This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, February 12th, 2016.

I'm Caleb Brown.

President Obama says we have to reject a politics that seeks to manipulate prejudice or bias and targets people because of religion.

But at least two executive agencies appear not to have taken that message to heart.

So says Patrick Eddington, a policy analyst in Homeland Security and Civil Liberties at the Cato Institute.

I'm trying to remember in the days following September 11, 2001, George W Bush was very clear about trying to draw a distinction between Muslims as a group

and radical Islamic terrorism. And it was very clear. and

uh... it was Barack Obama seems like has had a harder time trying to

uh... keep that distinction alive

well to be fair even as the president was President Bush was speaking at that

particular event and trying to draw that distinction the Department of

Justice and Immigration and Nationalization Service at that time.

This was before we had a Department of Homeland Security.

We're conducting a series of roundups in this country of folks who had allegedly

overstayed their visas. They just all happened to be basically Muslims.

So it's a little bit of an inconsistency there, but there's no question that President Obama in his speech at the Baltimore Islamic Society in early February of 2016 was really trying to go out of his way

to reassure a group of folks in this country who I think based on my personal experience

and interaction with the leaders of these organizations

certainly feel very much under siege and that's understandable in light of the events that have taken place here.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration

has been engaged in a series of policy actions for the last five years that

really kind of undermine that entire speech that the president gave and this all falls under the rubric of what's come to be known as quote

...