Obama Attacks GOP for 'Anti-Muslim' Rhetoric, Claims Islamic State Just 'Killers and Fanatics' (VIDEO)

I sat quietly through most of the speech, but when Hussein once again said Islamic State isn't Islamic, that was about it.

The Wall Street Journal's live blog is here, "Obama’s Final State of the Union Speech — Live Blog."

And at Reuters, "Obama knocks Republicans for anti-Muslim rhetoric, seeks to set 2016 tone":

President Barack Obama knocked Republican presidential candidates for anti-Muslim rhetoric and accused critics on Tuesday of playing into the hands of Islamic State in a speech aimed at setting an optimistic tone for his last year in office.

Obama, delivering his last State of the Union speech to Congress before leaving office next year, said it was fiction to declare the United States was in economic decline or getting weaker on the international stage.

In a direct slap at Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, Obama said insulting Muslims hurt the United States and "betrayed" its identity.

"When politicians insult Muslims ... that doesn’t make us safer," he said, drawing applause from the crowd in the House of Representatives chamber. "It’s just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals."

Also, at Fox News 6 Marquette, Michigan, "State of the Union: Obama calls terrorists 'killers and fanatics' who need to be destroyed":

WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) — Addressing the nation in his final State of the Union speech, President Obama spoke of terror, calling ISIL and other terrorist organizations, "killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down, and destroyed."

"We don't need to build them up to show that we're serious, nor do we need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of one of the world's largest religions," he said...

Here's the key passage from the text of the speech:

Masses of fighters on the back of pickup trucks and twisted souls plotting in apartments or garages pose an enormous danger to civilians and must be stopped. But they do not threaten our national existence. That’s the story ISIL wants to tell; that’s the kind of propaganda they use to recruit. We don’t need to build them up to show that we’re serious, nor do we need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of one of the world’s largest religions. We just need to call them what they are — killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down, and destroyed.

More at Politico, "Obama accuses GOP of fearmongering."

And Memeorandum.