[Redacted] is Just [Redacted] With Us

There are times that I swear the main goal of President Obama's second term is to goad and aggravate Conservatives and the Republican Party.  I'm feeling that way again after the Department of Justice released the transcripts of the 911 calls placed by the Orlando nightclub shooter and redacted all references to Islam, ISIS, Allah and terrorist leaders.

There is a narrative that the Obama Administration (and Democrats in general) go out of their way to avoid terms like "Islamic Terrorism" or even "Islamic Extremism" when describing actions like the Orlando shooting, or the Paris attacks or the Brussels Airport bombing.  The President and his staff repeatedly tell us that the people who partake of such violence are not "of Islam".  That,in turn, becomes fodder for the talk radio hosts and Fox News Channel guests who put forth the argument that the Administration is refusing to identify the "real enemy" in the War on Terror.

I think President Obama ordered the DOJ to take out all of those references just to further infuriate those people.  Sure, Attorney General Loretta Lynch did the Sunday morning news shows defending the decision--claiming that all of the references to Islamic terror groups were redacted so as "not to allow the shooter's propaganda to be spread further".  But it was Lynch's own FBI that had let everyone know that the shooter had claimed to be inspired by ISIS and that he was killing in their name.  So what additional "propaganda" was being "spread" by hearing what he actually had to say?

What if the Orlando shooter had been Crazy White Supremacist Guy--and his 911 diatribe had been espousing the values of the National Rifle Association?  Or that he was killing gays and Latinos because he was inspired by Donald Trump's campaign rhetoric?  Would that "propaganda" have been redacted for our "own protection"?

Now we are going to spend another week talking about deleted words from transcripts and what Islam is "really about"--instead of working to identify the next potential bomber or gunman.  You know, the real threats--not the "potential" ones we work so hard to "neutralize"--like the elderly woman with the replacement hip that keeps setting off the scanner at the airport and who needs to be "patted down" by TSA every time she tries to fly.