When the story about Ahmed’s clock first broke, I admit I sided somewhat with the student. I thought the school’s and the police’s overreaction was typical of what we see so often when students bite their pop tarts into the vague gun shapes.
But as the story developed, it became clearer that there was more to it than that. The first red flag that made me question my initial gut reaction was how soon after the incident the White House congratulated him and invited him over. The same White House that didn’t know anything about the Fast and Furious scandal, or the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS, or the VA scandal, until long after the events. Obama never keeps up with current events – or so he claims – but within hours of a local news network reporting on some kid getting in trouble for brining a clock to school, Obama sent out a pat-on-the-back via social media and wanted him to come over to his place.
Then, there was Mark Zuckerberg offering him an internship at Facebook.
The left turned the incident into a persecution story. He was only in trouble, because he had brown skin and a Muslim name. That’s why Obama pounced on this like a cat on a mouse. The police and school didn’t target Ahmed because he was Muslim; the left targeted Ahmed because he was Muslim. If it had been a white kid with an American name, he would have gotten in trouble just the same, and Obama wouldn’t have even known anything about it, or cared about it if someone brought it up.
Two funds have been set up in Ahmed’s honor, one to raise money for a lawyer to sue the police department and the school for “discrimination,” and the other to raise money so that Ahmed can go to college.
As it turns out, the clock that Ahmed “invented” may have been nothing more than an old digital clock from the 1980s taken apart. If either of the parents had a hand in this, hoping that there would be an overreaction that would prompt a lawsuit and sympathetic donations and all this national attention, then this constitutes fraud. This becomes nothing more than a self-inflicted “hate crime” to elicit people’s money and sympathy. The thing is, the truth always comes out in those cases. Here’s Andrew Napolitano’s take on it:
School officials and police may have overreacted a little, but it was understandable considering that most people don’t know enough about electronics to know whether something is a bomb with a timer on it, or whether it’s nothing more than a clock. And besides that, he didn’t get in trouble because he brought a “bomb” to school. He got in trouble for bringing something that he knew would scare people into believing it was a bomb. The true overreaction came from people like Obama and Mark Zuckerberg who fell for this hook, line, and sinker.