This was written before Biden issued his statement, which I’ll write about soon. From PJ Media:
As of a full twenty-four hours after Salman Rushdie was stabbed at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York, Old Joe Biden has not said word one about the attack. You might think that a violent attack upon a man who is a living symbol of the freedom of expression might elicit some polite words from Old Joe’s writers about how important it is never to bow to violent intimidation and allow ourselves to be bullied into silence. You’d think wrong. However, the Biden administration, as the dumpster fire on Pennsylvania Avenue is generally known, was not entirely silent about the attack on Rushdie. Its statement raises more questions than it answers.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan issued a statement on Friday that is the very definition of perfunctory. “Today,” Sullivan wrote, “the country and the world witnessed a reprehensible attack against the writer Salman Rushdie. This act of violence is appalling.” Thanks for that, Jake! Until you said something, we all that this act of violence was just dandy. Sullivan continued: “All of us in the Biden-Harris Administration are praying for his speedy recovery. We are thankful to good citizens and first responders for helping Mr. Rushdie so quickly after the attack and to law enforcement for its swift and effective work, which is ongoing.”
This dashed-off piece of pro-forma thoughts-and-prayers diplobabble was more notable for what it didn’t say than for what it said. The attack on Rushdie was “reprehensible” and “appalling,” Sullivan informed us, but he gave no hint of why anyone would want to harm Rushdie in the first place. Sullivan gave not even the smallest hint of the fact that Rushdie has lived under threat since February 14, 1989, when the Ayatollah Khomeini wrote that “the author of The Satanic Verses, a text written, edited, and published against Islam, the Prophet of Islam, and the Qur’an, along with all the editors and publishers aware of its contents, are condemned to death. I call on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to kill them without delay, so that no one will dare insult the sacred beliefs of Muslims henceforth.” 1989 was a long time ago, but Sullivan likewise remained mum about the fact that on the thirtieth anniversary of the fatwa, in 2019, Khamenei wrote, “Imam Khomeini’s verdict regarding Salman Rushdie is based on divine verses and just like divine verses, it is solid and irrevocable.”
There is more. Read the rest here.
