Who "created" ISIS? The Republican candidates' dumb "debate"

Mark Steyn with Hugh Hewitt:

...  Hugh was interested in various Republican candidates sniping at each other over which American president is responsible for "creating" ISIS: Was it Obama? Was it Bush? I responded:

... MS: ... in keeping Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda leadership holed up in Abbottabad and various other places, what emerged free from al Qaeda control was next generation al Qaeda. And there will eventually be a next generation ISIS that will even be more barbaric and evil  ... even if we did nothing, even if we just behaved like Sweden, it would still be there. And to blame it on Obama or Bush or Coolidge or Chester Arthur is completely a waste of time.

... HH: [Sayyid] Qutb [Muslim Brotherhood leader and inspiration for al Qaeda] was radicalized by his time in America ... I'm not declaiming against Western culture. It simply is, if you're going to be provoked by people's lifestyles that are different than yours, you're going to be at war with the West regardless of whether or not we do anything with you.

... even when we weren't decadent, Qutb and his pals thought we were - and hated us anyway. I think the Rand Paul view - that Bush interventionism is responsible for the metastasizing of ISIS - will gain some traction with Republican voters ...

And aren't liberals perpetually blaming America and the West for provoking Islamist terror? You'd think they might stop and consider that for Qutb, al Qaeda and now ISIS it's Western "decadence" that inspires their hate - and the biggest world-wide purveyor of Western, especially American, cultural imagery is uber-liberal Hollywood with its non-stop, big-screen caricatures of American crime, sex, violence and "capitalist greed". Hollywood didn't "create" ISIS but it's sure doing more than its share to keeping the hate going.  And it's these same liberals who have the chutzpa to rant against Pamella Geller, accusing her of provoking Muslims with her relatively miniscule anti-Islamist campaigns.

Mark Steyn for US Senate?

Daily Caller.

On his radio show on Thursday night, conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt lobbied National Review columnist and occasional fill-in host for Rush Limbaugh to make a run for a New Hampshire U.S. Senate seat against the current incumbent, Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

“Revolting, contemptible”, “deeply dishonest”

That would be Obama’s national security speech yesterday. Hugh Hewitt discusses it with Mark Steyn (audio here). A sample:

BHO: All too often, our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight. But all too often our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions. Instead of strategically applying our power and our principles, too often we set those principles aside as luxuries that we could no longer afford. And during this season of fear, too many of us, Democrats and Republicans, politicians, journalists and citizens, fell silent.

HH: Mark Steyn, this is a deeply dishonest statement. It lacks the specificity that would allow people to rebut it, and it is an attempt to give himself credit for that which he does not deserve, the national security success of the last eight years, and to diminish that success.....

So, with sanctimonious moralizing and empty generalizations Obama publicly condemned the previous administration’s genuine, lawful efforts to keep America safe. It’s as if Obama were still campaigning for the presidency employing the loopiest rhetoric from the Democratic extreme left.

If he keeps this up Obama will easily overtake Jimmy Carter as "worst president".

And here’s Dick Cheney’s much better national security speech.

Up yours!

Mark Steyn’s Town Hall interview with Hugh Hewitt on Mark’s "travails with the Canadian Human Rights Commission":
Great line, great interview (transcript, audio).

[via]

I was asked whether I wanted to get off the hook, and I said no. I wanted to take the hook and shove it up the collective butt of the Canadian thought police.
... it was widely quoted in 'The Economist', and around the world, in fact, and 'The Australian'.