at anything when your team won?
I mean, really, that's a very good question, you know.
But I mean, it's so easy.
I called her Katrina Peterson.
It's Pearson, right?
Is that Katrina Pearson?
I mean, when I think all these people who substitute for Trump, who speak for Trump, really just need to come up with one response for his tweets, because his tweets are just these dopey things that he does.
You know, they just sort of come out, yeah, the guy is crazy.
He is one crazy moe.
You know, like, I don't know what the hell he's talking about.
They should just blow it off.
So today, oh, and the other thing, of course, is that the way the press reacts.
Now, this is, listen, as somebody who's been around journalism most of my life, I have to tell you, this is news when there's no news.
This is news when there's no news.
And Trump is very good at that.
So today he tweets that flag burning is disgusting and should be punishable by a year in jail or loss of citizenship.
Now, I actually believe you should lose your citizenship for certain things.
Like if your car alarm goes off in the middle of the night and you don't stop it, I think you should actually be exiled from the like you are exiled from our country.
However, the press goes nuts about this is unconstitutional because the Supreme Court has said that flag burning is protected speech.
But Hillary Clinton in 2005 proposed an anti-flag burning law, and the punishment was a year in jail, $100,000, I think, fine, or a year in jail.
So it's not that crazy, but it's just like he's doing so well at his transition.
I mean, the transition is actually, I'm really impressed as somebody who voted for him with great, you know, I had to wrestle with my conscience a long time before I thought I'm going to vote for this guy because Hillary Clinton is so corrupt and Obama has corrupted the government, made my decision.
But I'm thrilled with what he's doing so far.
Obviously, he hasn't actually done anything, but I'm thrilled with his appointments.
But what, what the heck?
You know, I just, you know, Ben Shapiro has this thing all the time, good Trump, bad Trump.
But I think it's all one guy.
You know, I think that same guy, it's like, it's not Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
It's kind of like heckle, you know, kind of like Jide.
He's just one guy who does these crazy things.
But actually, listen, if he says stupid stuff for four or eight years and does great stuff, I'm good.
That's fine with me.
So I can live with that.
But it is going to be extremely entertaining.
All right, let's talk about Ohio State.
This is really, really interesting.
Thank God it wasn't any worse than it is.
We're not talking about a terrible tragedy.
One of the reasons I do want to talk about it is because we don't have to deal with the bodies.
It's, I think, 11 people injured.
Bad enough, but still, a student at this is in Columbus, Ohio, at Ohio State University.
His name was Abdul Razak Ali Artan, drives his car into a bunch of people and then gets out and goes after them with a knife, cuts up people after hurting them with the car.
There is a campus cop who is attending to something else.
The campus cop confronts the guy.
The guy charges and shouts at him and says, put down the knife.
The guy charges him with the knife.
Campus cop shoots him.
Okay?
So Tim Kaine, you remember Tim Kaine?
Does anybody remember Tim Kaine?
He was going to be the vice president of Hillary Clinton won.
Yeah, I know.
Remember Hillary Clinton?
She was the never mind.
But Tim Kaine tweets out, so help me, so help me.
Let me see if I just want to get deeply saddened by this senseless act of gun violence.
Yeah, he did.
I mean, he must have just misheard what happened, but that's the thing.
They're all on automatic.
You know, they're on automatic, you know, Democrat talking points, senseless gun violence.
You go, wait, wait.
The guy was attacking people with a knife and the cop shot him.
That's not a senseless act of gun violence.
Oh, yeah, oh yeah, I forgot.
I'm sorry.
This guy's still probably drinking after the loss.
Senseless act.
What is it?
Gun violence?
Something.
I don't know.
Just don't mention Islam.
That's all I can remember from being a Democrat candidate.
Then there was another guy, a civil rights guy, who says, How is it that when a white man shoots a black man, we decide he's a hero?
That was another tweet.
It's like, yeah, I think it's because he's a hero.
I mean, that's what it was.
All right, we're going to talk some more about this because it really does get absurd, and it really is worth looking at the way this was covered and the way it's discussed.
But first, we have to say goodbye.
We have to say goodbye to our friends on Facebook and YouTube.
And come on over to the Daily Wire and subscribe so you can be in tomorrow's mailbag and ask your questions.
And who knows, we may even get you a date.
Huzzah.
Nice graphics.
This is really getting exceptional.
I kind of miss my Thanksgiving hat, but aside from that.
So the guy's name is Artan, right?
He's a Somali.
He was quoted, he was featured in The Lantern, this Ohio State magazine, Humans of Ohio State, right?
School student newspaper.
And he said he was kind of scared to pray publicly because of media coverage of his religion.
I'm a Muslim.
It's not what the media portrays me to be.
This is before driving his car into people and attacking him with.
I'm a Muslim.
It's not what the media portrays me to be.
If people look at me, a Muslim praying, I don't know what they're going to think.
What's going to happen?
But I don't blame them.
It's the media that put that picture in their heads.
Now, really?
I mean, the media, the media has done everything.
I mean, CNN can't get the words Islam out of their mouths on their stories about this stuff.
The minute it turns out that the guy, an attacker anywhere, is a Muslim, the story disappears from the front page.
I mean, the story just vanishes.
Let's take a look at, this is a recent story.
I don't know if this was yesterday or the day before.
This is during the Trump transition.
CNN did a hit piece on Donald Trump, basically, saying all these Muslim women were now terrified because the evil Donald Trump was coming to power.
And you got to listen, this is just the end of this report.
At the end of this, Allison Camerada comes up with her solution to the problem.
But this is a Muslim woman talking about Donald Trump.
To the incoming Trump administration, this young Muslim woman has this message.
When you hold that kind of position and you think it is okay to make these racist, Islamophobic, sexist statements, there are people, unfortunately, as crazy as they are, who look up to you and they will follow you and they will act out in response to what you're saying.
It's an interesting story.
Maybe there'll be a movement where people wear the headscarf in solidarity, you know, even if you're not Muslim.
Maybe it's the way people shave their head, you know, sometimes in solidarity with somebody who's going through something.
Maybe you'll see a wave of the opposite.
Thanks, Allison.
You know, thanks for your contribution to American culture.
I mean, what the hell?
You know, it's like this is.
So this is the problem.
The problem is Donald Trump says nasty things about Muslims.
Now this woman's afraid.
So now, all we hear, and this is everywhere, is we don't know what this guy's motives were, okay?
But authorities are investigating an anti-U.S. rant posted on Facebook just minutes before the Ohio State University attack that is believed to be linked to the suspect, Abdul Razak Ali Artan.
Sources told ABC News.
Appearing three minutes before the beginning of the rampage that left 11 people injured, the post reads, I can't take it anymore.
America, stop interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah.
We are not weak.
We are not weak.
Remember that.
The post also invokes the name Anwar el-Al-Waqi, a radical American-born al-Qaeda cleric, describing him as a hero.
Al-Awaki was killed in 2011, but his propaganda has been linked to several domestic terrorist attacks in the years after his death.
The post goes on: If you want us Muslims to stop carrying out lone wolf attacks, then make peace.
We will not let you sleep unless you give peace to the Muslims.
So, what were his motives?
Let's see.
Let's see if we can barge the guy's motives.
Wolf Blitzer has his panel of experts to discuss the motives.
Here they are.
On his Facebook page, posted on his Facebook page, grievances about attacks on Muslims.
I would say the headline is: be cautious.
In the political polarization in this country, Wolf, people watching this program, people reading newspapers are going to want to jump to judgment.
And that judgment will be: we have another case of Islamic extremism in this country.
My answer is: an investigator should never do that.
The questions for friends and family, the questions as you look at his email will be everything from what does that Facebook posting mean?
Did he have a fight with his girlfriend?
Did he have a dispute with his mother?
Did he get fired from his job?
Until it's over, Wolf, it ain't over.
I don't know much beyond what I knew 10 minutes ago about his motivations.
One of them might have been extremism, but I'm not sure yet.
Jane Harmon, what's your analysis?
I think Because is right.
We're sending signals if we're not cautious that any Muslim who kills kids with a truck and a knife, which is a terrible thing to happen, is definitely a terrorist.
And we don't want to go there until we know we should go there.
Why Silence Violent Extremism?00:05:47
We don't want to say that any Muslim who kills kids is a terrorist.
Maybe he just, the other, by the way, that's Jane Harmon, former member of the House Intelligence Committee, obviously misnamed House Intelligence Committee.
And then the guy, the guy is saying, well, maybe he had a fight with his girlfriend, but it's okay because Moroccan TV yesterday put out a, seriously, put out a feature story on how to use makeup to cover up the signs of domestic violence in women.
Seriously, they were teaching women, you know, Muslim women, how to cover up their bruises from being beaten by their husbands.
So maybe he had that kind of fight.
Look, this is not my point here.
I want to make it very clear.
My point here is not to hate on Muslim people, obviously.
I think I hope with this audience I don't even have to explain that that's not where I'm going with this.
I'm simply going with the babbling stupidity to which hatred seems like a reasonable response.
I mean, these guys make hatred sound reasonable.
If a guy comes back and says, ah, it's those muzzy, you know, it goes on like in a rant like that, how could you blame him listening to nonsense like this?
Here, just to keep us up to date, here is a tape that ISIS has released encouraging people to pull off these lone wolf attacks.
Has not the time come to defend the Muslims?
Has not the time come to avenge the bereaved woman?
Has not the time come to seek revenge for the imprisoned?
So weird jihad, fight for your religion, your soul, your honor, before you shout in regret.
If only I acted when I had the opportunity.
Love this guy.
This guy has a big future in late night TV.
You know, so then they go on and explain how to make bombs, how to shoot people, how to kill people.
You know, these guys, these so-called lone wolves, aren't lone wolves.
This is part of a worldwide movement of jihadism, Islamism, whatever you want to call it, which is part of ISIS.
And here's the problem.
After this attack, after this attack, CARE, the whatever they are, the Arab relations, I can't even remember what CARE stands for.
I'll find out what CARE stands for.
But it's the Arab Islamic Relations Council on American Islamic Relations, right?
They're the guys who always come out after these attacks and make the statement.
So here is the spokeswoman for CARE coming out with her response.
As Ohioans, as Americans, and as Muslims, we are shocked by today's senseless attack.
We stand together with Ohioans of all faiths and backgrounds and praying for the speedy recovery of all those who are injured in today's attack.
We thank the police and first responders for their swift response in diverting what could have been a much larger disaster.
We as yet know nothing about the motivation of the attacker, but we do know of his Somali heritage, and that will be enough for some people to falsely link this tragic incident to the faith of Islam and to the Somali and Muslim communities.
We must not jump to conclusions.
It is important to let the investigators do their jobs.
We are strongest when we stand together as Americans.
No one should fear for his or her safety on a college campus.
Ohioans of every faith denounce and reject this attack.
Our nation has gone through a period in which division and hatred have grown to unprecedented levels.
We must not let the act of one individual, no matter what his motive or background, to further divide our community or our nation.
Now here's the thing about this, right?
This is tolerance being used as a weapon, because everything she says, I essentially believe.
And I don't believe that we have to withhold judgment all the time because what happens is these stories, this is the whole point.
These stories slip from the news.
It is in the moment when this is news that we should be discussing the problem.
Let's talk about CARE just for a second.
CARE, the United Arab Emirates, listed CARE as a terrorist organization.
And Daniel Pepys, who is a guy who fights against Islamism, he explained why CARE should be listed that way.
Here is his list.
CARE apologizes for terrorist groups.
Challenged repeatedly to denounce Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups.
CARE denounces the acts of violence, but not their sponsors.
It is connected to Hamas.
Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and many other governments, indirectly created CARE, and the two groups remain tight.
Examples, in 1994, CARE head Niwad Awad publicly declared his support for Hamas.
The Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas front group, contributed $5,000 to CARE and so on.
CARE settled a lawsuit in which they had been called a terrorist group.
They'd been called all these things, and they settled the lawsuit, basically not admitting to the truth, but acknowledging they weren't going to win.
The CARE includes individuals accused of terrorism.
At least seven board members or staff at CARE have been arrested, denied entry to the U.S., or were indicted on or pled guilty to or were convicted of terrorist charges.
And CARE is in trouble with the law.
Federal prosecutors in 2007 named CARE, along with two other Islamic organizations, as unindicted co-conspirators and or joint ventures in a criminal conspiracy to support Hamas financially.
This is a bad group.
I mean, CARE has always been a bad group.
It's a front organization, basically.
So when they come out and call for tolerance, again, they make intolerance look good.
Obviously, the answer is this.
There are millions of Muslims in this country who any one of us would support and want to know and live next to, who deal charitably with their neighbors, who believe in freedom.
But why is it?
Large Infection of Violent Islamism00:04:21
Why is it when this clearly large strain of Islam, this large infection of violent Islamism, emerges every time it emerges, this rush to silence to blind us to what we see in front of our eyes, what we hear with our own ears.
Why is it?
Why can we not respond by questioning Islamic people of goodwill about what the hell is going on in their religion?
What is it in this religion that needs to be reformed to make this stop?
How can people of decency, Islamic people of decency, separate themselves instead of calling on us and calling us names for questioning what obviously needs to be questioned?
How can this woman from CARE stand up and say, oh, the problem now, she immediately turns the problem to us.
She immediately points the finger at us.
You know, don't take this guy and turn this into some Islamic thing.
It is an Islamic thing.
It is a large, large, mainstream strain of Islam that is killing people around the world.
And it's not a race, it's a series of ideas.
It's the ideas we're questioning.
We're not questioning the people.
We're questioning the ideas and what it is about these ideas that creates this violence.
And the stupidity of our news media, you know, it's part of the problem.
It is part of the problem.
This is something that needs to be discussed, not by Alison Camerada telling us to wear headscarves, although I will wear my headscarf tomorrow.
You know, I mean, how fatuous and stupid can you get?
You know, I mean, this is a problem.
And, you know, underneath this silence is another silence.
I want to end with this.
I just want to talk about Bill McGurn wrote just an amazing column in the Wall Street Journal this morning called The War That Dare Not Speak Its Name.
Because the fact is, as he points out, America is still at war in Iraq.
Let me just read a little bit of this.
All throughout the campaign, Mr. Trump rightly thumped both President Obama and Mrs. Clinton for their refusal to use the I word Islamist when speaking of the terror threat against the American people.
But when it came to the W word, war, Mr. Trump was not much better.
In three presidential debates, neither Mr. Trump nor Mrs. Clinton used the word war to describe the fighting in Iraq in which our troops are now engaged.
When they did use the word, the context was almost always frozen in 2002.
The truth today is that the Middle East Mr. Trump inherits is more violent and less stable than the one Mr. Obama inherited from George W. Bush in 2009.
Think about that for a minute because it's absolutely true.
The war in Iraq was essentially over when Obama became president.
There hadn't been an American death over there for at least a month, maybe more.
The surge had worked, and Obama blew it.
He blew it because he had to get out, and now he's got people going back in.
Perhaps the best thing, Mr. Trump, this is McGurn again, perhaps the best thing Mr. Trump could do in his inaugural address would be to acknowledge the reality Mr. Obama has tried to hide.
After eight years in an administration that prides itself on getting America out of wars, we are going back in.
As he charts his course, Mr. Trump would be wise to listen to the generals whose advice Mr. Obama spurned.
In so doing, Mr. Trump would also do well to let go of the mistakes of the past, whether Bush's or Obama's, and refrain from the blame game that constituted much of Mr. Obama's approach in Iraq.
The facts on the ground are now different, and so must be the response.
Here's the end of the piece.
Mr. Thornbury's office reports that there are today 5,262 U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria and 8,448 in Afghanistan.
For these Americans, it doesn't matter who is right.
In 2002, 2007, or even 2016, what matters to them is whether their incoming commander-in-chief will acknowledge that President Obama has left them fighting a war largely hidden from public view.
All of this is largely hidden from public view.
This is an enormous scandal of ideas, okay?
Because it's not just a war of ideas, it's a fighting war, and we have to win them both.
And we're going to have to win the idea of the war of ideas at home, and we're going to have to win or at least settle the war, the bullet war, overseas.
This is an enormous part of Obama's failure.
The Obama presidency is a failed presidency, and this is an enormous part of why.
And it's going to get worse if we don't face it and fix it and talk about it.
The Unrest Cure00:02:03
You know, again, I do not want to hate on peaceful, freedom-loving Islamic people.
I surely do not.
But this is a problem.
This is a real problem in Islam, and we should be at least working with Islamic people together to get rid of it, not just here, but overseas.
All right, stuff I like.
Yesterday I was talking about a Fred Astaire Ginger Rogers movie.
I was thinking about how delightful it was, and he was talking about the kind of lure of the upper classes, the way that Astair and Rogers showed us, especially during the Depression, showed us a world that was richer, classier, more elegant, more beautiful than the world most of us live in, and sort of invited us to aspire upward as opposed to, say, rap music, which invites us to aspire downward into the streets.
And I was thinking of other delightful upper-class entertainments, and I really want to recommend a book called The Unrest Cure, which is a short collection of short stories by a writer who wrote under the name of Saki.
H.H. Monroe was his real name, I believe, Saki.
The Unrest Cure, the title story, is hilarious.
I got to give it to Shapiro.
Shapiro, it'll crack Shapiro up.
It's a really funny story.
But it also contains the open window, one of the greatest ghost stories ever written.
Saki wrote these kind of things, he was kind of like P.G. Woodhouse before there was P.G. Woodhouse, you know, very, very upper-class entertainments, kind of satirizing the upper classes, but also delighting in them and delighting in their foibles and all this stuff.
The Unrest Cure is a great collection because it's a short collection of short stories.
Not all his stories are great.
These are his best stories, I think.
And the title story, The Unrest Cure, is great, and The Open Window, again, one of the great ghost stories of all time, Saki, S-A-K-I was the name he wrote under.
All right, we'll be back to complain some more.
Tomorrow is the mailbag day.
Woohoo!
We will answer your questions, and as I say, we may even find you a mate.
Who knows?
And really, the guy who wrote to me about that should write me back, and I will link you up with this lady.