Jonah, those are good points, and you may be right. But it seems to me that the chief benefit of applying the word “fascist” is that it puts the Left in an awkward spot (part of the reason, I suspect, that conservative opinion writers are so drawn to the term). But the Left would still be where they are today on the War on Terror whatever label Bush had affixed to the evil-doers (complaining of infringements about our civil liberties, complaining that Iraq is a diversion from the war on the “fascists,” etc.). As for the broad American public, they already know these people are evil, and you don’t need rhetorical tricks to convince them of it. The souring of the pubic mood doesn’t have anything to do a lack of moral clarity, it has to do with the difficulties in Iraq. Finally, if you are invading Islamic countries and trying to separate radical Islam from the rest of the religion, it is important to signal that you are not motivated by a civilizational hostility to Islam. Maybe saying “Islam is peace” wasn’t exactly the right way to do it, but Bush had to say something similar.