Ilana Mercer writes in her May 30 WorldNetDaily column:
While pitting a favored voting bloc against the rest of us, Obama told militant Latinos: “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.”
First, Obama made the statement during an interview on the Spanish-language network Univision, which is nobody’s idea of “militant Latinos.”
Second, Mercer took the comment way out of context — Obama meant it as an encouragement for Latinos to vote, and he was not speaking for himself:
Well, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna see how well we do in this election and I think a lot of it is gonna depend on whether we still have some support not only from Democrats, but also Republicans, but they’re gonna be paying attention to this election. And if Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, we’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us, if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.
Obama later apologized for using the term “enemies,” saying that “I probably should have used the word ‘opponents.'”