Today we’ll depart a little from the usual topics covered in this space and talk about this peculiar school case in Texas, where a Muslim high-school student whose father is a Sudanese lawyer and, it appears, CAIR activist got himself arrested over a homemade clock.

The student, whose name is Ahmed Mohamed, built a clock that fit in a pencil case out of a circuit board and various other electronic parts, and brought it to his Irving, Texas high school to show to his engineering teacher. The teacher thought it was a neat invention but told Mohamed it would be wise to keep the invention under wraps owing to the fact it looked for all the world like a bomb.

The device then disrupted a class Mohamed was in later that day by beeping while in his backpack, and when the teacher saw him fiddling with it to stop the distraction she freaked out.

Ultimately the police came and Mohamed was arrested – the narrative this week then becoming that he was arrested for being a Muslim kid who made a clock. President Obama then got involved, and apparently he’ll be going to the White House next week. The whole thing has become a colossal embarrassment for Irving, as you might imagine. Kevin Boyd had a post Wednesday on this subject here at the site, correctly noting that zero-tolerance policies in our schools made something like this a sure-fire controversy.

OK, fair enough.

What’s really going on here, though? Erick Erickson notes that there is a good reason you heard this story almost immediately after it blew up…

Let’s admit up front that it is stupid that a ninth grader got arrested for making a clock and bringing it to school. They thought it was a bomb. I will not imply motives to the kid bringing his cool invention to school. I would note, however, it was a government school and we can probably further indict public schools for it.

But I have no doubt a PR firm helped push this story.

Hell, we’re still waiting on the President to comment on students getting sent home from a public school for wearing American flag shirts. But he and Hillary Clintonhave both already chimed in on this.

Lose your son in war? Expect a post card from the President.

Get arrested for a clock at school? Expect a Presidential press conference.

And Erickson gets a little bit into the father, who appears to be a key piece in this story…

“He just wants to invent good things for mankind,” said Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, who immigrated from Sudan and occasionally returns there to run for president. “But because his name is Mohamed and because of Sept. 11, I think my son got mistreated.”

Mohamed is familiar with anti-Islamic politics. He once made national headlines for debating a Florida pastor who burned a Quran.

CAIR, a Muslim Brotherhood organization that frankly ought to be treated in the same way the German-American Bund was treated during World War II but will never be, has turned this into a cause celebre and made it a PR boon.

So the story breaks on Monday and the President is already talking about it on Wednesday drawing attention to something in Texas right before the Republican Presidential Debate.

Can we all just admit a public relations firm, on behalf of CAIR, made sure this story got out as quickly as possible and that the White House would note it and comment on it.

And I’ll just ignore the part of the story only trickling out now that apparently the kid put the clock in suitcase under his desk where it started beeping, disrupting the class.

The arrest was dumb. But everything else following it was no doubt orchestrated. An Islamic activist’s son takes electronic circuit boards as a clock to school a few days after September 11th, he gets arrested in a city where there are already charges of Islamophobia, and within 48 hours it is a national story with the President weighing in.

Oh, and let’s also admit a lot of this has to do with going after Irving, TX’s mayor who the left accuses of Islamophobia.

This story is staged. The cops overreached, but it all played out according to someone’s plan.

A similar perspective from a Facebook user named Tarick Salmaci, who is a Muslim…

Being a Muslim, here’s my take on this kid and his homemade alarm clock. As always, my opinions are very unbiased. I look at things as they are. Not how I want them to be.

First of all, let me get one thing clear. I’m not saying Ahmed’s arrest was justified. I’m just saying that I don’t believe race or religion had anything to do with it.

It doesn’t matter what race this kid was. Just look at this device! It scares me looking at it. This WASN’T even a school project. If out of nowhere, a kid brought something that looks like this to your kid’s school, you know damn well that you would want the school to take the same precautions as they did with this Ahmed kid.

There is some important info people need to take into consideration before judging this as racism. First of all, Ahmed’s engineering teacher at the school actually liked Ahmed’s project and told him to keep it in his backpack. But then during his English class the device beeps in his backpack! When the English teacher sees the device, she panics and calls police. I don’t blame her. Look at it!

Another important fact is that before arresting Ahmed, police questioned him as to what the device was and why he brought it to school. Ahmed did not tell the police what he told the media. He was very brief and abrupt with police. He would only tell them it’s a clock he made and would not give any other explanation. He wouldn’t even tell them why he brought it to school. He didn’t tell them he brought it to school to impress his teacher. The only thing he kept saying to police is that it was a clock. He was very short with his answers. Kind of answering in an arrogant way. His attitude and short answers made him look suspicious. The police department even stated that if Ahmed would’ve explained to them what he explained to the media, then the outcome would’ve been different and he most likely wouldn’t have been arrested.

I also believe that ‪#‎IStandWithAhmed‬ shouldn’t be glorified for his actions. This kid isn’t in elementary school. He’s in high school. He knows better. Especially in this day and age. It doesn’t take a genius to look at this thing and say, “Maybe I shouldn’t take this to school to impress people because it looks just like a bomb.”

If you disagree, then I dare you to walk into an airport or any public place with this “homemade” alarm clock and find out what happens to you. Race and color have absolutely nothing to do with this. This kid was asking to be arrested by being cocky, arrogant, and short with his answers to police when questioned at the school as to why he brought the device there. This is just another example of crying race when it’s not appropriate to do so. I do believe there is Islamaphobia‬ in this country. This just wasn’t an example of it. Again, I’m not saying Ahmed’s arrest was justified. I’m just saying that I don’t believe race or religion had anything to do with it.

Also, Obama‬ is a puss for tweeting about this just to be politically correct. You’re the President! You don’t have to feel the need to tweet a kid. Man up! If anything, tell kids not to do something so stupid!

It doesn’t make one Islamophobic to look at this clownshow and see agendas everywhere. I’m not saying it’s a “dry run” and now that American public schools have been shamed out of suspecting Muslim kids of making a bomb and bringing it to school the next shoe to drop is an actual bomb that blows up a classroom – though if somebody came along and put that in a Tom Clancy or Brad Thor novel nobody would think it’s implausible.

But we see these “hmmmmm”-inducing cases all the time, in which CAIR-affiliated activists engage in provocative behavior suggestive of, but not unmistakably signifying, an impending terror attack and then playing the aggrieved party when authorities react – or overreact. This is clearly one of them.

And as usual, Obama does his “police acted stupidly” routine on behalf of said aggrieved parties. Ahmed Mohamed is yet another example. Just once it would be nice if he’d attempt to bring people together rather than thumbing his nose at people who didn’t vote for him.

Irving, Texas is in the same Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex as Garland, where a “Draw Mohammed” contest was targeted by a pair of jihadists who showed up armed to the teeth and looking for mass murder in May. And the two jihadists would have carried it off, but for a sharp-shooting police officer who took both of them down before they could kill anybody. They did manage to hit a security guard in the ankle, but that was the extent of the damage in what could have been a major Charlie Hebdo-style terror attack.

Given that, it wouldn’t be too much to ask that the president recognize local antennae are up and it’s not unreasonable to worry about safety before he laud the kid who made a clock that looks like a bomb and brought it to school.

We will be so much better off without this culturally-alienated buffoon in the White House. After seven years people hardly recognize what it was like to have a president who acted to relieve tensions among the citizenry rather than seek to exploit them.

Along these lines, Donald Trump had a Q&A last night in New Hampshire that he’s now being bashed about – particularly the part in which this happened…

“We have a problem in this country, it’s called Muslims,” the man said. “We know our current president is one. You know, he’s not even an American. Birth certificate, man.”

“Right,” Trump said, then adding with a shake of his head: “We need this question? This first question.”

“But any way,” the man said. “We have training camps… where they want to kill us.”

“Uh huh,” Trump said.

“That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?” the man said.

Trump responded: “We’re going to be looking at a lot of different things. You know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We’re going to look at that and plenty of other things.”

In the aftermath of this, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Hillary Clinton are all over Trump for what a racist he is, and Schultz is demanding the rest of the GOP field condemn Trump or else they’re racists as well. Interestingly, Islam is not a race but more of a political ideology with a religion included – something that in our stupid political culture (which Trump, admittedly, doesn’t particularly improve) has apparently gotten badly lost.

 

I didn’t do a review of Wednesday night’s debate for the Hayride yesterday. Mike Bayham got that duty. My review was posted at the American Spectator, and you’re welcome to read it here.

I agree with the conventional wisdom that Carly Fiorina won. She did. Whether her resulting bump will transform her into a first-tier candidate is questionable, though, because Fiorina is very much a mixed bag. That said, if Hillary Clinton does survive and win the Democrat nomination Fiorina has to be the GOP’s vice presidential nominee; she’s a brilliant attack dog.

 

(Related:) You know that Anthony Weiner’s most recent job was at a public-relations firm, right? Believe it or not, yes – and he’s now out of a job. The lesson here is probably that the New York conventional wisdom is beginning to disfavor the actual chances of Hillary Clinton surviving. She’s no longer the inevitable president, so MWW is no longer willing to put up with the inevitable snickering about Huma Abedin’s husband being on staff at a public-relations firm.

The most obnoxious member of Congress, who destroyed his political career by displaying his penis on Twitter, was hired by a public-relations firm because his wife is Hillary Clinton’s mini-me. Does that not come off like we have royalty in this country?

Ugh. Off with their heads.