I think W said “religion of peace” to try quell a stem of violence that was on the verge of eruption that was beginning in this country against anyone who looked middle eastern. Whether they were Islamist or not.
Really, you think that was happening, or about to happen? I lived in Bayonne, NJ at the time of those attacks. And while I said to a friend that I thought the cops should be going door-to-door in Northern NJ (inasmuch as I thought that if the IRA had done it they should be going door-to-door in Woodside, Queens) but there was nothing like that going on, nor was it about to go on.
That was all BS, and continued to be BS, and continues to be BS.
There may be isolated instances of bad behaviour, but Americans, for the much most part, are a very fair minded people.
What Pres. Bush did, with his ill considered proviso, was to make sure that we could never really fight the enemy.
We were just going to fight “terrorism”, which would be akin to medicine seeking a cure for “fever”.
The average Muslim has never been in danger in America (if they thought they were presumably they’d leave which they’d be free to do).
We have not accepted the challenge, I don’t know how many times the Jihadis will slap our face with the glove. I guess we’ll just have to let time tell the tale.