Gerald F. Seib. Photo from freshfiction.com

The author of this column, published September 9th on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, is an award-winning journalist and author. Therefore I cannot attribute his writing here to sloppiness or factual cluelessness. I do not care to research his past work to decide if he is a bigot, but what he wrote here is incorrect and does perpetuate stereotypes and misconceptions. I would like to expect more from a professional journalist, but I do not expect more from a long-term employee of WSJ.

[…]

This appears to be a painful truth for Mr. Obama, which helps explain why he has been so obviously reluctant—and so dangerously slow, his critics say—to embrace the challenge of confronting the resurgence of radical Islamic forces in Iraq and the dangerous cauldron of instability brewing next door in Syria. The second Obama term was to be about escaping the morass of war and terror emanating from the Muslim world in order to move on to other needs back home; it wasn’t to be about being sucked back into that morass.

[…]

‘[T]he morass of war and terror emanating from the Muslim world’. The Muslim world is a big place. The majority of Muslims live in the Asia-Pacific region. That is clearly not the area Seib is referring to. It is clear to me he is referring to the Middle East, which is where 20% of Muslims live. I still wouldn’t characterize the Middle East as a place from which ‘a morass of terror and war’ emanates, but it would at least be a little more accurate. However, I suppose it would not have the same appeal to WSJ’s readership.

The rest of the column is here for those who subscribe to WSJ: Islamic State Helps Reshape Obama’s Second Term - WSJ

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