Why can’t Republicans and cable news get it right when President Obama addresses the nation?

President Obama presented an address to the nation on the San Bernardino attack and the war on ISIS Sunday evening.

Tell me something...

...Why can’t Republicans and cable news networks get it right when President Obama addresses the nation?

Every time we comment on an address presented by President Obama, we include the actual transcript because we know that if you listen to the factually illiterate commentaries of Republican politicians and far too many FOX, CNN and MSNBC show hosts and pundits, you would think that you and they viewed two completely different addresses!

It’s amazing how Republican presidential candidates, cable news (???) show hosts and pundits display such a limited  capability to comprehend anything beyond a 60 second sound bite!

The President didn’t say anything new!?!?

The President’s address was pathetic!?!?

President “O” (disrespectful title by a FOXifier) didn’t call the California terrorist radical Islamic terrorists!?!?

The President doesn’t have a strategy to defeat ISIA!?!?

The President is doing nothing to address terrorism!?!?

The President only wants to take away your guns!?!?

The President is blaming America for the California shootings!?!?

And on and on and on!?!?

Let’s see how these sound bite commentaries stack up to what President Obama actually said. (The full transcript is linked below.)

WHAT PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS DONE SO FAR 

• Intelligence and law enforcement agencies have disrupted countless plots here and overseas, and worked around the clock to keep us safe.
• Our military and counter terrorism professionals have relentlessly pursued terrorist networks overseas - disrupting safe havens in several different countries, killing Osama bin Laden, and decimating al Qaeda’s leadership.
• Authorized U.S. forces to take out terrorists abroad precisely.
• In Iraq and Syria, airstrikes are taking out ISIL leaders, heavy weapons, oil tankers and infrastructures.

WHAT THE U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITIES ARE DOING

• Since the attacks in Paris, our closest allies - including France, Germany and the United Kingdom - have ramped up their contributions to our military campaign
• We will continue to provide training and equipment to tens of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian forces fighting ISIL on the ground so that we take away their safe havens. In both countries, we’re deploying Special Operations Forces who can accelerate that offensive.
• We are working with friends and allies to stop ISIL’s operations - to disrupt plots, cut off their financing and prevent them from recruiting more fighters.
• Since the attacks in Paris, we’ve surged intelligence-sharing with our European allies.
• We’re working with Turkey to seal its border with Syria.
• We are cooperating with Muslim-majority countries - and with our Muslim communities here at home - to counter the vicious ideology that ISIL promotes online.
• With American leadership, the international community has begun to establish a process and timeline to pursue ceasefires and a political resolution to the Syrian war.

WHAT CONGRESS CAN DO

• Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun.
• Congress needs to make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons like the ones used in San Bernardino.
• Congress needs to put in place stronger screening for those who come to America without a visa so that we can take a hard look at whether they’ve traveled to war zones.
• Congress should vote to authorize the continued use of military force against ISIL terrorists. For over a year, I have ordered our military to take thousands of airstrikes against ISIL targets. It’s time for Congress to vote to demonstrate that the American people are united and committed to this fight.

WHAT WE CANNOT DO

• Sending a new generation of Americans overseas to fight and die for another decade on foreign soil.
• We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That’s what groups like ISIL want, ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers, part of a cult of death, and they account for a tiny fraction of more than a billion Muslims around the world - including millions of patriotic Muslim Americans who reject their hateful ideology.  Moreover, the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world are Muslim.

WHAT MUSLIM LEADERS HERE AND AROUND THE GLOBE CAN DO

• Muslim leaders here and around the globe have to continue working with us to decisively and unequivocally reject the hateful ideology that groups like ISIL and al Qaeda promote.
• Muslim leaders need to speak out against not just acts of violence, but also those interpretations of Islam that are incompatible with the values of religious toleration, mutual respect and human dignity.

WHAT ALL AMERICANS CAN DO

• It is the responsibility of all Americans - of every faith - to reject discrimination.
• It is our responsibility to reject religious tests on who we admit into this country.
• It’s our responsibility to reject proposals that Muslim Americans should somehow be treated differently. That kind of divisiveness, that betrayal of our values plays into the hands of groups like ISIL.
• Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbors, our co-workers, our sports heroes - and, yes, they are our men and women in uniform who are willing to die in defense of our country. We have to remember that.

Perhaps the misleading presumption that the President said nothing new stems from the fact that whenever the President asks the Republican Congress for legislative authority to do more in order to combat ISIS and Syria they do nothing - nothing new!


And there you have it. One address, two completely different representations. A sad commentary on the legitimacy of Republican politicians' talking points and cable news network sound bites!

SOURCE

Transcript: President Obama's address to the nation on the ...

www.cnn.com/2015/.../transcript-obama-san-bernardino-isis-addres...

Spread the factual coverage of the President's address via the link above!