Here's the full Hillary Clinton speech on terrorism.

Today, in Cleveland, Ohio:



I'm watching the Trump speech first, but I'll get to this and have something to say.

ADDED: She began in a storytelling, empathetic, and vaguely religious mode, speaking of the people who died and the need for prayer. Then she transitioned to policy with Trump-like statements about the need to be strong. ["Now we have to steel our resolve and respond... We must attack [terrorism] with clear eyes, steady hands, unwavering determination and pride in our country and our values."] The policy itself seemed interesting, but her audience messed up the value of it by cheering to great excess when she got to gun control. ["I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets."] And the big question I had about all those policy ideas was: Why hasn't the Obama administration done these things and isn't she connected to those failures?

AND: Here's the full text of her speech.

I didn't like that she called Mateen "a madman." People with mental illness can be dangerous, but what basis is there for characterizing an Islamist terrorist as a "madman" (other than to set up an argument for gun control)?

It seems to me that the terrorist has deep belief in an ideology and has decided to use violence. I think true mental illness is a disability, and those with disabilities deserve respect and care (even as we need to protect ourselves from danger).

And religious devotion is also serious and can lead people to do some very terrible things, but it is not insanity, even when the particular ideas seem foolish or evil. There's a lot of religion out there in the world, and it's just too easy to say that the kind of religion we're seeing in Islamic terrorists isn't real religion but madness.

Just as some nonreligious ideas are dangerous and evil, some religious ideas are dangerous and evil. And we can say that without inserting this extra step of pretending it's not religion but madness. That's the failure to speak clearly that Trump was talking about in his speech today. I think this blurring is done out of a fear of criticizing or alienating other Muslims. That is a choice to be unclear, to cushion the harshness, and Hillary is making that choice.

She also used disease and poison as a metaphor (as if better health care might be the answer)

The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive.... The threat is metastasizing. We face a twisted ideology and poisoned psychology that inspires the so-called ‘lone wolves’....

But these are human beings with thinking minds who are embracing particular ideas (ideas that spur them to terrible action). Of course, ideas are "viral." We use that metaphor all the time, for good and bad ideas. But the person who comes to believe something isn't sick like someone with cancer or a fever. You can get lost inside your metaphors.