HOUSE OVERSIGHT 025033 FP: You write about how we like to talk of "Good Muslims" and how we are always on the eternal search for "moderate" Muslims (Khatami, Mousavi, Abbas, etc), while we stress how the "extremists" are the real problem and how "few" they really are. All of this is connected to the Control F actor. Enlighten us. Siegel: The Control Factor seeks to have us feel in control of the situation. The easiest way to do this is to simply minimize the number of potential enemies. We have been lectured for years about how Islam is a "religion of peace" and that the violence we see (remember that we have already improperly limited the problem to violence) is the product of a small number of "crazies" (remember Hillary Clinton's 50,000) who have distorted Islam. I call this the "Peaceful Muslim Disclaimer" as virtually everyone in the press and government has been bullied into making some statement of the kind to silence those who will pressure them that they are "Islamophobic" and Islam is being attacked. (These are the Islam hustlers who operate on the same principles that black race hustlers so effectively used to extort concessions over the last six decades or so). Nobody has done any real work to support this proposition, nor is it clear exactly how it would be tested. My view is that the grammar "Islam is x" is itself problematic because Islam has expressed itself throughout history in a variety of fashions. It is more useful to talk in terms of how seriously engaged with Islam, the Koran and other texts, a Muslim is. What is significant is how Muslims today are using Islam and most of those who are in power either throughout a large territory or within a small community tend toward, if not fully advocate, the very supremacist ideas that we try to tell ourselves are reserved for the few "extremists." Presumably most Germans did not wish to see all Nazi atrocities carried out but in the end they fell in line because they had to. Those ou