January 19, 2015 --

LPR is not confident that Mark Twain's words, written in his notebook in 1888 would enjoy unqualified endorsement in the Obama administration these days.

More likely, LPR suspects, the Twain comment would be rejected as an invitation to blasphemous speech. In the aftermath of the "Charlie Hebdo" murders in Paris, and the slaughter, two days later of four hostages in a kosher food shop in Paris, the Obama administrations strains to ensure that no comment can be construed to give Islamist extremists reason to declare that America is at war with Islam.

And so, the administration prefers the term "violent extremism," a term that goes beyond "Islamist extremism," although a White House paper, August 2011, acknowledged that the major threat to the United States comes from al Qaeda, or groups linked to al Qaeda. Speaking at the National Press Club, September 2011, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman remarked: "To call an enemy violent extremism is so general and vague that it ultimately has no meaning." What next from the administration? Violent moderates? Non-violent extremists? Extensive extremism?