NO "SHORT TAKES" TONIGHT BECAUSE I'VE BEEN TOO BUSY MONITORING THE HORRIBLE TERRORIST ATTACK IN ORLANDO.  A FEW OBSERVATIONS FROM THIS DAY:

This was not a "tragedy."  It was an attack, a mass murder.  A terrorist assault.  Let's call it what it was.

The word making the rounds is "unimaginable."  This had to be "unimaginable."  Really?  After 9/11?  After the attacks in Paris?  What's unimaginable about it?  It's completely imaginable, and terror experts had been predicting it for years.

Praise to much of the news media for an honest reporting job.  Most reporters did not run from the term "Islamic extremism."  Making we're making some progress.

Praise also to law enforcement for injecting Islamic extremism into the vocabulary of this event in the first hours.  My hunch is that they did this to get the truth out early, before the politically correct crowd moved in to make it into a generic "incident."

No praise to the president of the United States, who embarrassed us once again by refusing to cite the source of the terror launched against us.  In addition, he lectured us on the need for more gun control, even though the tools for preventing the murderer from getting guns were all in place, but not used.  This guy had been investigated again and again by the FBI, with serious concerns raised about his violent statements and his contact with jihadists.  Still, he wasn't on the federal gun-ban list.  What does it take?

No real praise for the mediocre presidential candidates.  Bernie Sanders, who's still in the race, led off by a rang about gun control.  No mention of Islamic terrorism.  Hillary Clinton issued a statement that sounded as if it had been written by ten lawyers.  She mentioned terrorism, mentioned gun control, would've mentioned better diaper service if it had polled well.  Donald Trump, who needs a brief course in professionalism, tweeted pretty reasonable things, but what the public wants to see and hear is the candidate speaking like a president, or at least issuing a single coherent statement. 

The fear of another attack, especially during this month of Ramadan, is palpable.  Be prepared.

June 12,  2016