When President Bush responded to the thwarted Airplane Plot by declaring, not for the first time, that we are at war with “Islamic fascists,” we could note that we’ve come a long semantic distance from the president’s first attempts to discuss the war on “evildoers.” But is “Islamic fascists” the replacement-term we’ve been waiting for? (Like Michelle, I’ve tried out the term and discarded it for giving the doctrinal core of jihad a pass.)

Here’s further analysis and reportage by Daniel Pipes, Paul Sperry and the Washington Times editorial page. TWT endorsed the term while taking exception to any implication that the jihad ideology under discussion is “mainstream Islam,” adding: “It is a corruption of the faith.” And here is Andrew Bostom taking exception to the Washington Times’ taking exception.

UPDATE 9pm: HOW COULD I POSSIBLY HAVE OVERLOOKED THIS??
In a cabinet statement Monday, the Saudi Arabian government “warned against hurling charges of terrorism and fascism at Muslims without regard to the spotless history of Islamic civilization.”

Spotless?