President Bush has toned down his war rhetoric after Muslim-rights groups complained his description of the enemy as “Islamic fascists” unfairly equates Islam with terrorism.

In his speech to the American Legion Thursday, Bush backed away from the term, defining the enemy simply as “fascists” and “totalitarians.”

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The White House insider says it’s unlikely Bush will repeat the term “Islamic fascists” out of deference to Muslim groups. ~WorldNetDaily

Which is worse: continuing to use the misleading and inaccurate term fascist to describe jihadis or refusing to attach the word Islamic to the name because CAIR has badgered you?  The ‘Islamic’ part of Islamic fascist was the only part Mr. Bush had been getting right thus far. 

In fact, the WND story is slightly misleading.  In the speech, Mr. Bush described the jihadis as “successors” of fascists, Nazis, communists “and other totalitarians” (?), and referred to them directly only as totalitarians or extremists.  As I have said before, referring to them as totalitarian makes a certain amount of sense.  Simply calling them fascist will be doubly silly, and it is particularly pathetic that a lobbying group of such dubious reputation as CAIR can change presidential rhetoric so easily.