Orlando shooting revives a fight over 'Islamic' label

WASHINGTON (AP) — As news of the nightclub shooting in Orlando spread, Donald Trump revived the debate over what to call acts of violence by people inspired or directed by extremist groups like the Islamic State.

Even before it was clear the presumed gunman, Omar Mateen, had expressed an allegiance to the Islamic State during the shooting that killed 49 people and wounded 53, the Republican presumptive nominee declared President Barack Obama should resign if he did not use the words "radical Islamic terrorism" to label the massacre.

To do so would be unnecessarily provocative, the White House has said, noting the potential to anger Arab allies, alienate Muslims at home and abroad and, in the case of the Islamic State group, validate the claims of the enemy.

[...] the former secretary of state inched closer to the Islamic label than Obama in follow-up comments Monday morning — a sign, perhaps, of the political potency in the debate.

Trump and many Republican allies have cast both Obama and Clinton's parsing as political correctness with dangerous consequences.