I just don't see Liberals making excuses and covering up for Islamic radicalism. Sure, they try to understand WHY they are that way, and HOW they got that way, how much our own policies or neglect may have contributed to or provoked that behavior. They recognize that we have allies in the Muslim world, and how easy it would be to alienate them and drive them into the hands of the terrorists. They understand that most of the victims of ISIS are other Muslims. They try to point out that there are often rational alternatives to hard-ass policies which could probably just make things worse. And they are very aware of how right wingers try to manipulate our fear and anger for their own political purposes, purposes which have nothing to do with security but only serve Conservative ideological, cultural and commercial interests.

In a way, its very much like the way Liberals and Conservatives feel about crime, especially in the black community. Liberals try to see both sides, and sometimes they carry it a bit too far, or miss the obvious. That's not quite the same as "giving a pass". Conservatives try to find a villain, a scapegoat, so they can channel the anger and rage to support their agenda. They are trying to blame Liberals for the problem because they obviously aren't militant enough about stopping it. In Conservative eyes, Liberals seem to have an outrage deficit, a severe lack of self-righteous indignation.

Conservatives seem incapable of seeing what is perfectly obvious to Liberals. Islamic terrorists want to piss us off, that's their plan. They need us to react hyper-violently, they want us to hate. It feeds right into their whole program, their entire excuse for the atrocities they perform. "See, its a clash of civilizations. The Crusaders are out to destroy us. They despise our culture and religion. They persecute us in their countries and oppress us in ours. They want to wage war on us and exterminate us. And every Muslim who works with them is a traitor to his people and his god and must be eliminated." Its ironic, but they sound a lot like Conservatives, don't they?

But I just don't see there is a big Liberal conspiracy to roll over and bare our throats and present our rumps to Jihadist terror (or ghetto crime, for that matter). What I do see is a big Conservative conspiracy determined to accuse Liberals of thinking that way. You've heard the rap: Liberals are weak, indecisive, they're cowards, they hate their country, they don't want to protect their families, they're soft on crime. It reminds me too much of how Democrats are supposed to be "soft on Communism", because, of course, its only Conservatives who are real patriots. And do you remember Willie Horton?

Sometimes Liberals may be mistaken, or go too far in trying to be fair in the public debate. But I rarely see it affecting policy, as our agreement on the Democratic response to ISIS seems to indicate. And remember, it was Clinton who went after Bin Ladin and Al-Quaeda with military action, long before 9/11--long before Bush II even recognized there was a problem.

I don't really see Liberals as being engaged in a big program to support the contradictions and barbarities they see in other cultures. What I do see is that they seem to be reluctant to impose our values on them. Some practices, like FGM, are so disgusting it makes us want to go over there and punish the medieval bastards. But where do we draw the line? Who makes that decision? And why?