My issue isn't that she didn't use the word "terrorist" or use any specific phrase. You're mischaracterizing my issue. I understand the points she was getting across. And in referencing 9/11 juxtaposed to the work of CAIR she was attempting to point out that the actions of a few aren't representative of the whole of a community of peaceful individuals who work tirelessly and selflessly to help their fellow citizens. As well as the acts of terrorists wasn't an appropriate reason for the treatment of Muslims post-9/11, including as I mentioned survelliance of mosques, assaults, harassment, murder, and other injustices. The problem was the framing of those actions in a "look, some people did something, but..." way when that bad thing you're talking about just happened to be the murder of 3000+ people, many more dying or suffering close to two decades afterwards from exposure to toxins in the air following the attack. That's a world-class understatement. One that resonates with people who were effected by those events. There's nothing to gaslight about that. It's a gaffe that begs for clarification. Now certainly there are those that will attempt and have attempted to use it as a cudgel to further attack Omar. That doesn't mean it wouldn't have behooved her to make mention of the things AOC did in her defense, or that she regretted oversimplifying the events of 9/11 while reaffirming her statements about the good work CAIR has done for Islamic relations and the continuing prejudices Muslims face in a post-9/11 world.
Unfortunately the issues she's bringing attention to are having to share the spotlight or be overshadowed by conversations about her own statements which doesn't really do those important issues justice. For instance we're still no closer to having a meaningful or productive conversation about Israel's treatment of Palestine or the potential annexing of the West Bank. Instead the conversation is still about whether or not Omar is an anti-semite, certainly aided by the intrinsic racism and islamophobia of the right. However the results speak for themselves and frankly the narrative hasn't improved for the better in regards to Omar being able to force that conversation in what I'd label as a meaningful way. Again, not all on her because it's clear there's many within even her own party who aren't willing to go to bat for her, but unfortunately that's out of her control. What she can control is her own speech and how she gets her points across.
There is no massive problem of people diminishing the horror of 9/11 - most of us understand that event as being terrible, consequential to a huge amount of Americans and to the world at large, tragic. There
is, though, an imperative to reframe 9/11, to get past some of the more counterproductive ways in which we as a society responded to it. That's all Omar was doing. Again, aside from niche groups like truthers, there is no particular set of wording, tropes, or whatever else that someone can delve into, and somehow play to negative 9/11 stereotypes, somehow mark themselves as one of those Americans who remembers 9/11 and just thinks oh, whatever. There is no particular need for Omar to reinforce that 9/11 was terrible, or that she found it terrible.
In the context of the speech, she was using understatement as a tool to minimize the intended effects of the act, not to minimize the act itself. That's something most people would be able to process just fine if a maelstrom of disingenuousness, racism, and Islamophobia hadn't created an unfair threshold Omar has to pass with her statements, such that she has to continuously prove her Americanness with everything she says, even to the point that apparently you have to ponder her feelings about 9/11.
Is Joe Biden your boy? If he was a black Muslim woman, do you think that "a noun a verb and 9/11" joke would have played? What do you think is more typical: that someone
doesn't talk about 9/11 in only the most sacred terms, and then receives backlash; or that someone doesn't talk about 9/11 in the most sacred terms, and no one even feels the need to give them the benefit of the doubt because their Americanness is just taken for granted and of course, as an American, the thought of 9/11 hurts them, too?
And on the flip side, do you not see it as a form of respect that Omar is fighting to cut away at some of the corrosive narratives people have attached to 9/11? She used understatement, deliberately, purposefully, precisely
because she acknowledges the gravity of the event.
So your desire for sensitivity seems incredibly one-sided to me. You really aren't seeing how your framework is fundamentally messed up by a toxic politics. Let's say you're correct in that second paragraph and that the backlash she's received has obfuscated the important conversations she's trying to have. This isn't because she's making "gaffes that beg for clarification." Those "gaffes" didn't invent racism, sexism, Islamophobia, or xenophobia.
You aren't even correct about the conversation thing, though. Omar hasn't been perfect - one instance, in particular, she absolutely made a small mistake with her words - but if you don't think that she's opened up space for people to question support of Israel, to criticize AIPAC, to scrutinize imperialistic tendencies, to bluntly criticize war criminals, etc., etc., you're
totally misreading the fact that the political establishment (and conservatives, especially) decided to strongly push back against the black Muslim woman courageously speaking the truth.