Obama had to be tough on suspected terrorists because he would have been accused of being traitorous if he wasn't. A lot of right wingers, including some elected officials and people in the media, believe that Obama is Muslim, and that he ran for office as part of an Islamic conspiracy to infiltrate our government. He had no choice but to have zero tolerance for any suspected Muslim terrorists in order to disprove these paranoid freaks, who had a lot of influence over not only extremist groups but many mainstream conservatives as well. It's not easy being the first black president in a country that is historically anti-black. He had to walk a thin line.