Minnesota State Representative Ilhan Omar arrives at the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) General Assembly in Paris to present the Minnesota bid in Paris, France on November 15, 2017. [State Department Photo/ Public Domain]
WE WILL NEVER FORGET! pic.twitter.com/VxrGFRFeJM
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2019
In turn, many on the left criticized the president for the tweet, but The Washington Times defends Trump, writing:
It was not, to put it mildly, elegantly stated. In a speech in California to the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) not long ago, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a Democrat, dismissed the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City as merely “some people did something.”
“CAIR was founded after 9/11,” said Ms. Omar, the first Muslim woman elected to Congress, “because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”
Ms. Omar got it factually wrong. CAIR was founded several years before 9/11. In the wake of those attacks, the U.S. government went out of its way to ensure that Muslim Americans were not singled out. (That’s why everybody must put up with body searches at the airport.) Who can forget President George W. Bush, being generous, calling Islam “a religion of peace?”
But the worst was how she dismissed as trivial the killing of 3,000 innocent Americans. That naturally drew harsh criticism from a wide range of prominent media figures, politicians, and eventually President Trump. The president tweeted a video juxtaposing Ms. Omar’s flippant remarks with grisly footage from that awful day. The New York Post published a graphic front page chastising Rep. Omar.
Mr. Trump’s video was tough, visceral, and perhaps, to the pain of a few snowflakes, “unpresidential.” But it was perfectly within the bounds of political discourse. “Politics ain’t bean bag,” as Mr. Dooley (a Democrat) observed, and in a democratic system like our own, politicians revel in attacking one another. That’s the point of a democratic republic.
Nevertheless, the usual Greek chorus erupted to suggest that the president had endangered the freshman member of Congress. The message was simple, that rebuking Rep. Omar is out of bounds.
