West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin rejected President Obama’s claim that the Islamic State doesn’t represent a part of Islam, saying the link between terrorism and the faith simply “is what it is.”
During a White House summit on “violent extremism” this week, the president repeatedly refused to admit that Muslim radicals are using an interpretation of the Islamic faith to justify their actions — adding that to do so would somehow “legitimize” the terrorists.
That predictably didn’t sit well with many conservative politicians. But in a discussion with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Manchin made it clear that some within the president’s own party were also concerned.
“It’s pretty simple,” he said. “In the language we speak in West Virginia, it is what it is.”
“There’s radicals in all groups,” Manchin continued. “And when you have a radical person who hides behind a religion — whether it be Catholicism, or it be Protestant, or it be Islamic — it is what it is. So to say that you have radicals that are Islamic hiding behind their religion, then you would hope that all those wonderful people that believe in that religion would rise up against that.”
“So I don’t see that we’re instigating anything, or causing any other division [by calling it Islamic],” the senator said. “It is what it is.”
Comments