As Allahpundit noted earlier, the FBI reversed its decision to redact portions of a 911 call in which Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to the leader of ISIS. That reversal came hours after House Speaker Paul Ryan mocked the redactions as “preposterous.”

House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul also took aim at the redacted transcript, publishing a redacted criticism on his website. Politico reports:

“The Obama Administration just redacted the [blank] out of the Orlando shooter’s 911 transcripts. I am greatly [blank] at the Administration’s denial of reality. How in the [blank] does censoring this [blank] make us [blank]? ” McCaul said. “This is in line with the Administration’s long string of [blank] of the threat Islamist terror poses to our homeland. The victims and their loved ones deserve justice, and the American people deserve all the facts. The terror threat to our nation cannot be redacted.”

Chairman McCaul posted an unredacted version of the criticism just below this on the Homeland Security Committee website:

The FBI said it, “did not want to provide the killer or terrorist organizations with a publicity platform for hateful propaganda.” However the redactions quickly became the story, as the FBI now admits, “Unfortunately, the unreleased portions of the transcript that named the terrorist organizations and leaders have caused an unnecessary distraction from the hard work that the FBI and our law enforcement partners have been doing to investigate this heinous crime.”

This was clearly a decision that was planned in advance. AG Lynch said Sunday that there would be redactions in the transcript. The question is who thought this would be a good idea? After 49 people were murdered and dozens more put in the hospital these redactions look like a lame attempt at creating some kind of social media safe space. But as the FBI admitted today, they didn’t even create such a space because all of the information had been previously published by other news outlets.

This is an embarrassment that really does speak to the odd fixation the Obama administration has with not identifying the the terrorism problem by name. Chairman McCaul said Sunday on ABC News that he would be holding oversight hearings to try and determine how so many red flags in this case were missed.