Keller @ Large: Government Censorship Getting Worse

BOSTON (CBS) - It seems a bit odd, given the magnitude of the terror threat against us, that we're arguing over semantics.

But we are.

For a long time, critics of the Obama administration have been all over them for supposedly downplaying the key source of the threat, radical Islamic extremists.

The evidence ranges from the State Department's insistence, under Secretary Hillary Clinton, in blaming the Benghazi attack on an anti-Muslim video, to the president's refusal to blame "radical Islam" for atrocities like Orlando.

And when the FBI released a partial transcript of the nightclub killer's phone call with police with explicit references to ISIS edited out, there was outrage, not just from Republicans.

The spin from Attorney General Loretta Lynch was that quoting his pledges of allegiance to Daesh would "further his propaganda." But the outcry was so harsh they stopped trying to justify it, released the full language, and apologized.

It was a fiasco, and one that goes beyond this back-and-forth over naming our enemies.

The censorship reflex of our government is a bi-partisan disease, and it seems to be getting worse with time.

Of course there are moments when you can't make every detail of something public. But the default position of politicians, cops, courts and others doing the public's business is too often to stonewall, hide, redact, and otherwise insult the intelligence and integrity of the public.

This isn't hard – just give it to us straight, whether its about weapons of mass destruction, rogue police violence, or who wants to slaughter us.

Anything less is a scandal.

Listen to Jon's commentary: