Fear Itself: In the wake of the San Bernardino massacre, President Obama is scheduled to address the country tonight on the nature of current terrorist threats and what’s being done about it. After the Paris attacks Obama assured the country there were no known threats … and sadly, he was right.

Although the motive for the San Bernardino attack has not been established, it appears to have been a home-grown plot unconnected to any larger terrorist organization, which is very difficult to detect in advance. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told the NY Times, “We’ve seen this not just here but in other places. This requires a whole new approach, in my view.”

War of Words: Republican presidential candidates are posing the situation as a war … a war the requires one of them to be president. Tough talking Ted Cruz visited a gun shop and examined a pistol. “This nation needs a wartime president,” he said. “Whether or not the current administration realizes it, or is willing to acknowledge it, our enemies are at war with us.

Jeb Bush said, “They have declared war on us. And we need to declare war on them.”

And Chris Christie in Iowa; “Our nation is under siege “What I believe we’re facing is the next world war. This is what we’re in right now, already.”

Ratcheting up his rhetoric Ted Cruz also said, “We won’t weaken them. We won’t degrade them. We will utterly destroy them. We will carpet bomb them into oblivion.”

How you do that to a married couple secretly hatching a plot in a San Bernardino apartment, he didn’t say.

Power of Words: Two NY Times reporters analyzed every word spoken by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for the past week … 95,000 words … concluding that, “Mr. Trump appears unrivaled in his ability to forge bonds with a sizable segment of Americans over anxieties about a changing nation, economic insecurities, ferocious enemies and emboldened minorities,” including a black president.

Reporters Patrick Healy and Maggie Haberman found patterns in Trump’s speeches, including an “us” vs. “them” approach to immigration, and attacking opponents personally, calling them “stupid” and “weak” rather than discussing ideas.

The article says, “This pattern of elevating emotional appeals over rational ones is a rhetorical style that historians, psychologists and political scientists placed in the tradition of political figures like Goldwater, George Wallace, Joseph McCarthy, Huey Long and Pat Buchanan, who used fiery language to try to win favor with struggling or scared Americans.”

The Obit Page: Toughguy actor Robert Loggia, who appeared in “Scarface” in the movies and The Sopranos on television, has died of advanced Alzheimer’s disease. The gravel-voiced Loggia was a working actor in television and movies from the 1950s until nearly his death. Often the heavy, he departed typecasting in the 1988 “Big” dancing with Tom Hanks on a foot-operated keyboard. Loggia’s wife Audrey told Variety, “He loved being an actor. He used to say that he never had to work. He never had to wait tables.”

>Chuck Williams, who founded the kitchen and cookware chain that supplied the gourmet trend in home cooking, has died in San Francisco at age 100. In 1956 Williams opened a French cookware store in Sonoma, Calif. that became the 600-store Williams-Sonoma cookware company and online sales powerhouse. Williams sold the company in 1978, but remained as its public face and scout for new kitchen goods and gadgets.

Social Register: Rapper Kanye West and the professionally famous Kim Kardashian had their second child yesterday, a boy. The betting is that he will be named, like his sister North, for one of the points of the compass … South West, East West, West West. How about North by North West …