PrintNovember 6, 2009
Obama on Fort Hood Massacre: Don't Jump to Conclusions
"We don't know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts." So said President Barack Obama in the Rose Garden today in reference to Nidal Malik Hasan’s savage massacre of American soldiers at Fort Hood.
Back in July Obama’s “teachable moment” regarding jumping to conclusions in the arrest of Henry Louis Gates was a little different:
"I don’t know — not having been there and not seeing all the facts — what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry."
"Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.”
"Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.”
In other words, Obama demonstrates here that even without all of the facts it’s quite appropriate to both be angry and to malign as stupid the acts of an entire police department.
As a former law student Obama obviously needs to pay lip service to the ideal of a slow, diligent collection of facts. But when one steps back for a larger perspective on Obama’s entire campaign and struggling presidency the image reveals one overarching theme: jumping to conclusions.
Obama’s Communications Director Anita Dunn actually bragged about how her team was able to control the media during the campaign by using videos instead of live interviews with reporters:
“One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. ... We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it.”
By carefully controlling how Obama was packaged the Maoist Dunn was ensuring that the American public would “jump to conclusions” and vote for their candidate without the campaign manager Plouffe ever having to “actually talk to reporters.”
By sealing off records of his past, including his original birth certificate and his academic records, Obama was in a way persuading Americans to forget about “all the facts” and to jump to conclusions about his qualifications to be president. In addition, would the White House be attacking Fox News if it had a healthy respect for the “marketplace of ideas?”
By not patiently and diligently collecting the facts Obama himself has jumped to conclusions about America’s past, about who might have helped author the book Dreams From My Father, about the efficacy of nationalized health care, about the effects of the economic stimulus, about George Bush, about the economic crisis that Democrats helped to precipitate, and, quite recently in Virginia and New Jersey, about the electoral payoff of his now tarnished coattails.
I can think of only one area where Mr. Obama and his team have not jumped to conclusions: Afghanistan. It seems then that when the administration does have all of the facts it has trouble making a decision, yet when the facts prove incomplete decisions are made. This seems backwards.
News reports indicate that federal law enforcement agencies had been tracking Nidal Malik Hasan for at least six months.
