Not just a pretty face: Ilhan Omar, the House anti-hate resolution, and the deflection of blame
What began as a move to condemn Ilhan Omar’s recent anti-Semitic statements morphed into a much broader statement that didn’t even mention her:
The resolution approved Thursday condemns anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim discrimination and bigotry against minorities “as hateful expressions of intolerance.” Omar, a Somali-American, and fellow Muslims Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Andrew Carson of Indiana, issued a statement praising the “historic” vote as the first resolution to condemn “anti-Muslim bigotry.”
The seven-page document details a history of recent attacks not only against Jews in the United States but also Muslims, as it condemns all such discrimination as contradictory to “the values and aspirations” of the people of the United States. The vote was delayed for a time on Thursday to include mention of Latinos to address concerns of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. It was inserted under a section on white supremacists who “weaponize hate for political gain” over a long list of “traditionally persecuted peoples.”
Far from being something that will give Omar and her allies pause, it was something she and her supporters managed to turn into a tool they can use to promote one of their favorite causes of all: their own supposed victimhood.
Touché, Ms. Omar! Well done.
This resolution is just a variation on a much older theme. If Omar is accused of saying or doing something bigoted, just turn it into: “No, we are the victims. It’s the backlash of Islamophobia we must be protected against.” And a great many people—particularly those on the left—will bend over backwards to show their tolerance, and to get out of having to condemn Omar for the original offense. In the process, the actual words and deeds of the perpetrator get lost, and the perpetrator can wrap him or herself in the warm cloak of victimhood.
Pallywood, a Palestinian propaganda machine which has been going on for a long long time with marked success (see this), is a prime example of the process. With Pallywood, the incidents of victimhood are actually staged and recorded, and this turns the sympathy of the world to the Palestinians, and the left (particularly in Europe) plays right along to show how noble they are.
Ilhan Omar and her buddies triumphed yesterday. And they know it. Nancy Pelosi may not have known what hit her.
As for Omar, she’s not wasting a bit of time, and in her newfound sense of invulnerability, look to her to up the ante. Already she’s been joining in mockery of Meghan McCain for “faux outrage” over Omar’s remarks:
McCain had become emotional during the ABC talk show, discussing Omar’s recent criticisms of Israel and its supporters. She said Omar’s remarks were hurtful to many of her Jewish friends.
“It is very dangerous, very dangerous,” McCain added, “and I think we collectively as Americans on both sides, what Ilhan Omar is saying is very scary to me. It’s very scary to a lot of people and I don’t think you have to be Jewish to recognize that.”…
But instead of responding directly to McCain, Omar retweeted a post that criticized McCain for “faux outrage” and referred to past statements attributed to McCain’s late father, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who died last August at age 81.
“Meghan’s late father literally sang ‘bomb bomb bomb Iran’ and insisted on referring to his Vietnamese captors as ‘g–ks’,” read the post by Medhi Hasan, an “Intercept” columnist and Al Jazeera host. “He also, lest we forget, gave the world Sarah Palin. So a little less faux outrage over a former-refugee-turned-freshman-representative pls.”
Omar’s retweet was praised by many of her followers as a sign that the freshman congresswoman was “standing up to the establishment.”
Note the reference to Omar as a “former refugee”—gotta play that victim card, as though that allows her to say whatever she wants. And also, of course, there’s the quote from McCain’s father John McCain, who is not only irrelevant to whatever his daughter said, but who might be forgiven for referring to his torturers in pejorative terms. Not that Omar cares, but just to set the record straight:
“I was referring to my prison guards,” McCain said, “and I will continue to refer to them in language that might offend some people because of the beating and torture of my friends.”
McCain made it clear that his anger extends only toward his captors. As a senator, he was one of the leaders of the postwar effort to normalize U.S. relations with Vietnam.
And here’s what McCain’s song was about.
None of this has any relevance to Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitic remarks, which were most definitely not made about people who had tortured her, nor were they some sort of tasteless joke. And they certainly have no relevance to Meghan McCain and her upset over those remarks of Omar’s. But Omar knows her audience, and it’s those followers who praised her retweet of the “faux outrage” change, and for “standing up to the establishment.”
And that’s not all that Omar has been saying, now that she’s drunk with her own power in the Party. She’s also been dissing that old has-been, President Obama:
“We can’t be only upset with Trump,” the freshman firebrand told Politico Magazine.
“His policies are bad, but many of the people who came before him also had really bad policies. They just were more polished than he was,” Omar said.
“And that’s not what we should be looking for anymore. We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished. We want to recognize the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”
Those last two sentences could be an excellent description of Ilhan Omar herself. Like AOC, she’s a very attractive youngish woman. This is, IMHO, part of the reason for her political success so far. And although she may not seem “polished” in the same way that Obama was, she is indeed polished in the techniques she’s been absorbing for many many years, techniques she did not originate but at which she is quite skilled. Already, she’s also gotten away with murder, not in the literal but in the political and metaphorical sense.
As for the future, the sky’s the limit. It really all just depends on whether the American public decides to reject or to embrace her methods and “the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”
There is a piece up at City Journal about Omar’s ingratitude at being allowed to come to America. She is a frontpiece for radical Islamists. We should send her back to Somalia.
Again, she’s the gift that keeps on giving… given that if she’s not firmly denounced by the dems, then they own her extremism.
She’s condemned the Jews.
She’s denounced Pelosi.
Now she’s attacked Obama…
Who’s next? As it’s a certainty that her hate knows no bounds.
Omar, Tlaib, AOC, Mazzie Hirono and all the rest are monsters of the dems own creation.
Infanticide, welfare for those UNWILLING to work, open borders and now…
“House votes in favor of illegal immigrant voting…”
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/8/house-votes-favor-illegal-immigrant-voting/
Those who vote for the unhinged, reveal themselves to also be unhinged.
The fruit of the Gramscian March through our educational system is now apparent.
See Scott Rasmussen number of the day, and weep for what is soon to be lost:
https://ballotpedia.org/Scott_Rasmussen's_Number_of_the_Day
I quote:
March 8, 2019: Forty-three percent (43%) of voters nationwide at least somewhat agree with the statement that “the Constitution made sense in the 18th century but it is irrelevant in the 21st century.” A ScottRasmussen.com survey found that 58% disagree and believe the document underlying our government is still relevant today.[1]
There is a significant generation gap on this question. A majority (58%) of voters under 35 at least somewhat agree that the Constitution is irrelevant. However, most older voters take the opposite view. Among senior citizens, 75% take the opposite view, including 46% who strongly disagree.
Sixty-three percent (63%) at least somewhat agree that our system of governmental checks and balances is nice in theory but doesn’t work in practice.
I agree with Edward. Omar, AOC, and all the other 40 and unders are just the fruit that has been carefully cultivated in the education garden. Bill Ayers certainly knew what he was about when he got that PhD in education and began a movement.
The real question is how do Pelosi et al react? To paraphrase the line from the great Jethro Tull song: “Omar stole the handle, and the train it won’t stop going, no way to slow down. No way to slow down.”
Meghan McCain’s concern about Jew-hating should be ignored because her father made Sarah Palin his running mate? That’s not logical by any stretch.
Pelosi got rolled, and no longer governs her own majority.
I comfort myself with the thought that Rep. Omar has (as yet) hurt no one, not really. She’s said some offensive things, been told to recant, and she’s refused.
Sticks and stones. I’m not concerned.
Moreover, she has since decided to see just how fast the revolution can eat its own. I don’t believe she’s criticized Obama by name yet — although it’s clear in context who she means — and she’s clearly not shy about hurling mud at members of her own party, active and retired.
One possibility is that Nancy Pelosi will be tired, and frustrated, and inconsolate, and will be a lame-duck Speaker for the next year and a half. More likely, it seems to me, she’ll discover she has some fight left in her. (So will other Party bigwigs, who will not take kindly to the kids coming in and taking over, based on nothing but their own big ideas and inflated sense of self-importance.)
In short, I expect to see the Democrats tear themselves to pieces over the next few years. Oh, it’s possible that one of the newbies will get a sugar-daddy, lots of strong financial backing, and will steadily gain power, to become the de facto dictator of the Democrats. But I don’t expect that.
For now — enjoy your victory, Rep. Omar, for victory it is. You don’t seem to know when to stop; we’ll see where that goes.
And, since this can get worse before it gets better…
…keep your powder dry. Especially if you’re Jewish. Antisemites are always with us, and they now know that power-players in Washington have their backs.
Just one man’s opinion here- the speed with which the Democrats have abandoned the traditional approach to practicing politics shocks this old voter. They are an out of control train. The elders are afraid to risk any insult, actual or perceived, to their hard left base. This base will ultimately devour them. It is sad, frightening and upsetting. My wish for them is utter failure- they deserve nothing less.
Omar does not have an allegiance with any nasty nation-state (including the USA).
Her allegiance is to the Ummah. The global community of Islam. If there was any mask beforehand, it’s surely dropped away now. She’s an Islamist. Of course she regards Obama as an Oreo cookie – anyone less than an Intifadist earns her contempt.
Bernie will surely kiss her ring. Let’s see if Biden does the same.
I note that the resolution condemns just about every hatred, real or imaginary, except for hatred of Christians and Christianity, which is growing and becoming more publicly acceptable. It’s too weak on Jew-hating, and leaves anti-Christian bias entirely alone.
Kate:
Good point.
This stuff might matter if anyone actually knew about it, but a quick scan of the major networks and CNN shows that neither the Navritalova, or Obama story is even being covered by the MSM. Only Fox news viewers are even seeing it.
Unfortunately, Tom is correct. Most people get their opinions shaped by the msm propaganda machine. The LIVs will never realize that democracy dies in the plain light of day, not darkness.
The Left’s enabling liberals utterly fail to grasp that it is the liberty of the individual which keeps tyranny at bay. Their willful blindness is so deep that even Venezuela’s example is wasted upon them.
In supporting political correctness, they fashion their own “fetters”. In supporting identity politics, they’re creating the links from which the chains that will enslave their descendents will be made and, their children’s children will curse their memory.
Tom:
Absolutely. The MSM covers what it wants in the way it wants, and it ignores anything that might look bad for its agenda.
“It really all just depends on whether the American public decides to reject or to embrace her methods and “the actual policies that are behind the pretty face and the smile.”
They will. The media will see to that.
I am with Kate on Pelosi. The speaker needs to rein in the craziness, if the Democrats imagine they can win. If this continues the Republicans are going to skate to victory!
She may have gone too far now: at Vanity Fair:Ilhan Omar Backtracks After Calling Obama a “Pretty Face” Who “Got Away with Murder”
Democrats didn’t abandon Omar over her comments about Israel. Her criticism of Barack Obama is another matter.
Well, we’re stuck with Trump as the GOP nominee so I wouldnt exactly characterize our chances as “skating” to a win, But the scarier that side gets, the less awful are chances are.
I note that the resolution condemns just about every hatred
And nothing about diversity or color judgments, which they enthusiastically embrace, not limited to racism, warlock hunts and trials, age discrimination (e.g. selective-child), and Jew… White privilege. So monotonic.
Harry,
As an ardent Cruz supporter, and campaign volunteer, I was highly skeptical of djt, although I voted for him in the end. Despite his many flaws, and weird to me personality, I am pleasantly surprised by the Donald. Bottom line, he fights tirelessly the craziness of the left. What more do you want?
physicsguy on March 8, 2019 at 4:49 pm at 4:49 pm said:
I agree with Edward. Omar, AOC, and all the other 40 and unders are just the fruit that has been carefully cultivated in the education garden. Bill Ayers certainly knew what he was about when he got that PhD in education and began a movement.
* * *
With all due respect to Meghan, her father lost my vote at “Nobody cares about some washed-up old terrorist” – Ayers’ influence on Obama was a danger because he was NOT washed-up.
I did vote for Sarah Palin and her running mate, though.
Aesopfan,
I did more or less the same thing in voting in 2008. It is a disappointment to me that we shall never have a Palin Administration. She seemed to me a woman of good common sense. She was also a woman of courage, physical, moral, and political. Commercial fishing in the Gulf of Alaska is one of the most dangerous jobs there is. She showed moral courage in resigning from that oil and gas board and denouncing its corruption. She showed political courage as governor in rooting out corruption and getting a better deal for Alaskans from the oil companies.
I was reminded of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s comment on FDR when the two met: a second class intellect but a first rate temperament. I think Palin’s intellect is better than she is given credit for,, especially after the slanders and libels by the Dems. They had to destroy her, for she was the vision of a new, attractive GOP.
The deflection of blame is extremely important. Since both Parties, and all politicians, do this constantly; they are all guilty of deflecting blame. So accusing the others of doing this is true.
Then, the Dem media chooses to focus on the truth of the “deflection of blame” by the Reps or other Dems, which hugely helps the Jew-hater deflect blame away from honestly noting her hatred.
Touché, Ms. Omar! Well done.
She and AOC both are playing strongly. Most normal folk would even say they are overplaying their hands. But with Dem media support, it’s not clear that there will be much backlash, so it’s not overplayed.
Not yet.
Will Reps take her hate-filled words and repeat how Dems refused to condemn her by name? Why aren’t some minority Rep members introducing a specific condemnation of her words, using the recently approved general resolution as justification — to pin Dems on record over those words. Or not. When Dems were a minority in the House, they still seemed able to do a lot of resolution pushing, why can’t Reps?
Parker: “I am pleasantly surprised by the Donald. Bottom line, he fights tirelessly the craziness of the left. What more do you want?”
Someone that can tirelessly fight the craziness of the left that doesnt also alienate everyone else as well, so that the net result in public opinion isnt a tie or a loss. Somebody that can articulate the superiority of individual freedoms, hard work and the rule of law and do so convincingly, without embarrassing himself. Someone that can comport himself as an adult.
We dont have that person, so the only thing we have left between now and the next election is who is able to turn off the least people by election day.
Pingback:The vague, general anti-hate Resolution against hate – Tom Grey – Families, Freedom, Responsibility
Ann on March 8, 2019 at 7:31 pm at 7:31 pm said:
She may have gone too far now: at Vanity Fair
* * *
Reminiscent of the flap over Governor Northam’s racism, rather than his support for infanticide: Dems have their priorites, after all.
FWIW, the “next” article at VF was a review of a TV show, which may have something to do with unhinged-ness of the Democrats (I suppose some conservatives watch the show also, but the “trend” to this type of offering is culturally more prominent on the left).
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/03/good-girls-is-the-best-crime-show-youre-not-watching?inline?inline
“You should watch Good Girls, is what I’m saying.
The show’s second season premieres on March 3, giving you a few days’ time to catch up with the first season, a Breaking Bad–esque narrative about three suburban Detroit women turning to crime to solve financial ills. Good Girls may borrow from other series, but what it does with those revisited tropes feels fresh and exciting. “
“The seven-page document details a history of recent attacks not only against Jews in the United States but also Muslims…”
I’m positive that while the attacks against Jews are real, the alleged attacks against Muslims are Jussie Smollets/Tawana Brawley/Al Sharpton style hoaxes. In fact, if the attacks against Jews in this country follow the same pattern as in Western Europe then Muslims are by far the most likely to be perpetrators of those attacks (Russia is the outlier as the authorities blame all attacks on Jews against “right wing extremists” but that could be a deliberate or accidental categorization problem, since Russia has Europe’s largest Muslim problem and they may not want to antagonize them, but in any case attacks on Jews are far lower in Russia than in Western Europe) . When Jews are able to identify their attackers and their probable motivations, Muslims by far commit the most assaults. In general the second largest identifiable group are lefists, lagging behind at third are right wingers (whatever that means in Europe), and lagging far behind are “Christian extremists.” Some countries report zero such attacks by Christians.
https://www.hlsenteret.no/aktuelt/publikasjoner/digitale-hefter/antisemittisk-vold-i-europa_engelsk_endelig-versjon.pdf
“Antisemitic Violence in Europe, 2005-2015 Exposure and Perpetrators in France, UK, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Russia ”
Omar is simply following her Allah’s and prophet;s examples. Muslims are the original crybullies. When Muhammad (if you believe the Muslim sources; I don’t as I consider them entirely works of fiction and don’t even believe Muhammad existed at all at least not as described in the Sunnah, but Muslims believe it) was preaching in Mecca he was not persecuted as per the Islamic fables. But when Muhammad insulted the Meccan pagans, their forefathers, their gods, and their traditions they stood up to him and his tiny band of followers. Muhammad didn’t really have any success as a preacher. It was only after he left Mecca and went to Yathrib (now Medina) and promised his followers riches in the form of war booty and sex slaves, and that if they were killed they would go directly to paradise where they would spend eternity deflowering their perpetual virgin heavenly sex slaves, that he attracted just the kind of followers he needed.
So when he made the Meccan pagans angry by insulting them and their religion Muhammad would basically start crying that he was being persecuted. And when he finally he went away the Meccans were just happy to seem him go. They would have just left him in peace, but Muhammad decided the best and easiest way to make a living would be to rob Meccan trading caravans. At first the Meccans didn’t respond but the Muslims killed a man during a sacred month when there wasn’t supposed to be any fighting. When his band returned to Yathrib at first Muhammad wouldn’t take his share of the spoils, but then he got a convenient revelation from Allah. Sure killing during one of the sacred months was a serious crime, but persecution is worse than murder. In other words, no matter what crimes the Muslims committed that was OK since no matter what they did, the Meccans were worse.
Many Muslims are good people. But most Muslims don’t ever read their Qurans or other canonical texts. They’re actively discouraged by their Imams and Sheiks from doing so, and instead are conditioned to simply take the word of their religious authorities and never, ever investigate for themselves. So essentially they’re lied to all their lives. If they take Islam seriously at all, and many don’t. But the rabid Jew hatred (and Christian hatred, and indeed hatred of all out-groups, but mostly Jew hatred) they absorb practically by osmosis even if they don’t take their ideology seriously or even don’t know anything at all about it. The more seriously they take their creed the more hateful and violent they become. This was verified by a survey conducted by the German interior ministry and the Institute for Criminology Research of Lower Saxony. They surveyed 45k teenaged boys and young men into their twenties of all religious backgrounds. Invariably all groups showed less inclination toward violence and crime the more devout they became. All groups except one; Muslims. The more pious they became, the more violent they became.
Naturally being leftists of the Pelosi bent they copped out. They concluded that the problem wasn’t Islam itself but the way it’s taught. Which is laughable nonsense. There’s no way to teach a so-called religion that contains commands such as “Kill them wherever you find them” (S9:5 and several other places) and expect to end up with peaceful, good, well-adjusted, and hard-working German citizens. These German officials are fools if somehow they think Muslims in Germany will listen to them instead of their Imams and Sheikhs. Muslims in Germany laugh at them just like Muslims all over Europe laugh at the “infidels” trying to teach them the “real, peaceful” Islam. There’s no such thing.
A blind person can see where Omar is coming from. Jew hatred has been drilled into her since earliest childhood. So she’s going to keep spouting Jew hatred. She can’t help herself, and now that the Democratic party officially approves of Jew hatred why should she even try to keep quiet about it?
“the speed with which the Democrats have abandoned the traditional approach to practicing politics shocks this old voter. ”
I have seen this coming for a long time, since before Obama. I voted Dem most of my life but quite when it became clear to me that not only had the “Michael Moore” wing of the party taken over but the “elders” did nothing to stop it. The few who objected like Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller were drummed out of the party. What we have now is the inevitable result.
Michael Lonie, agree with you 100% on Sarah Palin. Especially “they had to destroy her”. The treatment she received left a very bitter taste in my mouth.