Both Laska and I debated all through high school.  We were pretty good at it, but even the best lose debates now and then.  One of the sure signs you were losing is when you realize that your entire argument is based on semantics.  Sometimes that’s all you’ve got so you argue it as best you can and take your lumps. It’s worse when you get too emotional about a subject and too contemptuous of your opponent—and then start to see meaning and significance where there isn’t any. And you just get angrier and talk faster because you think you are making a point.  And, if you can just talk faster and louder . . . .

It’s not just Trump. Although of course it is, also, Trump.  I’m referring to all the times that Trump and other, competent, Republicans, like Lindsey Graham, have seized on the president’s reluctance to use the words “radical Islam” in talking about Isis or Isil.  The GOP has so much contempt for Obama and live in such an echo chamber that their foreign policy statements increasingly sound like the kids from Norwin High School that Laska and I used to routinely trounce.

This morning Newt Gingrich pointed out, accurately, that Churchill didn’t hesitate to use the word “Nazi” in referring to his enemies in 1940.  Which he did. Because they called themselves “Nazis”. And, he pointed out, accurately, that Kennedy and Reagan called their enemies “communists.” Which they did. Because they called themselves “communists.”

Remember back in 2012. Romney thought he had Obama nailed about the exact moment he used the words “act of terror” in regards Benghazi. Notice Romney’s cross examination of the president on this point. It’s what a high school debater does when all his friends agree with him and he’s lost all perspective.

Here’s the clip. Oh, just watch it again. You owe yourself a few minutes of fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kbv7H_Sp-U

The president has said that he refrains from using terms like “radical Islam” because Isis might use that for propaganda benefit. I’m not qualified to weigh in on the tactical merits of how the use or non-use of the term may play in the Middle East.

It does occur to me that during the troubles in Ireland, I can’t remember—and admit I’ve only had time to do a cursory check—but I’m pretty sure that U.K. and American governments rarely referred to the IRA as “Catholic terrorists” or their cause as “radical Catholicism.” It was certainly advisable for the U.K. to be in a fight with terrorists rather than Catholics. I don’t know many Muslims, but I know a lot of Catholics, and I’m pretty sure they would have objected to Margaret Thatcher calling the IRA “Catholic terrorists.”  Even though that’s what they were.

Pretty sure that the non-Irish Catholics in the U.S. would have paid a lot more attention to what was happening in Belfast if it involved “radical Catholicism.” I can think of several people who would gladly own up to being “radically Catholic.” Maybe even feeling a little bit more resentful when driving by that Protestant church in town. All those Cadillacs in the parking lot. “My boss goes to that church . . . . They sing all the verses of the hymns. Not just the first two.”

I feel like I’m just kicking a straw man here. But, then I realize that’s what straw men are there for. And that we have such a man “presumptively” running for president.