Obama is so paranoid about linking terrorists to the Muslim faith that when French President François Hollande used the phrase "Islamist terrorism" at a meeting in Washington, White House officials posted their official press video with audio of the words cut out completely.
The 8-minute clip was posted on the White House Web site and showed Hollande discussing the global terror threat at a Nuclear Security Summit meeting with Obama and advisers on Thursday.
The White House’s transcript of the event shows the French leader declared at the 4:49 minute mark that "the roots of terrorism, Islamist terrorism, is in Syria and in Iraq."
But rather than include Hollande’s remark in its entirety, the Obama administration posted footage in which his interpreter’s English translation of the words "Islamist terrorism" was missing.
The audio gap was first reported by the Media Research Center, a media watchdog. After initially posting the video without the edits, the White House took it down and uploaded it again with the interpreter’s voice muted, the MRC reported.
The nonprofit group reported that the White House’s official MP3 recording of the meeting was also censored, but that the transcript was not.
A user wrote in a comment on the White House’s YouTube page,"Thanks, of course, Ministry of Propaganda offices at WH for going ahead and simply posting the proof!" Another wrote: "Nice backtracking, White House. You tried to censor Hollande and you know it."
Obama, who has come under fire for refusing to say "radical Islam" or "Islamic terrorist", made three mentions of terrorism throughout Thursday’s meeting, uttering the phrases "hands of terrorism," "scourge of terrorism" and "counterterrorism."
A White House official said the audio gap was the result of a technical error that (just) happened to come as Hollande was uttering the controversial words (Nice try, no cigar).
The official told The Post, "Nothing was edited out. A technical issue with the audio during the recording of President Hollande’s remarks led to a brief drop in the audio recording of the English interpretation. As soon as this was brought to our attention, we posted an updated video online with the complete audio, which is consistent with the written transcript."
As of 6 p.m. Friday, the White House had posted footage with the words "Islamic terrorism" included.
That's it for now. More soon !
