When someone calls the president a Muslim

Brauer was on the program to provide his perspective on the president’s request for the authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Brauer has a distinguished record of military service. The organization he represents, Special Operations Speaks (SOS), has been extremely critical of Obama’s foreign policy, and has from time to time veered into the rhetorical right-wing ditch. It was our hope that we could draw on his experience and expertise to add important perspective to the always-important debate over the decision we make, as a country, to send our young people into harm’s way.

Then he called the president a Muslim, and I took him off the air.

To be clear, calling someone a Muslim is not, per se, an insult. It clearly can be a simple statement of fact. To call Obama a Muslim, however, is just as clearly a misstatement of fact.

And it is more than that.

In the context of the broader discussion of a strategy to engage the ISIS terror threat, that label carries with it an implicit association with, and sympathy for, the group. For the colonel call the president a Muslim was to say he sympathizes with the enemy. That not only made it a misstatement, but a personal attack. It also, in my opinion, said subliminally that anyone who is a Muslim must also feel a kinship with ISIS; that, too, is a canard.