While white "sovereign citizens" are considered to be as much of a threat as Muslim extremists, Eric Bolling steadfastly denies that right wing, non Muslim Americans commit acts of domestic terrorism. And when they do engage in ideologically based violence, such as killing abortion providers, Bolling says they are just lone crazies.
While we don't know if Bolling is being stupid, or just in a Fox induced state of right wing denial, he actually made the stupid claim that there were no acts of domestic terrorism after 9/11. Not surprisingly, Bolling was, as usual, full of shit as there were a number of domestic acts of terror. When Bolling said this, in 2011, FBI statistics showed that since 9/11, there had been twice as many terror plots from non-Muslims. Last Monday, Bolling showed his ignorance, once again.
The discussion, on "The Five," was basically another iteration of the popular Fox messages about how Americans should be scared of nasty, Islamic terror and, of course, how Americans should be very angry that our Muslim-symp president isn't doing anything about it. Greg Gutfeld opined that Obama is "worried about hurting the Muslims feelings by linking Islam to terror." When Juan Williams cited two instances of non-Muslim American terrorism, Gutfeld said, mockingly, "is that all you've got."
When Bolling asked if he had anything from the last eight years, Williams was roundly mocked when he couldn't immediately come up with anything. (He could have mentioned the Holocaust museum shooting or the Kansas Jewish Community Center shooting, or various white supremacist plots, and Cliven Bundy's "patriot" pals who murdered two Las Vegas cops.) Williams "remembered a doctor getting shot at his church" (Dr. George Tiller), Bolling suggested that Muslim terrorism was more prevalent than non-Muslim terrorism: "Yeah, but, but Juan, OK. You have to, if you're gonna play by the numbers, you've got to play by the numbers and you have to admit it is an overwhelming amount."
Williams said that you can't ignore domestic violence and that he considered Tiller's (whose name wasn't mentioned) shooting an act of terrorism. Bolling retorted that the killing was the act of a lunatic. Williams quipped "oh, you sound like Obama. I didn't know you're working for Obama these days."
Memo to Bolling et al.: The FBI defines domestic terrorism as having these characteristics: "Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law; Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S"
Anti-abortion extremism is responsible for a growing volume of threats and intimidation directed towards clinics - actions that are an attempt to coerce civilians to shut down the clinics. Scott Roeder, the murderer of Dr. Tiller, was not a lone wolf. He had connections to radical and very violent anti-abortion activists whose aim was intimidation. So yeah, Eric, anti-abortion violence is terrorism and, fyi, it's done in the name of Christianity even though you say that Christians never kill anybody in the name of religion. But for Eric and Fox News, Islam is the problem and anybody who provides a counterpoint is considered cra-cra. Ironic, don't ya think!