Leadership Matters

In the era we’re living in, it is important that more and more Americans understand the value of leadership when it comes to national security. As a former Under Secretary of Education, I know the importance of testing. So here is a pop quiz that might help to inform our response to the attacks in Belgium. Are you ready?

Question: Imagine that radical Islamists attack one of our allies. Hundreds of people are killed and wounded, including Americans. Which of the following options is NOT an appropriate response by the commander-in-chief?

A) Hold an immediate conference call with allies to reassure them the United States will stand with them.
B) Return from a foreign trip and convene an emergency meeting of the National Security Council.
C) Instruct the secretary of defense to launch counterstrikes within 48 hours.
D) Submit a plan to Congress to defeat the jihadist enemy.
E) Do the wave with a communist dictator at a baseball game.
F) Dance the tango (badly) in Buenos Aires.

If you answered E and F, congratulations! Unfortunately, that’s exactly what our current commander-in-chief has been doing while the people of Brussels and Europe grapple with the latest Islamic State atrocity.

Seven Minutes

Here’s a brief history lesson. On the terrible morning of September 11th, 2001, President George W. Bush was visiting an elementary school in Florida. As he was reading to a classroom of schoolchildren, Chief of Staff Andy Card leaned over and whispered in his ear, “America is under attack.”

Video of that moment shows the president processing what he has been told, and he takes another seven minutes to finish the story to the class. He left the room and was taken to Air Force One, where he directed our nation’s response for the rest of the day.

But those seven minutes, where the president remained calm and finished reading to the children, was used by the left as a cudgel to pummel him for the next seven years. Meanwhile, most of big media are giving Obama a free pass for going to a ball game and dancing while bodies were being dragged out of the rubble in Brussels.

Silencing Conservatives

Monday morning students at Emory University found messages written in chalk at various places on the campus. Some students were traumatized and complained to the administration that they were afraid and “in pain.”

What did they see? Swastikas? Was “KKK” scrawled in large letters on the side of a dorm? Did they see the Arabic writing from the ISIS flag? No. What was so incredibly offensive to these students was, “Trump 2016!”

I thought universities were supposed to be places where the free exchange of ideas was welcomed, where diverse opinions were celebrated. Yet these students are having nervous breakdowns over chalkings of the name of a presidential candidate. Seriously. Offended students were offered “emergency counseling” by the student government association.

If they need counseling, they may have to get in line behind Emory’s president, Jim Wagner, who has joined in the collective breakdown. In an email to the Emory community, President Wagner stated that his administration was taking steps such as:

“Immediate refinements to certain policy and procedural deficiencies (for example, our bias incident reporting and response process); Regular and structured opportunities for difficult dialogues (like the Transforming Community Project of several years ago); A formal process to institutionalize identification, review, and addressing of social justice opportunities and issues.”

If I were paying tuition to Emory University, I’d be furious at how my money was being wasted.

Once again, we are seeing the intolerance of the left, which is trying to make universities “no-go zones” for conservative thought and opinion.

It started with eliminating conservative speakers. They are going after students who defend traditional values and the state of Israel. There have been physical violence and bomb threats.

I have had to have extra security when speaking on college campuses. Now they are even trying to ban the names of political figures.

The assault on conservative speech at Emory University is worthy of a speech by the speaker of the House. Yesterday, Paul Ryan condemned harsh rhetoric in our political dialogue. How about a speech condemning the left’s attempt to squelch dialogue on our university campuses?