President Barak Obama has, for the first time since he took office in January 2009, has visited a U.S. mosque, eager to speak to America on behalf of its Muslim citizens and to counter what the White House describes as poisonous election-year rhetoric from Republicans.
“We have seen an alarming willingness on the part of some Republicans to try to marginalize law-abiding, patriotic Muslim Americans, and it is offensive,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday.
“We have seen a willingness on the part of leading Republican presidential candidates to try to appeal to people’s fears and anxieties.”
White House aides said that Obama won’t call out any Republicans by name during his visit to the Islamic Center of Baltimore mosque, but that they privately said that the spark for the president’s visit was Trump’s call to halt Muslim immigration to the United States, a proposal that drew condemnation from some — but not all — of the bombastic billionaire’s rivals to be the Republican standard-bearer in 2016, and won considerable support in Congress.
President Obama’s advisers also bristle at charges from some in the GOP that Islam is inherently prone to violence. And administration officials worry that coverage overseas of Trump’s remarks could fuel what one called a “false impression that we are at war with Islam.”
Republicans have often countered that Obama’s refusal to brand the enemy “Islamic extremists” is a nod to politically correct sensibilities that shows he does not take the threat seriously.
Public opinion polls in late 2015 found that a majority of Republican voters backed Trump’s idea. Democrats overwhelmingly rejected it, and most independents sided with them.
Among the key audiences for Obama’s remarks is America’s Muslim community, which he needs to have as an ally against home-grown extremists, like those who carried out the deadly attack in San Bernardino, Calif., in December.
“We will have more success in our efforts to prevent that if we work effectively with the Muslim community to confront that threat as opposed to branding everybody who attends a mosque as a potential enemy of the United States of America,” Earnest said.
Seven years ago, Obama’s key audience was Muslims around the world, a constituency he described as vital to allied efforts to stamp out the kind of violent extremism that plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Back then, the centerpiece of his outreach was a June 2009 speech at Cairo University in which he pleaded for “a new beginning,” acknowledged “civilization’s debt to Islam” and highlighted the contributions of American Muslims.
“They have fought in our wars, they have served in our government, they have stood for civil rights, they have started businesses, they have taught at our universities, they’ve excelled in our sports arenas, they’ve won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building and lit the Olympic Torch,” he said.
Obama is certain to echo that part of his Cairo message today as he visits the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque, holds a round table with key community figures and makes remarks. [myad]
