Obama Offends ‘Christians’ by Comparing Crusades to Islamist Atrocities

Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.

— President Barack Obama, at Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast, which was attended by the Dalai Lama. Christianists were quick to retaliate: “Rush Limbaugh devoted a segment of his show to what he said were the president’s insults to the “whole gamut of Christians” and Twitter’s right wing piled on. Guests on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News show spent 15 minutes airing objections to the president’s comments,” the New York Times reports.

Obama Responds to Murder of Steven Sotloff

Whatever these murders think they’ll achieve by killing innocent Americans like Steven, they have already failed. They failed because, like people around the world, Americans are repulsed by their barbarism. We will not be intimidated. Their horrific acts only unite us as a country and stiffen our resolve to fight against these terrorists and those who make the mistake of harming Americans will learn that we will not forget and that our reach is long and that justice will be served.

— President Obama, quoted by McClatchy News Service, on the beheading of journalist Steven Sotloff.