Why Won't the Obama Administration Call Out Radical Islam?

Here’s our crack Attorney General, Eric Holder, twisting himself into a pretzel while trying to not utter the dreaded name of Lord Voldemort:

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Over at the Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn have a fine piece explaining exactly why it’s precisely because of Holder’s refusal to name the enemy that the enemy keeps on attacking us.

… success in the war on terror is not apprehending terrorists after their attacks fail. Success is preventing them from attempting the attack in the first place.

The Times Square attack was the third time in the past six months that an individual terrorist with ties to high-level Islamic radicals overseas has launched an attack on the American homeland. In each instance, America’s vast, multibillion dollar intelligence and law enforcement establishment failed to detect the terrorists’ plans beforehand. And in each instance Obama administration officials moved quickly to minimize the significance of the attack and downplay the connections that the attackers had with international terrorists.

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So, three attacks in six months, by attackers with connections to the global jihadist network–connections that administration officials have gone out of their way to diminish.

The most striking thing about all three attacks is not what we heard, but what we haven’t heard. There has been very little talk about the global war that the Obama administration sometimes acknowledges we are fighting and virtually nothing about what motivates our enemy: radical Islam.

Over at NRO, Andy McCarthy comments:

This YouTube clip from the Attorney General’s testimony today will be the most painful two minutes of video you will ever watch. Mr. Holder would obviously rather get a root-canal than utter the words “radical Islam” (despite the fact that his description of the American people as “a nation of cowards” on race and of Bush officials as war criminals seemed to roll of the tongue without much difficulty).

You’ll be pleased to discover, via the AG, that there is an infinite variety of reasons why Muslims commit terrorist attacks. Those reasons, of course, have nothing to do with Islamic doctrine, which is why, even as we speak, agents are struggling to understand what might possibly have driven Faisal Shahzad to try to blow up Times Square. (I guess Mayor Bloomberg will be pleased to know that opposition to the healthcare bill hasn’t necessarily been ruled out yet.)

How can you ever hope to stop something when you refuse even to speak its name?

Your thoughts on this vexatious subject welcome here.