A poll came out the other day that shows just how divided the country is now. A slim majority of Americans believe Omar Mateen’s attack in Orlando was a terrorist act. An overwhelming majority of Republicans think so. But an overwhelming majority of Democrats do not see it as a terrorist attack, but rather as just a mass shooting. In the spirit of never letting a crisis go to waste, the Obama Administration is seizing on this data to rewrite history and make Omar Mateen a useful soldier in the war against guns.

On Meet the Press, Attorney General Lynch announced that the 911 transcript of Omar Mateen’s call would be edited to delete all references to Islamic terror. She claims, “What we’re not going to do is further proclaim this man’s pledges of allegiance to terrorist groups, and further his propaganda.” What she really wants to do is alter history, redacting the terrorist’s own claims, in order to make this just a shooting and not a terrorist attack.

Omar Mateen is not useful to Barack Obama as a terrorist. If Mateen is a terrorist, in some way Barack Obama can be held to blame for policies that neglected to find and stop Mateen. But Omar Mateen is very useful to Barack Obama as just another in a long series of shooters during his administration. As a terrorist, Mateen would raise questions about why the terror watch list, on which he appeared, failed. As a gunman, Mateen would raise questions about why he could so easily get guns and do so much damage.

So history must be altered. The transcripts must be edited. This administration will not let a crisis go to waste. Their claim is that the don’t want to further Mateen’s propaganda. Really, they want to use Mateen to further their own propaganda. This administration has a history of denying terrorist attacks are actually terrorist attacks. This will be another one conveniently memory holed and altered to fit Obama’s own purposes.