CHICAGO — U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois asserted this week that a “politically correct” U.S. government was so fearful of offending Islam that it failed to prevent the Fort Hood massacre.
Walsh, a first-term Republican congressman with tea party support, told an audience in Elk Grove Village on Wednesday: “Your government was so afraid of doing its job, so afraid of offending Islam that right in front of our noses, we saw what was happening at Fort Hood, and because your government was politically correct, Americans died.”
A U.S.-born Muslim who was an Army psychiatrist is awaiting trial for the November 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 dead and dozens more wounded.
Walsh decried the threat within the U.S. posed by a radical strain of Islam. “It is a real threat,” he said. “And it is a threat that is much more at home now than it was right after 9/11. It’s here. It’s in Elk Grove. It’s in Addison. It’s in Elgin.”
Walsh, a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said it is not a matter of whether there is another Sept. 11 attack, but when. “The people that would want to do this to America are trying to get their hands on weapons that will make 9/11 look like child’s play,” he added. “So we had better be alert to this.”
Walsh faces Democrat Tammy Duckworth in the Nov. 6 election. A video tracker from Duckworth’s campaign taped Walsh’s remarks, which are on YouTube.
After the video was posted, Walsh issued a statement Thursday saying that even Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano “have warned about the dangers of radical Islam.”
But Kaitlin Fahey, Duckworth’s campaign manager, criticized Walsh’s comments.
“Congressman Walsh’s remarks are not only offensive, they are especially inappropriate and irresponsible from a sitting member of Congress,” Fahey said in a statement. “These comments demonstrate yet again why he is not fit to hold political office.”
©2012 Chicago Tribune
And any one with even half a brain knows that what Walsh says is true….
HOWEVER, political correctness has such a total chokehold on our society by now that we must not speak the truth.
“In a world of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” (Orwell).
PC will be the death of our great nation. This was an act of terrorism by a muslim terrorist with years of muslem propaganda. The pathetic excuse for a president in the WH did not want it so.
Yes and the two shootings were just simple acts of violence. How many Muslims have gone on shooting sprees? Two white dudes did it in the last couple of weeks.
Government fail.
As nuts beat the war drum, we all know how profitable another Republican unpaid war will be. Their need to always have an enemy is as necessary as their need to deregulate and let chaos reign. This guy makes McCarthy look reasonable.
This jerk should be run out of the country, he doesn’t pay his child support, he insults his opponents military service, she lost both legs in Iraq, claims she uses it to score political points, and steals a bill almost verbatim from a Democrat. What a useless piece of you know what.
So, Joe, what is the answer? Ban all Muslims from serving in the US military? If not all, how about any who attend a mosque? I think it would be pretty hard to find anyone who did not think radical Islam was a danger, but what actually would you do?
And while we are on the subject of violence, how about the events of the last couple of weeks? Any suggestions there, or are weekly mass murders just part of American life?
And on to the subject of political correctness, I recently heard the Tea Party movement referred to as fascist populism. If I use that description of the Tea Party, am I violating political correctness? That would probably be viewed by some as an insult. How would the article have seemed if it had read this way, “Walsh, a first-term Republican congressman with support from the tea party, a fascist populist movement …”?