Diana West thinks that my column on excessive deference to Islam reveals me as a pusillanimous nancy-boy because right at the end I use the word “Islamist”. She thinks ”Islamism” is a linguistic dodge that attempts to draw a false distinction between Islam in general and a, er, few bad apples.

I do use what she regards as the weasel word “Islamism”, but I generally reserve it for a particular strand of hyper-Islam. Its solitary appearance in my column was in reference to a speech by Osama bin Laden. Islam itself is a profound challenge to any free society, for reasons I explain in my book, and it’s true that in many ways Islam and Islamism function as a good cop/bad cop routine in the pressures they exert on western nations. But it’s useful to have a word that distinguishes depraved death-cultists from the generality of Muslims leaning on wimp western governments to advance creeping sharia, Islamic banking, de facto polygamy, etc.

Still, I wonder if Diana’s available as an expert witness this summer. Beginning on June 3rd, I’ll be appearing before the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal defending my book against the accusation by the Canadian Islamic Congress that, among other offences, I tar all of Islam with the same brush. So if Miss West could show up and denounce me as a sissy pantywaist equivocating hairsplitter, it would be very helpful.