PHOENIX, ARIZONA - JULY 4: Estefany Galindo, originally from Honduras, hugs her coworkers and friends Maria Reiss, right, and Cynthia Lansden, left, after the Fiesta of Independence Naturalization Ceremony at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix, Arizona on July 4, 2018. More than 220 people from more than 40 countries participated in the annual Independence Day ceremony. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is hosting more than 50 naturalization ceremonies for more than 4,000 new U.S. citizens across the country between July 1st and 4th. "It has been a long journey with lots of tears and ups and downs, but I am here," Galindo said. (Photo by Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post) (Carolyn Van Houten / The Washington Post) 

 ‘We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides.” Such was President Trump’s statement Saturday on the violence in Charlottesville, Va. 
 
 Really: That was it. 
 
 Yet “many sides” didn’t drive a car into a crowd, an evident act of terrorism that killed Heather Heyer, 32, and hospitalized many more, with some still in critical condition. 
 
 It shouldn’t be that hard to summon up a few Trumpian terms like “losers” and “really, really bad people” to describe the hundreds of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, white supremacists and the like who descended on the college town — not after one of them has killed an innocent. 
 
 No doubt the thousands of counterprotesters included a fringe of hard-left losers, such as the “antifa” thugs who seem to relish armed conflict. But the vast bulk of them had nothing to do with “hatred, bigotry and violence”: You don’t have to be any kind of radical to be anti-Nazi. 
 
 As ever when Trump refuses to find the right words, others on his team, from his daughter to his attorney general, rushed to send the right message. 
 
 Ivanka Trump tweeted early Sunday, “There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neo-nazis.” 
 
 AG Jeff Sessions announced a Justice Department investigation of the horrors, noting, “The violence and deaths in Charlottesville strike at the heart of American law and justice.” And: “When such actions arise from racial bigotry and hatred, they betray our core values and cannot be tolerated.” 
 
 National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster called out the car attack: “Of course it was terrorism.” 
 
 Then he spoke up for his boss: “I know it’s clear in his mind, and ought to be clear to all Americans: We cannot tolerate obviously that bigotry, that hatred that is rooted in ignorance. Ignorance of what America stands for, what America is.” 
 
 If it’s clear in the president’s mind, he needs to make it clear in his own words, too. 

 As ever in this age of Donald Trump, politicians and journalists are reducing the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday to a debate over Mr. Trump’s words and intentions. That’s a mistake no matter what you think of the President, because the larger poison driving events like those in Virginia is identity politics and it won’t go away when Mr. Trump inevitably does. 
 
 The particular pathology on display in Virginia was the white nationalist movement led today by the likes of Richard Spencer, David Duke and Brad...
– President Trump's statement blaming "many sides" for the violence in Charlottesville, Va., is a big topic in newspaper editorials, and Trump isn't getting much support. It's not a huge surprise that the editors at the New York Times are critical, but he's also taking flak from usually friendly sites such as the New York Post: New York Times: A scathing editorial castigates Trump for refusing to personally condemn white supremacists and to instead blame "many sides" for the violence. Trump, the editors write, is "alone in modern presidential history in his willingness to summon demons of bigotry and intolerance in service to himself." Wall Street Journal: Don't make this about Trump, the editors write. In the wake of the violence, Democrats seem to have a sole mission of using the "'white supremacist' cudgel against Trump—as if that is the end of the story." The editorial does fault Trump for failing to respond as a "unifying leader," but it says the focus on his words is a "cop-out because it lets everyone duck the deeper and growing problem of identity politics on the right and left." Washington Post: It takes a here's-what-Trump-should-have said approach and writes him a full statement. "Under whatever labels and using whatever code words—‘heritage,’ ‘tradition,’ ‘nationalism’—the idea that whites or any other ethnic, national or racial group is superior to another is not acceptable," it reads in part. "Americans should not excuse, and I as president will not countenance, fringe elements in our society who peddle such anti-American ideas." New York Post: The paper normally quick to take the president's side thinks he blew it. Trump faulted "many sides" for the violence, but "'many sides' didn't drive a car into a crowd, an evident act of terrorism," the editorial declares. National security adviser HR McMaster says of Trump that it's "clear in his mind" that this "terrorism" can't be tolerated. If so, Trump should "make it clear in his own words, too."