Omitted

Heh.

Context here.

The battle over the narrative expands ever thus, so rapidly it will eventually eclipse the borders of the known universe. But consider, is it not at least possible if not likely that all the following factors played some role in the Orlando mass murder?

• Jihadi ideology, infecting Mateen — there, his name — from abroad or from radicals of his acquaintance, even if he was not “directed” as the president suggests;
• Rank homophobia, picked up independently of Islam, in the great cosmopolitan pine forests of central Florida;
• Craziness, meaning Mateen was fucked in the head, manifesting as a lunatic’s craving for immortality;
• Publicity of past mass murderers, both of the terrorist and loose-screw variety, enabling such craving; and
• The relatively easy availability of guns in the United States.

Why does our politics require that it be only one of these things? Probably because we no longer teach nuance in our endless “national conversation,” probably because nuance does not bait clicks, but that’s a different subject.

Regardless, obscuring Mateen’s religion and expressed political opinions by editing offending words from the 911 transcript seems like management of the news cycle in furtherance of the war over the narrative, rather than an honest attempt to limit the publicity that might encourage more of these d-bags. One almost — almost — believes that the DOJ is trying to switch the conversation from the FBI’s failure to do anything about Mateen after the G-men had identified him as sufficiently dangerous to interview. Unfortunately, believing that conspiracy would require us also to believe that the president’s own strongly professed desire to deny the Islam in Islamism did not determine the redaction of the transcript, and that requires magical thinking far beyond our own trifling capabilities. We do offer this parting shot, though: Why is it that the partisan left no longer refers to itself as the “reality-based community”?

UPDATE: Well, now, the Obama administration changed its mind and released the full transcript. Good for them, but then why the redaction nonsense in the first place?