In this Feb. 11, 2015 file photo, Attorney General Eric Holder speaks to law enforcement officers and guests in the Old Executive Office Building on the White House Complex in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
(CNSNews.com) – Outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder took a swipe Tuesday at critics of the Obama administration’s reluctance to call Islamic terrorism Islamic terrorism, reserving a particular dig for Fox News.
“You know, we spend more time, more time, talking about what do you call it as opposed to what do you do about it,” he said at the National Press Club in Washington. “You know, really, you know, if Fox didn’t talk about this, they’d have nothing else to talk about, it would seem to me.”
“Radical Islam, Islamic extremism – you know, I’m not sure an awful lot is gained by saying that. It doesn’t have an impact on our military posture, an impact on what we call it, on the policies we put in place.”
“I don’t worry an awful lot about what the appropriate terminology, you know, ought to be,” Holder continued. “I think that people need to actually think about that and think about, really, we’re having this conversation about words as opposed to what our actions ought to be?”
Holder said the problem was a difficult and ongoing one.
“The terminology has, seems to me, little or no impact on what ultimately we have to do.”
Holder’s National Press Club appearance came on the same day the White House began a three-day summit on “countering violent extremism (CVE),” the administration’s preferred term for the phenomenon.