If lone-wolf terrorists are "idiots who are sitting in their tighty-whities, in their mother's basements" — as the editor of Islamic Monthly called them — is there anything American Muslims should do about them?

On "Meet the Press" this morning, Chuck Todd asked Arsalan Iftikhar, senior editor at Islamic Monthly, about "the role of the American Muslim community" in dealing with the problem of the so-called "lone-wolf" terrorist, those "people that are self-radicalizing," perhaps "newcomers into the Islamic communities": "What's the role of the leadership in these Islamic communities to identify perhaps people that are joining, converting, but not for the right reasons?"

Iftikhar said:

Well, Chuck, I think it's important to keep in mind when you're talking about groups like ISIS, that we're not talking about the X Men or the Transformers here. We're not dealing with Wolverines or Optimus Primes. Essentially, we're dealing with loner idiots who are sitting in their tighty-whities, in their mother's basements, playing Call of Duty on their XBox Four, who are disenfranchised, disengaged from the rest of the community.

I mean, if you look at Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the shooter in Ottawa, he was actually thrown out of a mosque in British Columbia, similar to the Boston Marathon bombing suspects who were once thrown out of a Boston mosque. So in terms of community policing, the Muslim community in the United States and Canada has done a remarkable job....

Which I guess means: There is no role. These loners are loners. Picture them as stereotypical American idiots. They're not in the American/Canadian Muslim community in the first place, and if we saw them coming, we'd throw them out.

Todd does not ask if perhaps there is something active the Muslim community might do to draw these loner-losers to the positive, constructive version of Islam. Todd just accepts Iftikar's distancing — "Well, I understand that" — and moves on to a different question, asking whether the problem is the responsibility of media:

So is this a media issue? Does it become the more attention attacks like this get, does it end up actually serving perversely to convince more of these mentally-deranged folks to say, "Hey, I'm going to use this perverted ideology as a way to get more attention for my attack"?

Iftikar turns this question into another way to defend the reputation of his community from the criminals who operate under the same brand name:

Yeah, you know, whenever American Muslims or Arabs are impugned after an attack like this, it helps to serve the agenda of these organizations to say, "See, America is at war with Muslims." But the fact of the matter is that there are over seven million American Muslims that live here peacefully. Five out of the last 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners, including this year's, Malala Yousafzai, are Muslims. And so, you know, sadly, when you look at the narrative media-wise in terms of listening to all of this negative, extremist, violent narratives that we're dealing with. And that's what we have to push back against.

And that's all Iftikar is asked. He had his anodyne talking point, distancing himself and defending the reputation of his religious community — a community defined to exclude anyone who adopts a violent ideology. But why is there not also a proactive effort to win co-religionists away from their hateful interpretations? Perhaps he thinks it unwise or dangerous to allow anyone to see any reason to see those terrible people as anywhere nearly within the scope of things that are his problem.  

American Muslims or Arabs are impugned after an attack like this, he says, stereotyping the rest of us as bigots who lump everyone together.