May 5, 2011--A Thought From Michele Bachmann

I want to express my deepest gratitude to the men and women of the U.S. military and intelligence community. Their persistence and dedicated service has yielded success in a mission that has gripped our nation since the terrible events of 9/11. Tonight’s news does not bring back the lives of the thousands of innocent people who were killed that day by Osama bin Laden’s horrific plan, and it does not end the threat posed by terrorists, but it is my hope that this is the beginning of the end of Sharia-compliant terrorism.

First of all, what's missing here from GOP presidential-contender Michele Bachmann's statement after the killing of Osama bin Laden?

That's easy and predictable--no mention whatsoever about any role, no matter how small, Barack Obama and his administration might have played.

Even Dick Cheney managed to squeak out a few words of congratulations for the hated Obama. So what's up with the Tea Party congresswoman?

Also an easy one--her ilk are completely discombobulated by the fact that it was our Kenyan-born, Marxist, Muslim president who got the job done while those tough-talking, shoot-'em-up Bush-whackers couldn't. You know this is making them crazy. It doesn't fit the narrative or the paranoia.

And did you see John McCain on C-SPAN literally choking on his words while trying to do the right thing by tipping his hat to Obama? It's worth tracking down on YouTube. I can only imagine all the sputtering that must be going on over Martinis at whites-only country clubs all over Sun Belt.

More perplexing, what is Bachmann saying about Sharia-compliant terrorism? This I don't get.

The good representative who doesn't know anything about the history of the American Revolution (Lexington and Concord, she claimed, are in New Hampshire) or slavery (our Founders, she oozed, ended it while in truth almost all of them owned dozens of slaves) is making a distinction between Sharia-compliant versus Sharia-non-compliant terrorism?

Do you really think someone who doesn't know what's in our Constitution could possibly know anything about Sharia?

Maybe, I've been thinking, that since wisdom can flow from many sources, even from an otherwise illiterate person, perhaps Bachmann has stumbled onto something new and formerly unperceived.

But after some hours of research I still cannot parse her statement.

Sharia law is not a monolithic doctrine. Turkey practices a much different form than Iran. Besides, isn’t the terrorist threat from Muslim extremists pretty much the same? They all embrace a radical, far-reaching brand of Sharia. And thus what is the difference between the kind of terrorism practiced by bin Laden, which she correctly says is sadly far from over, and Sharia-compliant terrorism? This is a semantic distinction without a difference.

But it is good to know on the word of Ms. Bachmann that this mutant form of terrorism, whatever it is, is at the "beginning of the end."