"The minute you knew what happened, you knew it was a terrorist attack."

Said Dianne Feinstein, on yesterday's "Meet the Press," where she was the one defending the Obama administration, but even she moved to get some distance between her and them.

 “When you see a group going up with RPGS and weapons to break into one of our facilities, you can assume it’s a terrorist attack. Unfortunately, the word extremist was used which is not as crystal clear as terrorist. The real-time video which we have all seen reveals that there was virtually no defense. The militia from Libya sent to guard the embassy disappeared the minute these people came down the street. These people just walked right into the facility.”

Why was the word "extremist" preferred to "terrorist"? I don't think either word is "crystal clear." I think both words are "not a crystal, transparent and unchanging, [but] the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in colour and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used" (to quote Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.).

Considering the the circumstances and time in which "extremist" was used and "terrorist" was actively avoided, what was the living thought within each of those 2 words?

Terrorist relates to the war on terrorism. A terrorist seems connected to a network of terrorism, specifically al Qaeda. It suggests organization and it connects a problem of violence to an entire religion. It seems to magnify the significance of the attacks as the leading edge of a group that has been elevated for 12 years as a military enemy, an enemy the Obama administration would like to say it has defeated. One way to claim victory is to stop using the word that is connected with the long war, to demote these violent characters from the status of terrorist. A terrorist terrifies. We are not terrified. We won. We need to get that message out: We won! And we're going to keep winning. We need to win... the war and the election.

Extremist relates to the mind of the individual who's moved into an extreme form of ideation, who's gone from the normal way of thinking about power and politics and has become a crazy nut who will cross the line — perhaps suddenly and insanely — into murderous violence. This misguided individual may have heard a lot of talk — perhaps suddenly, perhaps via YouTube — that he cannot process properly. He's gone into furious thinking and loses control. There's no global network of organized action — nothing like a military enemy in a war — but just the network of disordered thinking within the small globe of a man's skull. This is, unfortunately, something that happens. It happened to Jared Loughner and to Timothy McVeigh. We need to reach and soothe the minds of young men that might burst out into violence. Let them know we care, perhaps through the political theater of distancing ourselves from a disgusting and reprehensible video.

"Ted Cruz is too often falling into the reflexive habit of voting no on everything and then mocking his colleagues."

Jennifer Rubin is "sorry to say."

There is being principled, and then there is being a jerk. Putting down your colleagues to boost your own street cred with the base falls into the latter category....

For starters, it’s just not smart to annoy colleagues whose cooperation and support you’ll need in the future. Second, as a conservative he should understand humility and grace are not incompatible with “standing on principle”; the absence of these qualities doesn’t make him more principled or more effective. Third, for a guy who lacks manners (see his condescending questioning of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) he comes across as whiny. They yelled at me! Boo hoo, senator.

There is a deeper problem, I think, with Cruz’s approach to the Senate, which has nothing to do with ideology. The contrast between him and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is telling. Paul is no less conservative than Cruz, but he is polite to a fault, soft spoken and gracious....

It's the old Mutt and Jeff routine! I like it.

The NYT on CNN: "The Pressure to Be the TV News Leader Tarnishes a Big Brand."

An article by David Carr focuses on CNN's incorrect report last Wednesday that there had been an arrest in the Boston bombing. Carr is sympathetic:

The incrementalism and vamping required to fill the hours — “Again, as we have been saying, Anderson ... ” — makes everyone desperate to say anything vaguely new.

Throughout the week, I saw anchors and reporters staring at their phones, hoping a new nugget might arrive to give them something to say.... And the live environment means that at a certain point, the bosses have to quit shouting into the ear piece, trusting their staff and crossing their fingers.

Oddly — but not surprisingly — the article ends with Obama. I say "not surprisingly" because all roads lead to Obama. Everything is about Obama. But I say "oddly," because the story is about CNN, journalism, and the Boston bombing. There should not be a sense that these themes are resolved by looking to what Obama thinks or what it means for Obama.

“In this age of instant reporting and tweets and blogs, there’s a temptation to latch on to any bit of information, sometimes to jump to conclusions,” [Obama] said, his face turning sour as he spoke. 

Here's the video, in case you want to check the accuracy of "his face turning sour as he spoke."

“But when a tragedy like this happens, with public safety at risk and the stakes so high, it’s important that we do this right. That’s why we have investigations. That’s why we relentlessly gather the facts.”

Like everyone else, the president wants to have a press that is equal to the people it serves. He wants CNN to be good.

Equal to the people... that questionable flattery came out of nowhere. Like we're passive receptors of the news, and the news ought to honor us, The People. The press must serve. I'd say we're pretty active — especially with new media in the mix — and we choose what, if anything, we want to read or listen to. It's a market. Especially now. We have the media we deserve. CNN's problem isn't that we're not watching. If their desperate response is to trash their brand, they did it for the ratings, and if the brand is trashed, they'll probably lose ratings. But if CNN gains ratings, because people want to hear the latest rumors and take the risk that they're wrong, then that kind of reporting is exactly what we deserve.

But back to Obama. This emphasis on not talking so much and waiting for the investigation: "[I]t’s important that we do this right. That’s why we have investigations." That can also be a way of saying: I know you're all very excited about this right now, but please calm down, don't criticize the government for not doing enough, trust us, and when enough time has passed, you probably won't be thinking about this anymore.

I'm saying that because that's what I heard after the Benghazi attack. And it's the talking point Dianne Feinstein brought to "Fox News Sunday" this week. The moderator Chris Wallace had just given Congressman Peter King an opportunity to restate his questions about whether "we are letting our guard down" and whether "this attack should have been prevented" and whether there ought to be "more effective surveillance inside the Muslim community." King spoke, ending with the line "If you know a certain threat is coming from a certain community, that's where you have to look," and  Wallace asked Feinstein for her "reaction to that."

FEINSTEIN: Well, that's exactly where they will look. I mean, I -- I don't think all of this is very helpful. I think the important thing is to get the facts. Let the investigation proceed. The FBI has very good interrogators. They know what they are doing. I believe that they will put a case together that will be very strong....

Don't talk. We have some very good people working on this out of your view. You don't know the facts. You are not an expert. There will be an investigation....

Please, everyone: Shelter in place.

NYT's Gail Collins endeavors to take down Ted Cruz.

This is about Cruz's recent colloquy with Dianne Feinstein. Excerpts:

Later, Feinstein would tell CNN that she felt Cruz was being “somewhat arrogant,” which seemed like an understatement. Even in an age of political polarization, there apparently is still an unwritten rule against calling someone “a stupendously irritating twit” on national TV....

Do you think, people, that this [incessant self-reference] is a key to the stupendous impact the Tea Party continues to have on Congress, even now that it’s proved itself to be a loser when it comes to elections? If you combine a lack of a sense of humor with an absence of humility and then stir in a cup of self-righteousness, you are definitely not working on a recipe for cooperative achievement.

I want to make 5 points, briefly.

1. Somebody get Gail Collins a thesaurus. For "stupendous," try "astonishing." It's got that huffy, aghast tone you seem to be looking for. I know, "stupendous" is tempting because it gives the feeling that you're calling your target stupid, but when you find something "stupendous," you're actually confessing to stupor on your own part, and literally, if you are in a stupor, you are stupid.

2. This woman-defending-woman column ends with a recipe metaphor. Is that good gender politics? It resonates with what I think is Collins's effort to make us see this interplay between 2 U.S. Senators in terms of a man patronizing a woman.

3. Cruz's questions were about the security of our constitutional rights: Why did humor belong in that recipe?

4. Where was this "self-righteousness"? Collins's evidence is that Cruz used the phrases “My... point is," "in my opinion," “I would point out," and "In my view." This phobia about first-person-singular pronouns is silly. It's used against Obama all the time. What does Collins think of all those right-wing bloggers who will inform you about how many times Obama says "I" in a given speech? I'll bet she thinks it's... stupid. I certainly do.

5. Cruz also referred to his role as counsel in Heller (the Supreme Court's biggest 2d Amendment case) — another thing Collins considered self-referential and self-righteous. But Collins began her column building up Dianne Feinstein's stature because of her encounter with the fatally wounded Harvey Milk and George Moscone many years ago. Does personal experience lend weight to political opinion or not? Feinstein said: "I walked in, I saw people shot. I’ve looked at bodies that have been shot with these weapons. I’ve seen the bullets that implode." That's at least as self-referential and self-righteous as Cruz's statement that he was not "unfamiliar" with Heller given that he worked on the case.

ADDED: "A recipe for cooperative achievement." Who ordered the cooperative achievement? At the gun control restaurant, Cruz folds the menu and sips his ice water.

Ted Cruz vs. Dianne Feinstein.

What's Happening to Hillary? Only a clod would say the clot is a plot!

Here are Senators Lindsey Graham and Dianne Feinstein, interviewed by Chris Wallace (yesterday, on "Fox News Sunday"):

WALLACE: Senator Graham, how important is it for Secretary of State Clinton to testify under oath before she leaves office about the Benghazi terror attack?...

GRAHAM: Absolutely essential that she'd testify....

WALLACE: Some of your Republican colleagues say they are prepared to hold off the confirmation of John Kerry as secretary of state, until Secretary Clinton testifies as secretary, before she leaves office.

GRAHAM: That's going to happen. I've been told by Senator Kerry he wants that approach also. He needs to hear what she says so he can make comments about, I agree with her/I don't agree with her. It makes sense to have her go first.

WALLACE: Do you agree with that, Senator Feinstein, that she needs to testify first, as an -- and have you been assured she will testify, though it has been 3 1/2 months since Benghazi and she still has never really answered questions, about Benghazi, her role before, during, after the attack? Do you have reason to believe she'll testify as secretary?

FEINSTEIN: She has said she will and I believe she will. You know, she's had a very real accident and she's recovering from it, and, she will be back. I gather, her first day, of work may well be next week. So, I think that's good news.

With all that assurance that Hillary Clinton would testify, later that day, we heard the news that Hillary Clinton had entered the hospital with a blood clot. We weren't told the site of said blood clot. Was it her brain (recently concussed)? Was it her leg (where she had a blood clot back in 1998)? The former is a big deal, the latter, not so much. Why not specify the site, since it make such a big difference, medically? Oh, but we're told we must not display any skepticism, any hint of suspicion that the SOS is trying to avoid having to testify about Benghazi. The woman is ill. Only a clod would say a clot was a plot.

Here's medical expert Kent Sepkowitz:

Unlike the relatively bland “concussion after fainting” pronouncement from earlier this month, this terse press release from her spokesman smells a little fishy. First it is odd that we are not told where the clot is—usually the clot, referred to as thrombophlebitis, occurs in the leg, a condition suffered by former president Richard Nixon after leaving the White House. 

Maybe you can remember — if not, guess! — how sensitive we were to Nixon's phlebitis, which conveniently flared up in the midst of Watergate. Ha! That bastard thinks he can get our sympathy. Pathetic! (That's what I said at the time.)

The clot [in the leg] can be uncomfortable but is only dangerous and even life threatening if it breaks free and travels downstream into the lung—a pulmonary embolus, in medical parlance.... Given that Clinton already has had this condition and those who have had one episode have a predilection to recurrence, the lack of a reminder of the 1998 clot from her press people seems a strange oversight.

Another problem with the “concussion then clot” story is this—the concussion, if indeed it came after a faint, should not directly predispose Clinton to a clot....

Alternatively, is it possible that the clot in question is one in the lining of the brain that can form after head trauma.... But anticoagulation is never given to persons with clots around the brain. They are either watched without intervention or surgically evacuated. So this possible explanation is out.

We are left with a story that is not easy to connect up with sparse information from the inside crowd, who could easily deflate speculation with two or three more measly facts. The National Enquirer has already declared Clinton to be suffering from a brain tumor, linking her observed weight gain, possibly from treatment for the putative cancer, and not-exactly-explained need to leave Obama’s Cabinet to the grim diagnosis. Such a story no longer seems to me as implausible as it did after the faint and concussion reports.

The suppression of information — the site of the clot — suggests 2 radically different theories: 1. fakery/exaggeration to evade testimony, or 2. something horribly serious. I read Sepkowitz to exclude the middle ground.

UPDATE: Email from CNN says: "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a blood clot between her brain and skull behind her right ear, her doctors said." This seems to be the option that Sepkowitz excluded because "anticoagulation is never given to persons with clots around the brain." If that's correct, then something is still, to use Sepkowitz's word, fishy.

UPDATE 2: Here's the Washington Post, on January 1st, noting the site of the clot and saying "The conventional treatment is an anticoagulant drug for at least six months." So that directly contradictions Sepkowitz's statement that "anticoagulation is never given to persons with clots around the brain."

AND: I've got a bit more to say here. 

Obama seems amenable to the NRA idea of armed guards in schools.

On today's "Meet the Press": David Gregory asked him what he thought of having "armed guards at every school in the country," adding "That's what the NRA believes. They told me last week that could work." Obama said:

You know, I am not going to prejudge the recommendations that are given to me. I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools. And I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our problem. 

Of course, we are also skeptical that gun control is going to solve our problem. My only point here is that Obama didn't denounce the idea and treat it as crazy, which seemed to be the left/liberal spin last week after NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre made the proposal. Obama is saying that the idea deserves consideration. And to say you doubt that it's the "only answer" is to imply that it may belong in a package of items that together are the answer. In fact, later, he said: "I'm going to be putting forward a package..."

Obama went on to say that he was going to follow "the old adage of Abraham Lincoln's":

That with public opinion there's nothing you can't do and without public opinion there's very little you can get done in this town. 

That's a paraphrase. What Lincoln actually said was: "In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed." I'll leave it to you to decide who's the better wordsmith.

By the way, when did Washington folk acquire the habit of tacking "in this town" onto every other sentence? And don't you think there's an interesting difference between "opinion" and "sentiment"?

Further evidence that liberals have given up on demonizing LaPierre came from Dianne Feinstein on "Fox News Sunday" today. She's going to introduce a bill banning assault weapons and magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, and moderator Chris Wallace asked her "Why is that more effective than the NRA proposal to put armed guards in every school?" She said:

Well, in the first place, 1/3 of America's public schools does have armed guards. 

Ha! No wonder the spin has shifted. You can't call it sheer lunacy if it's happening in 1/3 of the schools already. Too bad the liberal sentiment molders didn't check the facts first. Too bad they had a hair trigger.