There are no terrorists at the N&O

Despite the guidance we have offered to the N&O, confusion stills reigns at the paper regarding what to call people who drive cars loaded with explosives into women and children.

To his credit, Ted Vaden tries to address the issue in Sunday's paper. To his discredit, he falls into the gulch of moral equivalence as soon as he starts typing.

Vaden, always trying to show both sides of the argument, equates 2 reader viewpoints that have nothing in common. Susan Behrend of Raleigh takes the paper to task for not properly naming those non-state actors who intentionally target and kill civilians with no military purpose. Vaden equates this wisdom with a guy who makes no relevant points about the proper name for these people, but who says the paper is doing a good job.

Vaden falls back on the tired excuse that the N&O just follows the lead of the wire services (which leads to us asking why the folks at the N&O need to get paid). He also offers up the reason that the AP does not call Hamas a terrorist organization: "apparently because Hamas, at least, serves political and human-services roles within Palestine."

Here Mr. Vaden becomes irrelevant when he fails to call the AP to task. If Hamas raises funds to recruit and outfit suicide bombers and sends those bombers on missions to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible, then it does not matter how much day care they provide. They are a terrorist organization. Those unwilling to call them such are gutless cowards.

Politics