Pelosi’s defense of Ilhan Omar: poor dear, she just doesn’t know any better
Nancy Pelosi is used to making excuses and dancing around issues. In this, she’s no different than most politicians, and as the leader of the House Democrats for years, she’s had a lot more experience at it than most.
The other day, not only did she lose a fight to Ilhan Omar and company, but she had to explain Omar’s use of classic anti-Semitic tropes, and the way Pelosi decided to do that was particularly interesting:
“The incident that happened, I don’t think our colleague is anti-Semitic,” Pelosi said. “I think she has a different experience in the use of words, doesn’t understand that some of them are fraught with meaning that she didn’t realize.”…
“I understand how advocates come in with their enthusiasms.”
“But when you cross that threshold in the Congress, your words weigh much more than when you’re shouting at somebody outside. And I feel confident that her words were not based on any anti-Semitic attitude,” Pelosi continued. “But that she didn’t have a full appreciation of how they landed on other people where these words have a history and a cultural impact that might have been unknown to her.”
So, Pelosi is essentially pleading a combination of cultural relativism and ignorance on Omar’s part. Both are utterly absurd.
First of all, it doesn’t even matter, because much of what Omar said is anti-Semitic on its face. Accusing an entire group of dual loyalty and/or venality isn’t exactly a compliment, and it isn’t a mere policy dispute about Israel. But in addition, look at Omar’s history. She was born in Somalia to what appears to be a relatively comfortable family, left when the civil war there began and she was ten years old, spent about four years in a refugee camp in Kenya, and came here at fourteen:
Omar attended Edison High School, and volunteered there as a student organizer. She graduated from North Dakota State University with a bachelor’s degrees in political science and international studies in 2011.
Omar was a Policy Fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
Omar is now 37 years old, so she’s been in this country now for 23 years, close to 2/3 of her entire life. And they were very formative years, as well as years in which she was an active member of secular American society and in fact an activist in politics, as well as studying it intensely—all in the heart of this country. She’s been speaking English quite effectively and immersed in American culture. Whether she embraces American culture or not—and she certainly seems to have embraced politics and conflict—no one can say with a straight face that she is unfamiliar with it. Nor can she possibly be the least bit unfamiliar with the current popular anti-Semitic memes and what they mean, as well as how they’re used.
To plead that she’s a neophyte or a newcomer, or gets a pass because of being in some sort of Islamic cultural cloister (mixed metaphor, I know), is absurd.
Hard to imagine she could get nominated and elected congressman and suddenly can’t speak or understand English.
So…Pelosi’s lying to cover for a D fellow traveller.
Breaking news! Water is wet.
The masks are off. Civil War par deux is afoot.
No shooting yet, but can it be far behind?
Those who would destroy the bonds of civil liberty have staked their claim and they have the reins of the D party.
Another example of ‘if a Republican said that’. Harry Reid approves.
Treating the well educated, sophisticated, worldly person of color like a child.
But Trump!
“Omar’s use of classic anti-Semitic tropes,”
I am now as fed up with the use of the word “tropes” as I am with other pious buzzwords such as “sustainable”. Was the word in its entire history used as much before Omar as it has been in the last few weeks? They weren’t “tropes”, they were bigoted slurs and insults and calling them tropes is designed exactly to mask that fact (not directed at you, neo).
FOAF:
I agree somewhat about “tropes”—the use of the word has become a bit of a trope 🙂 . In this case, though, I used it purposely, because that’s what it actually is:
The Washington Post is also doing its best to help clean up Omar’s image — “On International Women’s Day, Rep. Ilhan Omar inspires girls in a refugee camp in Kenya to dream big”.
Pretty hard to take. Don’t read it if you have a weak stomach.
What a pathetic excuse for an excuse.
I see a marketing opportunity here. Omar and the
Reverend Farakhan can join forces and do a joint talk radio show, the Congessional Muslim hour. It would be impossible to criticize since the hosts are a woman and a black man and both Muslim, triple intersectionality. They could invite Obama’s pastor, the Reverend Jeramiah Wright, on for special guest appearances. They might also want to treat their listeners by reading parts of famous sermons on the Jews by Father Coughlin to show that they believe in interdenominational understanding. If you don’t like it, shut up you bigot.
Of course its absurd… for those paying attention. But then, that’s not who Pelosi is addressing, who are obviously the LIVs and who the MSM will make sure get Pelosi’s message in its ‘proper’ context.
However, it’s a wasted effort, a futile effort at spin because Omar is not going to stop, as her ‘critique’ of Obama just demonstrated.
Throw in AOC, Tlaib, Hirono, Green, Waters, Warren and the other unhinged radicals and the Pelosi/Schumer wing of the party has the proverbial “tiger by the tail”.
From where I stand it’s deeply gratifying to watch the traitorous democRat party faced with the likelihood of running on an official party platform of support for; infanticide, insistence upon non-existent borders, legalizing foreign citizens to vote in our elections, which effectively disenfranchises American citizens and taxpayer support for those UNWILLING to work.
For the first time, I find myself looking forward with some anticipation to the political ads of next year. It promises to be great entertainment at the expense of people who richly deserve it.
To echo John G. somewhat …
There goes Nancy. She’s making an argument. Maybe she’ll sway someone in the jury, er some small percentage of the viewers. Maybe not. But it’s soo much better than the simple truth which is, there is no excuse.
Nancy’s excuse for Omar is certainly absurd. It’s also condescending, imperialist, and culturally supremacist. Poor little Muslim girl doesn’t have the background to understand her own words.
I guess it’s the white woman’s burden, Pelosi style. I can’t understand why all the woke Twitter users haven’t declared a fatwa on the Speaker.
When you lose Friedman….
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2019/03/09/new-york-times-columnist-thomas-friedman-ilhan-omar-is-a-bridge-destroyer/
“Friedman said that while Omar had the opportunity to “build bridges” between the Jewish and Somali-Muslims who reside in her district, she squandered that opportunity by repeatedly pushing forth antisemitic tropes.
“Ilhan Omar represents, I believe, the biggest Jewish community in the whole upper Midwest,” Friedman told CNN in a Saturday interview. “She represents that community. She also represents a Somali immigrant community that’s come to our city since then and added their voices and their richness and their culture.”
“She was perfectly poised to be a bridge-builder between Muslims and Jews, between Arabs and Israelis,” Friedman continued. “And rather than come to Washington and be a bridge-builder, she has come to be a bridge-destroyer.”
Friedman’s CNN interview comes days after he penned a column in the New York Times blasting Omar for accusing pro-Israel Americans of pledging “dual loyalty” to both Israel and the U.S.”
Funny, he never said that Obama “could have been a bridge-builder but has come to be a bridge-destroyer,” although that case is exactly analogous.
“She was perfectly poised to be a bridge-builder between Muslims and Jews, between Arabs and Israelis…”
My oh my. That sounds so mind-numbingly, chucklingly-and-chortlingly dense (even for him). Just another revelation of the Liberal Jewish, savvier-than-thou (you deplorable) mindset. A perfect snapshot, in fact of the wishful thinking and blindness that is so pervasive in the species.
And yet, and yet….
Hold on a second! On further scrutiny, given that oh-so-earnest, knitted-eyebrow, golfball-chasing goofball’s record, I never thought that I’d be saying something like this…
…but—I can’t believe it myself—Thomas We-MUST-ABSOLUTELY-Learn-From-China’s-Prescient-Policies-Friedman is, here, ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.
True, his thoughtful analysis is missing a few words (which is OK, given the verbose, steaming cow-pies that he usually spouts…with apologies to cows of course, of course).
Here they are:
“She was perfectly poised to be a bridge-builder between Muslims and [Trump-hating, Israel-bashing Jews], between Arabs and [anti-Zionist] Israelis…[and she has been building those bridges admirably, without apology, with deft panache and unshakeable ablomb]. Go Ilhan! Go like the wind!!”
There, that should do it. (Still can’t believe it….)
AesopFan…
If Friedman believes “She was perfectly poised to be a bridge-builder between Muslims and Jews, between Arabs and Israelis,” he’s dumber than he looks.
She’s. A. Somali. Muslim.
What on God’s green earth have Somali Muslims EVER built?
“… he never said…’
Um, clearly, the only person who is permitted to attack Obama is said bridge-builder (and presumably the other two uncivil engineers, AKA “graces”).
(On the other hand, Omar didn’t attack Obama. Not really. She was “taken out of context”. “Misunderstood”. “Despicably slandered”. Because of who she is…
You know—the usual…. Nothing to see here….move along, and along, and along….)
Poor dears. They just don’t know any better….
https://pjmedia.com/trending/house-democrats-vote-to-protect-illegal-alien-voting-in-local-elections/
Thank you, Duane. Yes, Pelosi is making excuses for Omar in a way that is insulting to her. Omar deserves it, but usually people don’t get away with this kind of comment.
And yesterday, Omar got caught criticizing Obama, tried to claim she was misquoted, and had to take the whole thing down.
AOC: “Ocasio-Cortez: State Of America Is ‘Garbage,’ Reagan Pitted Whites Against Minorities”
Opining/babbling in a “stream of consciousness”, what AOC actually said is; “”And this idea of like 10% better from garbage, is, shouldn’t be what we settle for, it’s like this like it feels like moderate is not a stance it’s just an attitude toward life of like hmmm.””
That implies that in her opinion… America is currently only 10% better than garbage.
Once again, socialist/communist radicals like AOC are apparently incapable of concealing what they are, unlike Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler etc. That makes AOC, Omar, Tlaib, etc. “gifts that keep on giving”
She knows she is engaging in building up her tribe, and promoting tribe vs tribe in America, instead of “One nation” (under which God?).
We are moving towards more us vs them violence, and she’s supporting the “underdog”. Dems who fail to condemn her are being a bit cowardly; those who support her are supporting the destruction of the melting pot America.
Note also how Dems are happy to demonize Trump, and claim he means worse, more divisive meanings than what he says, while lying here about a Dem who says terrible words. Claiming they don’t mean the badness that they say.
So much hypocrisy, so common — it’s hardly worth mentioning. I see most don’t. Yet it’s negative; very negative.
That implies that in her opinion… America is currently only 10% better than garbage.
This from a professional class girl who grew up in a Westchester exurb; from a girl whose family was (at least until her father died) comfortable enough to eschew state schools for their daughter and send her to a private research university in Boston; comfortable enough not to slap her unconscious when she proposed to major in international relations; comfortable enough not to yank her by the hair and tell her she had a choice between accounting, nursing, and pharmacy for her degree program. You get the impression that appreciation for what this country has to offer is something you regularly find among wage-earners in this country, but only a spotty presence in every other stratum.
AD it’s called hubris…and the D fresher class in the house is simply the next step in multiplied hubris brought to center stage by 0 himself.
Of course Mrs 0 wasn’t proud of America…she hated it until it made her powerful But even then she & the Mr still wanted to burn it down from the foundations upward. Of course 0 was wrong every time he made a decision…it was part of his plan to destroy that which provided him every possible human blessing and opportunity. Even granny went under the bus.
What this new generation radical class wilfully ignores is that when you set the foundations to the jackhammer…the whole structure falls. This tide will be turned back only at great cost…or it will not be turned back at even greater cost.
comfortable enough not to yank her by the hair and tell her she had a choice between accounting, nursing, and pharmacy for her degree program
Yeah. My youngest majored in French because she wanted to live in France. I reluctantly went along with it because one of my medical students had majored in French. I thought it required more effort than”Communications.” I should have yanked her by the hair.
‘Forgive her Father. She knows not what she says.’
If my eyes roll any farther into the back of my head, I may never find them again.
Reagan Pitted Whites Against Minorities”
To anyone remotely familiar with the political discourse in this country ca. 1983 (particularly the modus operandi of the Congressional Black Caucus, about which see Jody Powell’s memoir of his years as Jimmy Carter’s press secretary), this statement sounds unreal.
What’s amusing about partisan Democrats is how they manufacture fictions and then they’re passed down as talking points from one generation of partisan Democrats to another.