The standard deflections to hide Islamic terror.

Last week while the bodies of 14 American victims of jihadism in San Bernardino, Calif. were still warm, the terrorist-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) leapt into damage-control mode.

CAIR, which the United Arab Emirates designated a year ago as a terrorist group, got to work crafting a narrative about the mass-murdering Muslim married couple, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik. CAIR’s immediate objective was less about defending the two dead killers than preventing Islam, the most blood-drenched religion in recorded history, from being blamed for this latest massacre committed in the name of the Islamic deity, Allah. As they fashioned a template for lazy, gullible, or sympathetic reporters to embrace, CAIR officials behaved as if Farook and Malik were strange outliers and bad Muslims.

CAIR is a U.S. outpost of international jihadism. It is an enemy propaganda organization posing as a Muslim civil rights group. It performs the same function as the Nazi-created German-American Bund in the years leading up to America’s entry into World War Two and the Communist Party USA during the Cold War. (CPUSA members were required to swear allegiance to Moscow.) Such groups propagandize on behalf of hostile foreign powers, winning some converts and neutralizing opposition.

A main goal of CAIR, whose longstanding ties to the terrorist underworld have been exhaustively documented at DiscoverTheNetworks and elsewhere, is to affect America’s domestic and foreign policy. CAIR wants to make America safe for Sharia law and bully Americans into not questioning Islam, a religion that has been generating a massive body count for 1,400 years.

In the words of one critic, CAIR exists to undermine law enforcement and U.S. national security. The group’s goal “is to create as much self-doubt, hesitation, fear of name-calling, and litigation within police departments and intelligence agencies as possible so as to render such authorities ineffective in pursuing international and domestic terrorist entities.”

To recap, the morning of Wednesday, Dec. 2, Farook and his Pakistan-born wife dropped off their six-month-old daughter at her grandmother’s home. Around 11 a.m. they opened fire at the Inland Regional Center where Farook’s fellow San Bernardino Health Department employees were assembled for a training session and Christmas party. Before the attack, Malik reportedly used social media to pledge her allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (Days after the attack, Islamic State’s official radio station praised the duo and described them as “supporters” of the group.) The couple left 14 people dead and 21 wounded and were gunned down about four hours later in a shootout with police. When their rented townhouse in Redlands was searched, authorities found thousands of rounds of ammunition and a dozen pipe bombs. It was the “75th Islamist-inspired terrorist attack or plot in the U.S.” since Sept. 11, 2001, according to the Heritage Foundation.

Before much was known about the perpetrators, the media spent the afternoon that day speculating about the shooters, predictably blaming conservatives, Tea Party supporters, and militia groups.

Left-wing politicians ghoulishly used the mass-casualty event to push for more gun control.

President Obama demanded “common sense gun safety laws” and called for a law blocking individuals on the “No Fly List” from legally purchasing firearms, a measure that would almost certainly violate the Constitution.

Democratic candidates for president tripped over each other as they raced to express choreographed outrage on Twitter. Hillary Clinton urged “action to stop gun violence.” Bernie Sanders whined, “This sickening and senseless gun violence must stop.” Martin O’Malley declared, “Enough is enough: it’s time to stand up to the @NRA and enact meaningful gun safety laws.”

But after a few hours details of the assault began to surface and the Left lost control of the narrative as it became increasingly obvious this was a jihadist attack.

As soon as Farook was publicly identified as a suspect, CAIR set up a presser for that evening.

“We condemn this horrific and revolting attack and offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured,” CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush said in an announcement posted on Facebook. “The Muslim community stands shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Americans in repudiating any twisted mindset that would claim to justify such sickening acts of violence.”

At the hastily arranged press conference, Farhan Khan, brother-in-law of Farooq, was paraded before the TV cameras to say, well, nothing – at least nothing that implicated Islam in the killings.

Asked if Farook was religious, Khan stumbled. “There’s no comment. I mean, [the] investigation is going on. You would know what it is. I have no idea. I have no idea. Why would he do that? Why would he do something like this? I have absolutely no idea. I am in shock myself. I’m [a] normal person.”

Khan’s handler, Ayloush, who is also a California Democratic Party executive, pretended Islam played no role in the attack.

“We don’t know the motive. Is it work, rage-related? Is it mental illness? Is it extreme ideology? At this point it’s really unknown to us and it is too soon for us to speculate.”

Two days later, Ayloush changed his tune, blaming America for the shootings. “Let’s not forget that some of our own foreign policy, as Americans, as the West, have fueled that extremism,” he told CNN’s Chris Cuomo. “We are partly responsible. Terrorism is a global problem, not a Muslim problem. And the solution has to be global. Everyone has a role in it.”

At the Dec. 2 presser, Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, religious director of the Islamic Society of Orange County, also exonerated Islam. “We have condemned all violence everywhere because human life is precious and we respect and honor the human life,” he said.

“At the same time I would urge everyone to please do not implicate Islam or Muslims because what, whosoever has done that, our faith has nothing to do with that it. Our faith is against this kind of behavior.”

But that’s not the kind of thing Siddiqi said previously, according to reports.

Siddiqi praised suicide bombers in 1995, saying, “Those who die on the part of justice are alive, and their place is with the Lord, and they receive the highest position, because this is the highest honor.”

In a 2000 White House protest against Israel, he said, “America has to learn – if you remain on the side of injustice, the wrath of God will come!”

In 2007 Siddiqi defended jihad. He described jihad as,

a struggle for peace and justice, so that you establish peace in the world, you establish justice in the world, and defend your own rights – the right of life, the right of property, the right of dignity and honor and freedom, and the right of your religion. So you defend yourself for that, and you defend other people who are suffering and oppressed. So jihad may take a military action, but it is not always a military action.

The Sunday Times’ (UK) Washington bureau chief Toby Harnden was appalled by the presser. At 11:58 p.m. he tweeted, “This CAIR press conference is kind of an obscenity. It shouldn’t be carried live on air.”

Seven minutes later he seemed to imply the press conference was Muslim propaganda. “Weird weird weird @CNN right now. No mention of Islam & then live to CAIR presser w[ith] multiple people saying it’s nothing to do with Islam.”

Not surprisingly, CAIR’s Religion of Peace storyline was barely challenged by the media. Instead the media focused on Farook and Malik, scratching its head as it searched for a motive for the killings. The couple’s ties to Islamic terrorist groups were examined but the violence that has been part and parcel of Islam since it was created went unexplored. A valuable opportunity to educate the public about Islam and its incompatibility with free societies was missed.

And the fact that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton feels free to feature the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Huma Abedin in a “I am proud to be a Muslim” fundraising email campaign underscores how ignorant the media, Democrats, and even some Republicans are about the nature of Islam even though it is infiltrating American institutions right before their eyes.

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s proposal about banning Muslim immigration resonates with Americans not because they are bigoted but because they are painfully aware that the Obama administration is not only not defending Islamists but is providing them with political cover and excuses.

Americans are sick and tired of being lied to.