During Friday’s episode of “Real Time,” host Bill Maher blasted President Barack Obama for avoiding the phrase “Islamic extremism.”
The president and the White House have been criticized in the past for refusing to label terrorist group ISIS as “Islamic extremists,” instead opting for “violent extremists,” a choice Maher called “crazy” on his HBO talk show. “Words do matter,” he said.
“I’m a proud liberal. I’ve been trying to convince liberals, some of them, that they need to go back to school on this issue of Islam and what it means to be a liberal,” Maher said in an interview with Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. “And you, I think, are on the same page.”
Gabbard did in fact agree, saying that the administration’s over-sensitivity and attempts to talk around the issue make it more difficult to “identify our enemy so that we can defeat them.”
“By saying that they’re looking for thrill seeking or that economic prosperity will solve the problem. Give them a big house, give them a skateboard, set them on their way. You think that’s going to solve the problem? It’s not,” she said.
“It’s this philosophy that gets in the way of us being able to accomplish our mission and defeat those who are threatening us,” she continued. “And it goes to the problem of not recognizing that there are things that are right and wrong.”
Maher went on to accuse liberals of overreacting to criticism of certain “barbaric” Islamic beliefs and practices.
“They start with this premise in their head that all religions are alike, all cultures are alike. It’s a religion of peace, everything is pretty much equal. Don’t judge. But they don’t really have knowledge of it.”