Barack Obama has a self-inflicted embarrassment coming his way in October — he’s slated to see the useless clock-in-box assembled by Ahmed Mohamed, the Irving, Texas, boy who was questioned when police suspected his bizarre device was a hoax-bomb.
The boy’s “main goal is to take it to the president,” Ahmed’s uncle, Aldean Mohamed, told an Irving reporter who helped create the controversy .
If Obama accepts the visit, he’ll strengthen growing public worries that he is embracing a campaign-trail anti-cop policy prior to the 2016 election.
If Obama rescinds his invitation to Ahmed, he’ll be tacitly admitting that he was wrong to quickly endorse the boy’s worldwide claims of anti-Islam views — and the associated claims of “racism” –among Texas police. Obama has made this mistake before. In 2009, Obama was forced to hold an embarrassing “Beer Summit” with Vice-President Joe Biden and a Boston cop — Sgt. James Crowley — that he had prejudged guilty of improper behavior.
However, the establishment media may let Obama off the hook, again, by downplaying Obama’s dilemma, or by accepting the argument that Ahmed’s hazardous clock-in-a-box counts as a real invention if accomplished by a Muslim boy.
On Sept. 14, the 14-year-old boy was questioned by teachers and police about his clock-in-a-box and was sent home.
On the 16th, shortly after pictures of the clock-in-box were released, Obama tweeted out his approval of the boy’s “clock” — and his tacit endorsement of the social-media uproar that claimed the cops’ intervention was caused by racism and bigotry. “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great,” Obama tweeted.
Since then, the boy has been feted by Islamic advocates worldwide as a victim of supposed American prejudice.
He is also being advised by the jihad-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has been boycotted by the FBI’s senior leaders since it was discovered to have been part of a jihad-funding criminal conspiracy in Texas. The group was recently designated a terror-linked group by the United Arab Emirates, an oil-rich state close to Qatar.
In late September, the boy and his family met Islamic advocates in New York and announced plans to travel out to Qatar, where their Obama-backed claims likely will be broadcast across the Muslim world by the government-directed Al Jazeera TV network. In fact, it is linguistically impossible to be racist about an idea, especially Islam, which accepts converts — dubbed “reverts” by Muslims — from all races.
Obama suggested the boy would be invited to a NASA-related event at the White House on October 19th.
“The event will bring together scientists, engineers, and visionaries from astronomy and the space industry to share their experiences with students and teachers as they spend an evening stargazing from the South Lawn,” according to the White House. “Together we can give every student, teacher, and adult the opportunity to experience the wonder of science, space, and exploration!”
Presumably, Mohamed will be able to bring his clock-in-a-box through the Secret Service security barriers and into the White House for presentation to Obama.
On September 14, Mohamed brought his device — a dismantled, 120-volt, commercial clock stuffed inside a a metal-looking pencil case — to show off to his teachers. The clock’s display cannot be seen when the box is closed. But if the box is opened, it creates a hazard because it contains an unshielded 120-volt transformer that could electrocute people who reached inside the box.
According to the Florida entrepreneur Mark Cuban, the boy showed his strange device to as many as six teachers until one finally called the cops. At least one teacher warned him the device would alarm school staff.
The clock-in-a-box is still being held by the local police. They’ve repeatedly asked Mohamed’s family to pick it up, but the family has shown no desire to show the useless device to their audiences in New York and the Arab world.
Advocates for the boy have also been reluctant to tweet out images of the very simple device.
In the days after Sept. 14, many media reports described the boy’s arrest as an example of unfair discrimination against Muslims, despite national sensitivity about disruptive behavior by boys in schools.
The local cops’ sensitivity was increased in May, when two Muslims tried to machine-gun an art exhibition in nearby Garland, only 20 miles away from Irving. Two two jihadis were successfully killed by cops who had been hired in the accurate pre-judgement that Muslims would try to implement their ideology’s jihad doctrine by murdering the art-show attendees.
Follow Neil Munro on Twitter, @NeilMunroDC