Not only is it absurd moral equivalency. It's also extraordinarily ironic in light of the fact that the Democrats would never, ever call Muslims "jihadists" -- even and perhaps especially the jihadists themselves.

"Democrats Say GOP Complaint of Spending ‘Shutdown’ Strategy Doesn’t Add Up," by Bart Jansen and Alan K. Ota for [1] CQ Today (thanks to Anon):

And while Democrats rebuff Republicans and their accusations of shutdown politics, the majority is throwing some brickbats of its own.

“They’ve been stalling,’’ said John W. Olver, D-Mass., chairman of the House Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee. “They are nihilists. They are jihadists.”

But of course the real jihadists aren't nihilists at all, and assuming they are is just another way in which our learned analysts are missing the point.