As RedState reported last night, the “reach out” call between Rep. Lauren Boebert and Rep. Ilhan Omar didn’t go very well. That was facilitated days after Boebert had made a joke about Omar wearing a backpack in an elevator which was meant to poke fun at Omar’s penchant for pushing the talking points of terrorist organizations like Hamas. Omar was also filmed laughing about Al Qaeda before taking office (and remember, per the Marjorie Taylor Greene standard, pre-office musings are fair game now).
Yet, after Boebert had already publicly apologized on social media, Omar apparently demanded Boebert issue another public apology.
Here’s where things went from there per Boebert’s description of the events.
Even after I put out a public statement to that effect, she said that she still wanted a public apology, because what I had done wasn’t good enough.
So I reiterated to her what I had just said. She kept asking for a public apology. So I told Ilhan Omar that she should make a public apology to the American people for her anti-American, anti-Semitic, anti-police rhetoric. She continued to press, and I continued to press back. And then, Representative Omar hung up on me.
Now, even after apologizing, Boebert is being accused of not apologizing by the press. They are also claiming she “doubled down” on “Islamophobic” attacks despite the fact that no such thing happened in the call.
Of note is that it is not “Islamophobic” to ask someone to apologize for anti-American and antisemitic positions if they have indeed taken anti-American and antisemitic positions. Omar has a history littered with such, from offensive, dangerous rhetoric to purposeful obfuscation, including a steadfast refusal to give any direct apology for the things she’s said. Yet, even after Boebert did offer an apology for making a joke, bad taste or not, she’s attacked and trashed anyway.
There’s a lesson here that Boebert should probably take heed of: You can never do enough to please bad-faith radicals.
Look, I’m not against apologizing. In fact, I think offering one when you’ve done something wrong is a moral imperative. But understand that there’s a difference between personally apologizing to someone and offering a public apology to a wildly hateful hypocrite who is simply looking to destroy you. That doesn’t accomplish anything. In fact, it only stokes the fire more and exacerbates the situation. Instead of being a one-day story, you’ve now got a story pushing a week in length.
And note that even after all the effort Boebert made to do the right thing, notably being moved by her own conscience, she’s still being called “Islamophobic,” Democrats are still demanding she be disciplined in the House, and the press is now falsely claiming she never apologized in the first place. Meanwhile, Omar skates again, playing the victim to a fawning media establishment that wouldn’t dare apply the same standard to both women.
The rules of engagement just have to be different when you are dealing with Democrats that will behave like this. That becomes more imperative when you consider how the press operates in response. Boebert seemed to realize that by the time Omar hung up on her, but she shouldn’t have made that phone call in the first place.