Crackpot psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow visited Fox & Friends this morning to blame President Obama explain why some Americans have become radicalized and joined ISIS. Host Elisabeth Hasselbeck suggested they should just play videogames instead.
In her introduction to her discussion with Ablow, Hasselbeck asked, “So what in the world is causing this wave of United States recruitment and how does an ordinary citizen become radicalized?”
Any good Fox watcher knows that President Obama will be blamed somehow.
Ablow started off about a lack of “sense of self” and a feeling of “not enough.” “They’re looking for something to fill them up,” Ablow opined. He also described “radical Islam” as a “pure drug” that can make you feel that you have a mission “and that can be the answer to all those nagging, terrible questions” about oneself and one’s direction and purpose.
“Find a videogame you like, not ISIS!” Hasselbeck exclaimed, apparently in all seriousness.
Finally, Ablow got around to earning his Fox News consultation fee.
ABLOW: Listen, Elisabeth, when we debranded America – and don’t forget this president took away the American brand – when we took away the notion of what it meant to be American, for some number of people, we took away a part of them: a sense of patriotism, forward momentum. And they are going to find it elsewhere. Our brand is being diluted systematically, methodically, I would say, by this president.
Rather than challenge such an outrageous statement, Hasselbeck helped validate it.
HASSELBECK: Can we get it back? Psychologically, can we get anyone back who has turned toward ISIS?
“Absolutely,” Ablow replied. We just have to resurrect St. Ronnie and his conservatism:
ABLOW: What did Ronald Reagan do? He rebranded America as itself. It was genius! Right? We know who we are. We need to remind ourselves. And we need to have an answer as to what is it that we’re going to offer people as to their national identity so they can grasp that, and not feel like they need to go elsewhere. That’s part of this equation. The other is you can case-find these people because they are lost.
Hasselbeck validated Ablow even further.
HASSELBECK: Dr. Keith Ablow, thanks. That’s great insight into, really culpability, when it comes to why the purpose is gone from so many who are joining ISIS now.
Yes, if only President Obama was more American, America wouldn't be so Islamic, eh?
Watch it below, from today's Fox & Friends, via Media Matters.
By the way, how IS that “trickle down theory” working anyways?
How many more full-fledged citizens (not mere clusters of cells that more closely resemble bacteria and amoebae) have died since St Ronnie made his pronouncements against abortion (not that he really did anything to put an end to legal abortions, aside from nominating a couple of far-right people on the SCOTUS)?
And, might I also ask, how many children were never born to the 240+ service members killed in Beirut, an incident which required St Ronnie to take 2 weeks to even acknowledge the least bit of responsibility—using that word in the absolutely loosest sense since the most he ever really did was to acknowledge they were there at his order—for their deaths; meanwhile, top military brass were being thrown under the bus or falling on their own swords (at the “urging” of St Ronnie’s cohorts)?
Oh, and perhaps Mr Ablow would like to explain St Ronnie’s actual ties to certain Muslim extremist groups in the first place. For instance, while Afghanistan’s Mujahedeen were initiated in the final days of the Carter Administration, things really got going under St Ronnie’s watch. Of course, Afghani members of the Mujahedeen morphed into the Taliban while foreign members would form the nucleus of what would become al-Qaeda (ring any bells, there, Allblow?). AND, after al-Qaeda took down the Twin Towers, Dubya failed to capture Osama bin Laden and, instead, turned his attention to Saddam Hussein. And he whipped up a fake war by trotting out some mythical weapons of mass destruction. Now, it IS true that Saddam once had such weapons since he’d used them on Kurdish rebels. But I think Mr Ablow forgets the origin of those real WMDs was the US government—since there was a picture of St Ronnie’s “Special Envoy to the Middle East,” Donald Rumsfeld, meeting with Saddam (rather conveniently during Iraq’s war with Iran—the “enemy of my enemy” adage, I believe, Mr Ablow).