THE NAME THING. One of the intriguing subplots of the post-9-11 era has been America’s persistent inability to reach a consensus as to what to call the enemy. We’ve had “Islamism,” “jihadism,” the awful “Islamofascists,” and now, courtesy of Tom Friedman, the even worse “Islamo-totalitarians.”

–Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias is a senior editor at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a former Prospect staff writer, and the author of Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats. Follow @mattyglesias