When Republicans dared to question Barack Obama during his 2008 campaign he warned them to stop criticizing him. He sent a shot across the bow:

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

He confirmed his animus whenever he felt he was being dissed -- in other words, quite often, since he has a very thin skin.

After he won the presidency, he “joked” that he would sic the IRS on Arizona State University when Arizona State University withdrew their early 2009 offer to give him an honorary degree because they belatedly  realized he had done far too little to merit such an honor. One wished the Nobel Peace Prize Committee had shown an equal level of intelligence, but Obama not being George Bush -- and not being a Republican -- was enough rationale for them.

He also has continually mocked and insulted political opponents and, for that matter, many millions of Americans. He is the Snarker-in-Chief.  His “joke” about ASU became less funny when his IRS, his FBI and his Department of Justice targeted political opponents. He does not “lead from behind” when his feelings are hurt or his political future may suffer. He is incapable of developing a strategy to deal with Islamic terrorists but is quite capable of developing a strategy when his career is at stake.

Has he devoted the same attention or forcefulness when dealing with Islamic terrorists -- America’s enemies?

What has been his approach?

Barack Obama has recently declared that “ideologies are not defeated with guns; they’re defeated by better ideas.” Or, as New York Post columnist Benny Avni phrased it in the title to a recent column, “President Obama brings a mouth to a knife fight.”

Avni writes:

“Ideologies are not defeated with guns; they’re defeated by better ideas.”

Add that, along with “leading from behind” and disappearing “red lines,” to the list of gems that will forever define President Obama’s era in national security.

That line, from Obama’s televised Pentagon visit Monday on his administration’s anti-ISIS strategy, quickly became a social-media meme.

Can we beat ISIS by presenting “a more attractive and more compelling vision”? That’s how Obama put it while assessing progress in our undeclared, undefined non-war against a nonstate that has nothing to do with Islam (and yet kicks our ass all over the place).

Come on. This isn’t Debate Club.

Obama also said this is a “long-term campaign,” meaning that he has pushed responsibility for dealing with them to future presidents. He absolves himself of judgment for his weak-kneed performance against them (recall, he has “no strategy” to deal with them). So he cannot deal with even a “JayVee” team.

Is Barack Obama a powderpuff president?

Were the Nazis defeated by better ideas? Was the Soviet Union? Didn’t Barack Obama boast that he was a “student of history”? In the world of free information, western liberal ideas are pervasive. They are not “better ideas” to Islamic extremists who hate much of the West for those very ideas. Talk therapy won’t work with them. Perhaps Obama can call for a collegial symposium to hash out differences of opinion between the beheaders and representatives of the freedom and liberty-loving West.

Barack Obama has the world’s biggest megaphone and operates on the world’s biggest stage. What better ideas has he been propounding over the years? Has he been helping or hurting the West and its battle over better ideas?

Obama’s Better Ideas

What have Muslims been hearing from Barack Obama for years? Has he been a proponent of better ideas? Has he been proclaiming the wonders of America and of the West?

No.

For years, his “moral compass” Jeremiah Wright, Jr. spewed anti-American, anti-white and anti-Israel rhetoric to the pews of his church. Barack Obama approvingly quoted Wright’s comment that the “white man’s greed runs a world in need.” America is not “exceptional” in his view.  Americans are “xenophobic” people who have “antipathy to people who aren’t like them” and harbor “anti-immigrant sentiment,”

America has a long history of sinning against the world and is responsible for many of the world’s problems he proclaimed in various ways during his apology tour around the world (see also Barack Obama’s Top 10 Apologies: how the president has humiliated a superpower”). Michael Oren, Israel’s former Ambassador to America, recently published a superb book , Ally, that serves as a history of Barack Obama’s treatment of our most valuable and reliable ally in the Middle East, Israel (a view of that country not shared by the president). Oren did his homework early during his posting by reading Obama’s two books. He was struck by the fact that Barack Obama has nothing positive to say about America. That may have been a revelation to someone who has spent years overseas, but to Americans who have cared to look into Obama’s heart and soul that should not be a surprise. For years, before his political handlers and his teleprompter took more control of him, his feelings about America were clear.

Barack Obama does not like America.

When Rudy Giuliani openly questioned when Barack Obama loved America he was viciously attacked. I wrote a column (Rudy was Right) defending  America’s Mayor by pointing out the numerous instances when Obama has insulted America and Americans (including doctors, businessmen, bankers). Obama has routinely targeted “fat-cat” bankers. Does this “student of history” realize Al Qaeda targeted the twin towers for precisely the same reason -- they were symbols of free enterprise and capitalism?

Barack Obama has consistently portrayed an America that is racist to its core. He has said “racism” is deeply rooted in America; that it is in our DNA and thus, if the metaphor holds true, cannot ever be cured.

Christianity does not fare well in Barack Obama’s worldview, either. He defended Islam while criticizing Christianity, condescendingly telling Christians they should get off their high horse and not feel so high and mighty when evaluating the depredations of ISIS. He noted Christians had committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ, during the Crusades, and the Inquisition. Well, the Crusades were centuries ago, of course. Did Obama realize the irony that he mocked Mitt Romney’s view during the 2012 presidential campaign that Russia was our number one geopolitical foe by saying the 1980s called and want their foreign policy back? Are the Crusaders calling and claiming the only true Christianity is the version they believe?

The Crusades ended 1000 years ago; is there a statute of limitations for acts committed then? Furthermore, many historians have argued the Crusades have been mischaracterized throughout history; they were defensive measures towards Islam on the attack.

Instead of honestly and rationally clarifying history, Barack Obama seems willing to distort history (and current events) as part of his long campaign to defend Islam from criticism.  Indeed, he has repeatedly praised the glories of Islam and distorted history while doing so. Islamic terrorists do not suffer self-esteem problems, Mr. President.

Barack Obama has viewed the Western world as a problem for the rest of the world. He has fully imbibed the views of Edward Said, who taught at Columbia University during Obama’s student years there. Said wrote in his sadly influential book Orientalism that westerners had a condescending and racist view of Arabs and that colonialism and imperialism were at the root of the problems besetting the Middle East. Obama was profoundly shaped by these views.

Happy Times between the Obamas and the Saids.

Barack Obama wrote in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times that Muslims have legitimate grievances against the West .

Barack Obama proclaims that America has shown “arrogance towards the world”; that we sought to “dictate” to the rest of the world; that we “went off course” and committed wrongs in the fight against terror (and “trimmed the facts and evidence” to justify our defending ourselves); that it was a moral wrong to open Guantanamo Bay prison; that “America has not pursed and sustained engagement with our neighbors”; that America was responsible for the 1953 coup in Iran that overthrew a democratically-elected leader; Barack Obama had said we “tortured” Muslims.

Dinesh D’Souza wrote a column, a book, and then made an extremely successful documentary about “How Obama Thinks.”  D’Souza marshaled quite a potent argument that Barack Obama blames colonial and imperialistic powers for causing much long-lasting harm to the lesser-developed nations of the world. D’Souza believes -- and many other agree -- that Obama believes America is a malevolent force in the world that has victimized millions of people (they have “legitimate grievances”). Barack Obama also faults our greatest ally, England, for the same set of sins (hence his infamous return of the bust of Winston Churchill to the British after years of display in a place of honor in the Oval Office). 

Since Barack Obama, America’s elected leader, has propounded the view that America is guilty of so many sins, should it come as a surprise that many foreigners agree with him? America hates foreigners; Americans are racists; American businessmen are rapacious; America is a colonial and imperialistic power that overthrows leaders; America tortures Muslims.

Are these the better ideas that Barack Obama believes will defeat those who hate America?

President Obama tells us that better ideas will defeat Islamic terrorism. His views of America and the West are more likely to support, if not stoke, Islamic terrorism against Americans.

It might be a better idea for Barack Obama to keep his better ideas about America to himself instead of broadcasting them to a world teeming with terrorists looking for a cause to justify mayhem and murder.