The embarrassing attempt to censor transcripts of the Orlando killer’s calls with the police resemble one of the most shameful prior moments of the Obama administration: the effort to blame the 2012 Benghazi disaster on a video about Mohammed rather than recognizing it as an act of Islamo-Nazi terrorism.

In both cases, acknowledging horrific crimes as acts of terror rather than isolated explosions of violence would have undermined the self-serving narrative that the administration wanted to peddle: that the President had effectively reduced the threat of terrorist attack against US targets.

The manipulative, partisan instinct to emphasize gun control as a defense against terrorism is another embarrassing strategy to change the subject and to minimize the continued dangers of jihadist ideology. Recollections of the bloody Paris attacks just seven months ago are instructive here: the terrorists who slaughtered 130 people were well-armed with deadly assault weapons, despite French gun regulation that liberals consider desirable.