Donald Trump's new national security adviser is Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster. Unlike his previous national security adviser, he is not a total crackpot. He also knows something about national security, which is why he's asking Trump and his team to stop using the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism."
But the phrase will be in the president’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, according to a senior White House aide—even though McMaster reviewed drafts and his staff pressed the president's chief speechwriter and senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, not to use it. [...]
In his first remarks to the National Security Council last week, McMaster told his new staff he considered the term “radical Islamic terrorism” unhelpful, according to a second White House aide. “Even a small change like referring to ‘radical Islamist terrorism’ would be an improvement, in his view,” said this aide.
Yes, it turns out that conflating Islam and terrorism in loud, bleating speeches is not, in fact, the Key To Winning All Wars Everywhere, even if Cap'n Bigmouth was quite sure of it during the campaign. In fact, it does active harm to the effort. But it also turns out that Trump's team doesn't want to stop using the phrase because they are scared that their bigoted supporters will see more sensible language as a sign of moderation, and we can't have that.
And so Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster learns what sort of job he signed up for. Welcome to the new White House, sir. We're not about "national security" here, we're about what plays well to the nation's racists and bigots. Your task is to somehow keep the nation safe despite the so-called president's total inability to focus on that task, or any task, other than fluffing to his own ego. Good luck with that, for all our sakes.