RUSH: Last night on the Fox News Channel, Megyn Kelly’s program, one of my all-time favorite State Department officials, Marie Harf. This woman, I mean, is the classic Ivy League female graduate out of female studies, out of foreign policy studies. This woman just takes the cake in every aspect, from her appearance, to the way she speaks, to what she thinks. I mean, she is Julia in that ad the Regime ran during the War on Women thing.

She was being interviewed about why the Regime will not call what happened in Paris Islamic extremism. Question: “It seems like it’s so difficult to say what everybody around the world seems to feel so clearly it is, and what the leaders have said in Canada and Australia and Paris, where they have felt it so potently and personally. They’ve all said quite clearly the battle is against Islamic extremism. Why is that so hard for this American government to say?”

HARF: Well, it’s not hard to say, but it’s not the only kind of extremism we face. I would recommend to folks looking at this administration’s counterterrorism record, I would remind people that more terrorists who claim to do acts of violence in the name of Islam have been taken off the battlefield in this administration than under any previous one because of our counterterrorism operations and our efforts that we’ve put in place. But that’s not the only way that you counter this kind of extremism. Much of it Islamic, you’re absolutely right, but some of it not, so we’re gonna focus on all the different kinds of extremism.

RUSH: But you still won’t call it what it is! And what is this idea that Obama has taken more militant Islamists off the battlefield? If that were the case, then why all of this talk about closing Gitmo? If that were the case, why all this concern about so-called torture? I thought Bush set the record on all this. I thought Bush was violating all these human rights. I thought Bush was misbehaving in all this stuff. And here comes this woman from the State Department claiming credit here on behalf of Obama for having taken off the battlefield more acts of violence in the name of Islam than any previous administration? That’s gotta come as a shock to Obama voters.

So, you see, they are hell-bent. They are not gonna call this Islamic extremism. Next question: “There’s a common thread here, though, of radical Islamic extremism. And until President Obama or John Kerry or somebody else in their position stands up and says, ‘Look, we’re now facing a global threat of radical Islamic extremism. We have to band together, we must fight it.’ That’s what everybody is longing to hear, Marie. That’s what governments around the world have no problem saying. You won’t say it. Where’s the message?”

HARF: I think all of these leaders have made very clear the serious threats we face. If you look at the president’s speech at West Point, if you look at the things Secretary Kerry has said, it’s not as easy as defining it the way you just did. We have to look at each threat individually. All of those threats you just mentioned are from different groups —

MACCALLUM: Do you believe that there is a common thread in everything that I just mentioned? Is there a common thread?

HARF: I think that’s a little overly simplistic, to be honest with you, Martha.

RUSH: Yes. And so when you nail ’em to the wall and you actually force their own words back on ’em, they come back and tell you you’re a simpleton. You’re small-minded. You don’t have the ability like we do in the Regime to understand all of the nuance. Of course there is a common thread. The common thread is Islamic extremism. This Regime will not say so. Does anybody really have any question about why?

Let me ask you, folks, seriously, do you think it’s because — let’s start at the top. Let’s go to the White House. Is Obama afraid of them? Is Obama refusing to call them what they are because he’s so afraid? I mean, the political correctness of this is that, “Oh, no, we can’t do that. That would make them even madder. You know, we’re not supposed to chase bad guys, the tenets of political correctness, you don’t identify them, you don’t call ’em out, you don’t try to capture. That’s just gonna make ’em meaner.”

The way we deal with people like this under the precepts of political correctness, is we take guns away from the law-abiding so that we make it clear that we present no threat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what we do. We take guns away from the law-abiding, leaving guns to be had for the criminals and the Islamists, whoever wants to get them. But political correctness says, “No, no, we can’t agitate. Oh, no, we can’t irritate. Oh, no, it will just make ’em even madder and it’ll make ’em even more violent.”

Do you think that’s really why Obama will not call ’em what they are? Snerdley, do you think that’s why Obama will not call ’em Islamic extremists? I can understand some Marie Harf, and I can understand some college professor or professorette, or I can understand some people in the media. Do you really think Obama is afraid of what they’ll do if they are properly identified? I don’t, either. I don’t think fear has anything to do with it. It does with a lot of people. Te media people, who will not properly identify. There’s a whole bunch of people who do not want to make themselves targets. But that’s not gonna explain Obama.

Here is Marco Rubio, who was on Fox & Friends this morning, Brian Kilmeade said, “Why is it the French, the British, the Australians, everyone, they’re all calling this attack Islamic extremism, but we don’t. Does that bother you, Senator?”

RUBIO: Well, we do; the president won’t. And I don’t understand. I really still do not understand why. And it’s important to call — I mean, this is not an attack on Islam, or, you know, it is an attack on Islamic extremism, which is a very serious problem. And I hope the summit is about not just the threat that’s posed by people in other countries, but increasingly the homegrown violent extremists who are motivated by jihadist websites or by traveling abroad and coming back home. That is the fastest growing, most dangerous new dynamic of the War on Terror. Another thing they won’t say, by the way.

RUSH: So Rubio is drawing a distinction here between Islam and Islamic extremism. Now, I think the answer to this, when talking about some people, if you’re asking why won’t some people call this what it is, is because they know or believe that there isn’t any difference in Islam and Islamic extremism. And if it’s not that, then it’s clearly something else.