JOHN O’SULLIVAN says that it’s obvious that Hadayet was a terrorist. So why won’t the government say so?

What seems to be the explanation is that the U.S. government is less afraid of terrorists than of the American public. For the authorities the terrorists are a known factor. Their habits and “M.O.s” can be categorized and studied; their actions predicted; and precautions against their attacks mounted.

But the American public is an unknown beast which the political and media elites long ago decided was racist, sexist and homophobic. Our betters fear us. If not guided and controlled, they believe, we will hit out in dangerous spasms of violence at minorities, immigrants and anyone who looks like “The Other.” We cannot be trusted with inconvenient truths. In particular, we have to be prevented from launching discrimination and attacks on Muslims and Arabs in bigoted response to terrorist outrages. . . .

In fact only one thing is likely to provoke the unfair suspicion and hatred of Muslims and Arabs that gives nightmares to Uncle Sam — namely, the fear of ordinary Americans that their government is not taking commonsense measures to protect them against terrorism because it is afraid of offending groups from which the current crop of terrorists comes.

This seems about right. The government’s behavior here isn’t doing anything to encourage people to trust it. That’s a growing problem and there’s only one way to address it: by being trustworthy.