Adam Serwer asks if the Obama administration can successfully divorce terrorism from religion. For two painful minutes this spring, Attorney General Eric Holder refused to blame "radical Islam" for terrorism. Rep. Lamar Smith prodded Holder over and over during the May House Judiciary Committee hearing, but Holder wouldn't budge. "There are a variety of reasons I think people have taken these actions," Holder said. "Could radical Islam been one of the reasons?" Smith insisted. "There are a variety of reasons why…." "But was radical Islam one of them?" "There are a variety of reasons people are doing these things…." For conservatives, the exchange was proof the administration isn't taking terrorism seriously. Likewise, when White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan defended the traditional Islamic concept of "Jihad" as legitimate, conservatives were aghast. In a speech hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Brennan said the administration would not "describe our enemy as 'jihadists' or 'Islamists' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children." KEEP READING. . .
