Yesterday was Constitution Day, the 225th anniversary of America’s fundamental document — an irony no doubt lost on Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, whose anti-Islam video is being cast by the Obama administration as the sole cause of anti-US violence across the Muslim world.
Nakoula was rousted from his home in the middle of the night Saturday by a squad of sheriff’s deputies and hauled away to “discuss” a possible federal probation violation.
Coming on the heels of a White House demand — rightly rejected — that YouTube “review” (i.e., pull) his tawdry video, Nakoula’s perp walk transmitted an unmistakable message: The Obama administration has scant respect for the First Amendment.
Yesterday, Nakoula was freed from custody — and immediately went into hiding.
Who can blame him, when Team Obama continues to hold firmly to the fiction that his film is the sole reason the Muslim world is on fire?
UN Ambassador Susan Rice went on the Sunday talk shows to deny that the attacks — including the one that resulted in the savage murders of the US ambassador to Libya and three companions — were anything other than spontaneous reaction to the video.
But that view is flatly contradicted by Libyan officials, who said elements of al Qaeda were behind the attack, and that it was timed for the 11th anniversary of 9/11.
And that Nakoula’s film, though adding fuel to the mobs’ fire, was little more than a pretext.
Certainly the heavy weapons used in the Benghazi attack — mortars, machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades — fortify the Libyans’ claim.
All the more reason, then, for Washington not to admit as much: That would mean conceding a mammoth failure of US intelligence and consular security.
Indeed, Rice, an accomplished dissembler, suggested the fact that two of the dead in Libya were security guards proves there was no lack of security.
It proves no such thing. The State Department maintains a muscular security service of its own — in addition to the usual Marine Corps detachments — and neither were present in Benghazi last week.
No wonder the administration seeks to scapegoat Nakoula’s film — and to infringe grievously on his First Amendment rights.
All presidents take an oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution — though, clearly, some presidents take that oath more seriously than others.
The image of Nakoula being hustled away in the night should give pause to all Americans — not just those who have a dog in this fight.
It’s a cliché to say that the reaction among the media and left-leaning public-policy types would have been explosive had George W. Bush been president.
Fact is, though, it would have been.
Fact is, when the First Amendment is successfully trashed to achieve political goals, unscrupulous politicians everywhere take note.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and his insipid video aren’t likely to be the end of it.