"WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In the week after the deadly shootings in San Bernardino, California, Americans' confidence in the federal government's ability to protect citizens from acts of terrorism has dropped to a new low of 55%.

"Confidence in the U.S. government to protect citizens from terrorism is down 12 percentage points since June, and is now 33 points lower than the 88% who said they had a 'great deal' or 'fair amount' of confidence shortly after 9/11.

"These data, collected Dec. 8-9, come just days after the San Bernardino shootings and as more details emerge about the shooters' identities and alleged connections to radical Islamic ideology."

"Liar, liar, pantsuit on fire: Hillary Clinton still insists she didn't tell the grieving families of the Benghazi victims that an anti-Islam video was to blame.

"Yet family members say she said just that, three days after the attack, at the Sept. 14, 2012, ceremony at Andrews Air Force base.

"George Stephanopoulos asked her Sunday if she'd told the victims it was about the film. Clinton gave a flat 'no.' ...

"Just why the administration united around this lie is another editorial. The disgrace here is Clinton's refusal to admit her role -- even pushing the fib to 'comfort' the bereaved.

"Stiff as the competition is, this has to count as her lowest-down, dirtiest lie of all."

"The disconnect between President Obama and the American public on the urgency of the ISIS threat is a problem for his party in 2016, especially for Hillary Clinton.

"Democrats are at risk of politically marginalizing themselves on national security in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, catering to a base that seems disconnected from the growing anxiety that the public feels over the threat from Islamic terrorism. During a month when a horrific terrorist attack killed 130 in Paris and a homegrown, ISIS-inspired attack killed 14 in San Bernardino, California, the Democratic Party's major focus has been on climate change and gun control. ...

"The big question now is how long Clinton will be content to ride Obama's coat-tails. Most Democrats are fully committed to the president's base-first strategy and don't see any benefit in Clinton distancing herself from a president whom she loyally served for four years. But on an issue that could define the election, she risks being defined by the base at a time when even some of the president's former supporters are beginning to question his approach."

"The San Bernardino terror couple didn't buy their guns at a gun show (making the effort to close the so-called gun-show loophole irrelevant); they weren't on the terrorism watch list (so the proposal to ban people on the list from buying guns wouldn't have stopped them); and Syed Farook passed a background check when he bought two handguns (rendering calls for universal background checks moot). ...

"But please don't confuse the anti-gun campaigners with facts. Their ignorance is invincible, and necessary to their crusade."

"President Obama tried yet again Sunday night to convince the nation he's serious about fighting terror, and, as usual, proved the opposite.

"Days after the San Bernardino attack, he finally called it terrorism, but he's not offering anything new to combat the menace. He still won't call it Islamist terror, and still wants to fold these attacks in with nonterror mass shootings -- and fight them all with trivial tweaks to the gun-control laws. ...

"This wasn't a national-security speech, it was a political effort -- and a weak one. The real message is that this president isn't going to let facts shift his chosen course.

"That'll be up to the voters next November."

"Before Chicago-born Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, slaughtered innocents in San Bernardino, Calif., they performed a prudent and commonplace mission of mercy: They dropped off their 6-month-old daughter with Grandma for safekeeping. The couple reportedly said they were heading to an appointment with a doctor. Surely they didn't say they'd be meeting a pathologist at an autopsy table. ...

"If we believe Thursday's reports that Farook had transformed into a radical - not a madman, an ill person, a racial supremacist or any other familiar category of mass murderer - then he and Malik will force us to think with new imagination about terror operations on U.S. soil. Farook and Malik evidently didn't qualify for anyone's watch list. What's most striking isn't who they were, but who they weren't. ...

"This is a fraught moment for America.We want home-grown terrorism exterminated, whether its perpetrators are radicalized ideologues, rogue independents or gangbangers on the streets of Chicago. The oddity of a terror cell with a baby is but one more phenomenon we have to address with the same fearless resolve."

"Authorities were investigating terror links after a government worker and his wife shot up his San Bernardino, Calif., office party Wednesday, killing 14 people.

"Syed Farook, 28, a devout Muslim, stormed out of the festivities and later returned with his newlywed wife, Tashfeen Malik, 27. Both donned dark, tactical gear and masks while toting assault rifles and handguns, police said.

"The murderous duo sprayed bullets inside a conference room, slaughtering colleagues who earlier this year had thrown a shower for their new baby."

"The new fad of blaming climate change for terrorism, or treating the two as comparable security issues, is troubling. It should make voters worry about the quality of their elected leaders. ...

"Terrorism is generally caused by bad people dissatisfied with the way the world is and determined to use fearful violence to bend it to their will. Terrorism is not caused by the weather. ...

"Today, terrorism is caused mostly by radical Islamist ideology. There are appropriate law enforcement, intelligence, propaganda and occasionally military responses to it. But when you hear politicians talk about global warming as the cause of terrorism, take it as an indication that they aren't serious people, and should not be trusted with complex affairs of state."

"Congress recently forbade President Obama from bringing Guantanamo inmates to the United States, or even preparing a place in the U.S. to which the terrorist prisoners might someday be transferred. The specific action Congress took was to renew earlier bans on the president spending any appropriated funds for those purposes.

"Republicans and Democrats spoke in a strong and unified voice; 370 members of the House and 91 members of the Senate voted for the defense authorization bill that contained the Guantanamo provision. Other than a measure passed by unanimous consent, it's hard to find Congress more united.

"Obama signed the bill into law, but at the same time released a signing statement making clear he might bring Guantanamo prisoners to the United States anyway -- no matter what Congress says. ...

"Barack Obama has exercised unilateral executive authority a number of times, but never in a case in which Congress was so clearly united against him. If the president decides to go it alone on the question of Guantanamo inmates, he might find that he has finally pushed things too far."

"Washington's debate over refugee policy assumes an unmet American obligation to the world. It is as if we were not already doing and sacrificing far more than every other country combined. It is as if there were not dozens of Islamic countries, far closer than the United States to refugee hot-spots, to which it would be sensible to steer Muslim migrants.

"Yet, there is nothing obligatory about any immigration policy, including asylum. There is no global right to come here. American immigration policy is supposed to serve the national interests of the United States. Right now, American immigration policy is serving the interests of immigrants at the expense of American national security and the financial security of distressed American workers.

"Our nation is nearing $20 trillion in debt, still fighting in the Middle East, and facing the certain prospect of combat surges to quell the rising threat of jihadism. So why is Congress, under the firm control of Republicans, paying for immigration policies that exacerbate our peril?"