O'toole will throw anyone under the bus if they might be a liability to his election. It's easier to just go along with declaring them a terrorist organization then to try to communicate the nauses of what exactly the organization is, what it does and what criticisms can actually be levied against it.

In a short term sense it's the smart, strategic play. In the long term it's a small part in a self-destructive strategy embraced by almost all right wing politicians of denouncing and ostracizing all conservative cultural institutions the moment the left calls them racist.