Everybody’s analyzing the speech Obama gave last night. Its beauty or lack thereof was in the eye of the beholder, although even admirers of Obama weren’t what you’d call wildly enthusiastic.
But I’m going to do something nobody else is doing, as far as I’ve seen. I’m going to perform a very close reading of certain parts of his speech, in terms of the language Obama uses.
I’ve long noticed that, especially with Obama’s prepared speeches, he often says things that sound at first hearing as though they mean one thing but could also be interpreted a different way. Many years ago I came to the conclusion that these ambiguities were not a coincidence, nor did they reflect sloppy writing (particularly with speeches he considers important), but are instead intentionally placed there to influence his supporters in one way and his opponents in another way, but essentially to also allow him to later claim that he said whatever it is that he decides later that it was expedient for him to have been perceived as saying.
If that’s a mouthful (and it is), then so be it. Writers—and especially presidential speechwriters—fuss over every single word. Lawyers and law students fuss over words more than other people do, as well. Obama is both, and although you may think him nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is, he’s still able to understand and use the power of words quite well, and with prepared speeches he has time and assistance to do so with far more care than he does when speaking extemporaneously.
Quite a few listeners have commented that last night Obama finally owned up, not only to the fact that the San Bernardino shootings were terrorism, but for the first time he did the same about Ft. Hood and Chattanooga. My response is: perhaps, but I’m not so sure.
As an example, we have this comment by “Lizzy”:
The only surprise was that [Obama] rattled off the Ft. Hood and Chattanooga recruiting center shootings as terrorism ”“ has he ever publicly admitted this before?
So let’s take a look at that quote on Ft. Hood and Chattanooga from Obama’s speech last night:
Over the last few years, however, the terrorist threat has evolved into a new phase. As we’ve become better at preventing complex, multifaceted attacks like 9/11, terrorists turned to less complicated acts of violence like the mass shootings that are all too common in our society. It is this type of attack that we saw at Fort Hood in 2009; in Chattanooga earlier this year; and now in San Bernardino.
It’s actually hard to know if Obama is really calling Chattanooga terrorism, and I’ll explain why. Parsing that statement I’ve just quoted, I’d interpret what Obama was saying this way:
Terrorists used to plan complicated attacks such as 9/11, but now they do simpler things that resemble mass shootings that are not terrorist attacks and that are very common in this country. Note that he’s cleverly slipped in a criticism of America as the mass murder capital, a point he’s always trying to make (falsely) and that I wrote about a few days ago here.
Then, when he follows with “It is this type of attack that we saw at Fort Hood in 2009,” what does “this type of attack” refer to? Notice that right before “it is this type of attack” he has referenced regular, non-terrorist mass shootings. So does “this” refers to new-style terrorist attacks, or regular mass shootings that he says are so common here? It is left open to the interpretation of the listener/reader.
Now, you might say this is merely awkward writing and the ambiguity is not intentional but is an error. I think these speeches are written very carefully and that the ambiguity is more likely to be purposeful. Is he calling Ft. Hood a terrorist attack? It seems that way, but it’s not totally clear. And this verbal reluctance to clearly call terrorist attacks terrorist attacks (never mind “Islamic terrorist attacks) is part of a long, long pattern of Obama’s that’s described here and is remarkably consistent.
What’s more, look at what he actually says about San Bernardino. It sounds as though he is calling the perpetrators “terrorists,” but he’s even dancing around that. Take this paragraph of his [the comments in brackets are mine]:
The FBI is still gathering the facts about what happened in San Bernardino, but here is what we know [he’s saying we are not sure of things; the jury is still out; everything he says is tentative]. The victims were brutally murdered and injured by one of their coworkers and his wife. So far, we have no evidence that the killers were directed by a terrorist organization overseas, or that they were part of a broader conspiracy here at home [so this is a disavowal of them as agents of ISIS or ISIL or Al Qaeda or part of any larger terrorist group; they are almost certainly lone wolves, according to him]. But it is clear that the two of them had gone down the dark path of radicalization, embracing a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West [he does not name or describe this perverted interpretation, nor does he discuss the female terrorist’s recent immigration status and vetting despite her radicalism]. They had stockpiled assault weapons, ammunition, and pipe bombs [he does not mention the strong suspicion that they probably had assistance from a “larger terrorist group.” Again, he seems to be indicating they are lone wolves]. So this was an act of terrorism, designed to kill innocent people.
That last sentence is perhaps the most curious sentence of all in the speech. It’s the one where he finally seems to be admitting that San Bernadino represents terrorism. And so he is . However, if you read it carefully, you’ll see that he calls the killings an “act of terrorism” rather than saying something like “they were terrorists,” and the description that immediately follows seems to be that this act was “designed to kill innocent people.” But virtually all acts of murder, and all mass shootings, are “designed to kill innocent people”; although the murderers might think the victims deserved it, the rest of us recognize the victims’ innocence (except for Daily News writer Linda Stasi, but that’s another story). “Killing innocent people” is not really the distinguishing factor in terrorism, is it? The Columbine killers and the Sandy Hook killer certainly killed innocent people and their acts were “designed” to do so, but the perpetrators were not terrorists in the usual definition of the word.
So this “killing innocent people” phrase Obama has used ties into the other part of his speech where he discusses those non-terrorist “mass shootings that are all too common in our society.” In other words, even as he calls San Bernardino an “act of terrorism,” which would distinguish it from ordinary mass shootings, he follows that immediately with what seems like a definition of a non-terrorist mass shooting, thus again injecting an ambiguity that seems to equate the two somewhat.
In addition, by referring to the perpetrators’ actions and labeling them terrorism, he avoids labeling the perpetrators themselves terrorists. By so doing, he takes away some of the idea of agency once again. This shying away from attributing agency to terrorists is another marked characteristic of Obama’s that occurs often in his speeches. It’s also subtle but hardly accidental, and it all goes together to paint a picture. It’s not just that he didn’t say this was Islamic terrorism. It’s that he didn’t says the two perpetrators were terrorists.
I have studied many of Obama’s speeches over many years (usually in written form; I don’t ordinarily listen), and I’ve noticed these sorts of constructions over and over. So I don’t think I’m imagining this. For example, the same construction “act of terrorism” or “act of terror” was present in an especially ambiguous and generalized way in his famous Rose Garden speech post-Benghazi and is featured in the discussion of that speech in the second debate with Mitt Romney and Candy Crowley (I wrote about it here and here).
In last night’s speech, Obama also said:
And as groups like ISIL grew stronger amidst the chaos of war in Iraq and then Syria, and as the Internet erases the distance between countries, we see growing efforts by terrorists to poison the minds of people like the Boston Marathon bombers and the San Bernardino killers.
That’s certainly true; can’t argue with that. But note how, once again, he paints the Tsarnaev brothers and the Farook couple as more acted upon rather than acting. Their minds are “poisoned” by others. In addition, what does he mean by “people like” the Boston bombers and the San Bernardino killers? (Notice that in that sentence he again does not say “terrorists,” he calls them by the more generic words “bombers” and “killers.”)
What do/did these four people have in common? He doesn’t say, but I’ll tell you: all four are/were Muslims who were living in this country. One was born here (Farook) after his father emigrated here, and of the other three one came on a fiance visa and was vetted under the Obama administration, and the other two (the Tsarnaevs) came here prior to the Obama years as children in a program somewhat like the one Obama is touting for the Syrian refugees (technically it was asylum for the Tsarnaevs, because the family came originally on tourist visas and they later applied for and were granted asylum status). The older Tsarnaev brother also had been interviewed earlier by the FBI later on because of some suspicious behavior and passed (in addition, he had murdered before and was a known friend of the victims, but was never suspected). Farook had communicated with known terrorists who were being watched by this country but that seemed to raise no alarms whatsoever.
That was the kind of people they all were, and that was how the danger signs were missed. But Obama never specifies any of this because the consequences of pointing it out would be politically bad for him.
Commenter “Ann” also wrote about last night’s speech that, “[Obama] surprisingly did talk more directly about Muslims and radical Islam than I think he ever has before,” and “Dennis,” agreed somewhat: “Ann is correct that Obama appears to have admitted for the first time that ISIS is connected to Islam in some peripheral way. On the surface that appears to be progress but it is only a ruse.”
Well, I’m going to have to disagree with both Ann and Dennis about that. It is not the first time Obama has admitted this “in some peripheral way.” Ann quoted part of Obama’s speech last night to show this new admission by Obama:
We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That, too, is what groups like ISIL want. ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers. Part of a cult of death. And they account for a tiny fraction of a more than a billion Muslims around the world, including millions of patriotic Muslim-Americans who reject their hateful ideology.
Moreover, the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world are Muslim. If we’re to succeed in defeating terrorism, we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.
That does not mean denying the fact that an extremist ideology has spread within some Muslim communities. It’s a real problem that Muslims must confront without excuse.
Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and Al Qaeda promote. To speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity.
In last night’s speech, Obama also referred to the San Bernardino perpetrators as having “embraced a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West.”
But is this sort of thing really new for Obama? After just a minute or two of looking, I found this from a speech of Obama’s from February of 2015, just as an example:
Obama also said military force alone will not defeat terrorism, and the nation must work with local communities to reduce the influence of those who advocate violent extremism.
“They are not religious leaders,” Obama said. “They are terrorists.”
He also said: “We are not at war with Islam ”” we are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”
…Groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda “try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam,” Obama said, but “we must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie.”
Obama also said Muslim communities have responsibilities to confront the abuse of religion.
“Of course, the terrorists do not speak for a billion Muslims who reject their ideology,” Obama said.
I see no particular difference between his rhetoric then and now, including the use of the phrase “embraced a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West.” in his speech from February, and the words “we are at war with people who have perverted Islam” yesterday evening, and including the call for some responsibility on the part of ordinary Muslims to “confront” this (his February speech and last night’s speech were nearly identical in that regard).
And that’s just one speech from Obama’s past. My guess is that if I wanted to devote a ton of time to this quest, I could probably find more.
With Obama, appearances can be deceptive, as most of you surely know.
