Attorney General Eric Holder said at
a journalism forum in Washington on Tuesday.
“If Fox didn’t talk about this, they’d have
nothing else to talk about!”
“Radical Islam, Islamic extremism,
I’m not sure a lot is gained by saying that, ... It
doesn’t have any impact on our military posture, doesn’t have any
impact on what we call it, on the policies that we put in place.”
“What we have to do is defined not by the terms that we use but by the
facts on the ground. So I don’t worry an awful lot about what the
appropriate terminology ought to be.”
Appearing irritated, he said: “We
spend more time – more time -- talking about what you call it than what
do you do about it. You know? I mean really!
“I think people need to
actually think about that. Really? We’re having this conversation about
words, as opposed to what our actions ought to be?”
“The terminology, it seems to
me, has little or no impact on what we ultimately have to do.”
His contention that words have no impact on how the U.S. responds to
threats in the Middle East sounds particularly bizarre when one
remembers that Holder is trained in a field that demands precise
terminology – the law.
[FULL]
