Whitewashing Terrorism
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/06/the_charleston_shooting_republicans_have_firm_rules_for_fighting_terrorism.html
The Republican Party has a clear philosophy on fighting terrorism. First, we must prioritize the fight. Second, we must challenge the teachings that motivate terror. Third, we must confront separatists who promote these ideas in our own country. Fourth, we must monitor networks that fund radicalization and violence.
Unless, of course, the terrorism is committed by white nationalists. In that case, the rules don’t apply.
Last week’s massacre at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina—to which an overt white racist has confessed—killed nine people. That puts it 15th on the list of worst terrorist incidents in the United States. It continues a long history of murders by white supremacists over the last 20 years. How are the 2016 Republican presidential candidates responding to this challenge? By setting aside the principles they normally apply to terrorism. Let’s go through the list....
Huckabee has expressed no such outrage, however, at being blindsided by the Charleston attack, even though the killer had detailed his radicalization online while posing with a pistol and the Confederate flag. On Sunday morning, Huckabee refused to say whether South Carolina should remove the flag from its state capitol grounds. He ridiculed the notion that the flag question “has anything to do whatsoever with running for president,” arguing, “People want their president to be focused on the economy, keeping America safe, some really big issues for the nation. I don’t think they want us to weigh in on every little issue in all 50 states.”
