"Shootout"
It
was a very exciting day on the Sunday talk shows. With terror attacks
in Paris and Mali,
a lockdown in Brussels, and a leading Presidential
candidate talking about making all American Muslims register for a
database.
ABC's
This Week in Fear and Panic sent Martha Raddatz to Brussels,
where the
whole city is on lockdown due to
an “imminent threat.”
On
CBS' Face the Nation, Senator Diane Feinstein called for more
force against
ISIS, and both she and Representative
McCaul warned
against the dangers of encryption, with Feinstein cautioning
“terrorists could use PlayStation to be
able to communicate, and
there's nothing that
can be done about it.”
McCaul
is worried about refugees, saying
“I take ISIS at its word when it
says we want
to exploit the refugee programs to
infiltrate the West.”
On
that same show, Ruth Marcus said “this week I've been nostalgic for
the good old days of George W. Bush and his soothing, calming
responsible words about Muslims after the 9/11 attacks,” and
contrasted that with the “failure of President Obama to explain to
people that they weren't crazy to be nervous, but to understand their
nervousness and to explain it away.” Host Jon Dickerson followed up
by saying “Karl Rove has to respond” to that high praise of his
President.
Back
on Meet The Press, Leon Panetta argued the U.S. is going to
have re-invade Iraq and take territory away from ISIS.
Jon
Kasich appeared on that show to argue
“I think it's the Western
ethic, Western civilization that is under attack. They don't want to
negotiate. This is almost a metaphysical battle where they are saying
they want to destroy our very way of life.”
Metaphysical
it may be, but not enough to stop people on the terror watch list
from buying guns or explosives, with Kasich saying, “Americans want
to defend themselves. And that what we really need to focus on on
firearms right now is making sure that states use their databases to
upload the people who have mental illnesses.”
Another
candidate, Ben Carson, was on
ABC, where he said we said of ISIS
“We
need to take the land back. You know, the land is just sitting
there.” On his lack of experience he said “I hope everybody is
on a learning curve,” and “I don't know that it necessarily comes
down to politics, it comes down to practical experience solving
difficult problems doing things quickly and efficiently.”
Carson
called for more monitoring of mosques, but also said we should
“monitor anything – mosques, church, school, you know, shopping
centers where there is a lot of radicalization going on.”
Ben
Carson supports torture because it's not politically correct, and is
willing to do anything to protect America, saying “We need to get
very serious about our intelligence” and “We have to really
improve that very significantly. We're talking about the safety of
the American people.”
Carson
is willing to do anything, except
limit the sale of guns to
terrorists.
On
that, he said “You know, I am a big supporter of the Second
Amendment, and I don't want to deprive people unnecessarily of that.
There needs to be better due process.”
He
said “there are a lot of people on that watchlist and they have no
idea why they're on that list and they've been trying to get their
names off of it and no one will give them information,” and “It's
really unfair that people can't get a real hearing. And they get put
on a list and nobody can tell them why they're there, and they go
through for years and years and they have to be tormented.
It just
doesn't make any sense.”
But
the most absurd moments came with George Stephanopoulos' interview
with GOP front-runner Donald Trump. George asked him “Are you
unequivocally now ruling out a database on all Muslims?” Trump
responded, “No, not at all.”
He
also supports torture, saying “we have to be strong. You know, they
don’t use waterboarding over there – they use chopping off
people’s heads. They use drowning people.”
He
said “We have to surveil the mosques,” and claimed he's “heard”
that the President wants to bring in 250,000 Syrian refugees.
Although
the host pointed out it never happened, Trump insisted that on 9/11 “I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and
thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.
Thousands of people were cheering.” and “where you have large
Arab populations.”
Stephanopoulos
asked him several times if individuals on the terror watchlist and
the no-fly list should be allowed to buy guns and explosives. Trump
at first said if we have an enemy of state, I don't want to give him
anything. I want to have him in jail,” but also said “if we know
it's an enemy of state, I would keep them away, absolutely.”
He
also volunteered, “If in Paris some of those people, if you had
some of those people had guns, you wouldn't have had the horror show
that you had,” and “if those people in Paris had guns in that
room, it would have been a shootout and very few people would have
been hurt by comparison to the number that were hurt.”
So,
we have to reject women and children fleeing ISIS because we must
take ISIS at their word; we should re-invade Iraq because the land is
just sitting there; more torture will prevent French and Belgian
youths from being radicalized; because we're in a war for Western
civilization, we must surveil mosques, we have to monitor people
everywhere, and create a database of Muslims; but gun background checks
are a torment, and in any case, if there were more guns in Paris it
would cause a shootout and few people would have been hurt.
And
that's the most ridiculous thing that happened this Sunday.
