There is a deep and evil and ancient racism running through academia, and yesterday Joe Biden was given the chance to call it out. He couldn’t do it.

This elderly old man with a poor memory, who has always been a politically calculating creature, tried to have it both ways. He could have built on the statement by Andrew Bates from Sunday, or added some clarity to his own Passover message. He didn’t.

Instead, we get this.

“I condemn the antisemitic protests, that’s why I set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians and their, how they’re being —,” the president said before getting cut off.

He was then asked if the Columbia University president should resign and replied, “I don’t know that.”

The comparisons were automatic, obvious, and well-deserved.

https://t.co/ZkLGxGvUGg pic.twitter.com/PK2UdDU5c0

— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) April 22, 2024

It’s also important to point out that the “program” that Biden is referring to here is the “National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism” that he referenced in his Passover statement. This would also be the same “program” that idiotically included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as part of that group “countering” anti-Semitism until they were quietly shown the door last December. So that should tell you exactly how seriously the Biden administration is taking the concept of “countering” anti-Semitism. They are trying to manage the optics of supporting Israel, while also trying to suck up to Dearborn in order to win the “Death to America” vote there. Biden is trying to use this program of his as a shield. It’s not working.

Any morally clearheaded American already has a very good idea of what’s going on. Biden is both-siding the actions of Kafiya-wearing terror cheerleaders on Columbia’s Gaza Quad — who target American Jews who have absolutely no bearing on Israel’s actions — with those who refuse to accept the blood libel of “genocide” in Gaza. It is the kind of odious moral relativism one expects to hear from a “squad” member or clout-chasing far-right “influencer,” not the president.

But because a not-insignificant contingent on the contemporary left is now both antisemitic and anti-“colonialist,” the president demanded Israel stop before the job was done. And he is willing to sell out a longtime ally and forsake the lives of American hostages to try to entice the votes in Jew-hating enclaves like Dearborn, Yale, and The Washington Post newsroom.

A number of people have pointed out the similarities between Biden’s condemnations and Donald Trump’s post-Charlottesville march “very fine people” comment. It’s a good gotcha. After all, Biden has risibly claimed that Trump’s comments impelled him to run for president (for the third time.)

There is, however, a key difference. Trump’s garbled line was almost surely not aimed at tiki-torch neo-Nazis. Believe what you like about Trump’s motivations, but he also later unequivocally condemned the white supremacists on more than one occasion. Biden, on the other hand, can’t even get himself to call out Brownshirts without throwing them a bone.

Also, incidentally, unlike the nuts in Virginia, these people will be working at our top law firms, in media organizations, and in the State Department. Oh, the president also wants you to pay their loans.

The similarities between Charlottesville and Columbia is being recognized by Democrats like Jared Moskowitz, which is why these comments by Joe Biden are falling particularly flat.

Dem Rep. Jared Moskowitz: Pro-Hamas #ColumbiaUniversity Protesters Have "Same Message" As Charlottesville

Full interview here — https://t.co/7DO9KUIgkG

"I know the people saying this aren't white Aryan males with tiki torches, but they have the same message." pic.twitter.com/tIX8gdw9eA

— RCP Video (@rcpvideo) April 23, 2024

And while it’s easy to make the comparison to Charlottesville, my brilliant colleague Darleen had a devastatingly insightful comment about Biden’s remarks. This comment was Biden’s chance to have a “Sister Souljah moment” that would have allowed him to stand up to those campus Hamas cosplayers and the radical left wing of his own party. Instead, he caved. He failed to meet the moment.

For those who don’t remember, or aren’t old enough to remember, Bill Clinton created this moment back during the 1992 presidential election.

A “Sister Souljah moment” is a public repudiation of an extremist person or statement perceived to have some association with a politician or his party.

It’s a strategy designed to signal to centrist voters to show that the politician is not beholden to traditional, and sometimes unpopular, interest groups associated with the party.

In 1992, riots swept across Los Angeles following the acquittal of five LAPD officers for the allegedly brutal beating of Rodney King.

Writer and rapper Sister Souljah expressed sympathy for the rioters and said that she wanted to see an end to black people killing each other – instead, she said, black people should start killing white people.

“I mean, if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people? You understand what I’m saying? In other words, white people, this government and that mayor were well aware of the fact that black people were dying every day in Los Angeles under gang violence. So if you’re a gang member and you would normally be killing somebody, why not kill a white person?” Souljah told the Washington Post.

Bill Clinton was the governor of Arkansas and a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination at the time. During a meeting with Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, Clinton spoke out against Sister Souljah’s comments, saying that her comments were full of hate.

Clinton compared Sister Souljah to the white nationalist David Duke, calling them racist.

If Joe Biden had simply stopped after his first five words, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But he had to try to split the proverbial hair, and “condemn” both sides as if they were equally repugnant to him. That’s not a centrist position. It’s not even a SANE position. Because despite what the media is trying to tell everyone, these are not “antiwar” protests. These are very much pro-war-with-Israel-and-all-Jews-by-extension protests.

When I think of "anti-war," the slogans that come to mind aren't "globalize the intifada," "burn Tel Aviv to the ground," “Go Hamas, we love you, we support your rockets, too,” and “Al-Qasam’s next targets.” https://t.co/1lI8aK8ySp

— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) April 23, 2024

And the left is completely caving in to these radical left-wing terror-loving LARPers. Columbia University has fallen. Between Professor Shai Davidai being denied access to campus, to a walkout from faculty to support the protesters, to the recinding of suspension of those students who were punished for last month’s protest, the institution has rotted away from within.

Of course they did https://t.co/cbaO586CQ2

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) April 23, 2024

Parents, take a good look at where your children are going to college. If it’s anything like Columbia, or other universities currently under investigation for anti-Semitism, get them out now. Academia has become hopelessly corrupted with the most racist people running the show, and the voices of sanity are either being shouted down, run off campus, or locked out of campus. And Joe Biden is spinelessly insisting that both sides must be at fault, because he is trying to win Michigan. Biden completely failed his Sister Souljah moment, when he could have told the students who see themselves as decolonizers for Hamas or some such crap, and the entire Hamas Squad to shut the hell up. He did not. He could have told the feckless university administrators allowing this insanity to get their campuses under control under threat of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division. He did not. He could have condemned anti-Semitism without qualifiers. He did not. And for that, and for his own weaknesses – physical, political, and mental – he MUST be voted out this November.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click