Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), like many Americans, wants the president to speak clearly about the nature of the enemy we face. Yet, all we’ve gotten from the White House is passionless speeches and circuitous rhetoric about the savagery we’ve witnessed both at home and abroad – San Bernardino and Paris being just the latest tragedies. Hardly do President Obama or other leading Democrats have the guts to name the source of the violence: radical Islam.

Sasse does. In a recent speech on the Senate floor, the senator responded to the White House’s claim that they don’t want to treat these terrorists as “leaders of some religious movement.”

“Mr. President, this is lunacy,” he said. “First, while the White House is insisting that no one use the word ‘Islamic’ or note any connection between the war that we're facing and some subset of Islam—even as the White House insists that no one use the word—their own preferred adjective—ISIL or ISIS—begins with an ‘I.’ Every fourth-grader in America can deduce, without any assistance from Vanna White, what the rest of the word that begins with an ‘I’ is.”

He went on to make the distinction between the larger religion of Muslim and its radical subset.

“We are obviously not at war with all Muslims, but we are at war with those who believe that they would kill in the name of religion. And the White House insist that we muzzle ourselves and not tell the truth.”

Sasses’ speech was so powerful Fox News’ Bret Baier featured it on his program Wednesday night.

Sasse’s overall point: How can we defeat a force we can’t even define?

Tiptoeing around the core of the problem is not going to solve it, nor is the president’s stubborn determination to proceed with a plan that has so far failed. ISIS, regardless of Obama’s naïve belief, is not contained. It is expanding and leaving a trail of blood wherever it goes.

Islamic terror. It’s not hard to say. Perhaps the president can learn to simplify the issue if he goes back to fourth grade.