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You've made some progress over the last few posts. I was getting pretty frustrated.

Islamists (as opposed to plain old Muslims who may or may not want to act on the Jihad teaching) don't care what we say about them, their position against us is fixed, as long as we are not willing to convert to Islam.

We still have to deal with Islamic nations with religious leaders in political power and as long as we do, we need to make the distinction from our political discourse and the religious discourse or they won't even engage us in the political one. There are many nations where Islam is the dominant religion, which are secular (non-religious) in their political leadership. For those that aren't, the president must tread very lightly and be careful to make the distinction between political and religious statements, thus his action to distance himself as our political leader from what the religious leaders on the Christian right are saying was warranted. Any activity he engages in from a religious perspective is purely public relations which is one of his roles as our political leader. He never comments on the merits of the Islam religion; only his observations of the people. He is a devout Christian and knows that Islam is false. He's just performing his PR role.

You've made some progress over the last few posts. I was getting pretty frustrated.

Hmm... maybe it's just you that made progress. I still feel in the same position as I originally did.

we need to make the distinction from our political discourse and the religious discourse or they won't even engage us in the political one.

But that is not what Bush was doing. Bush was PLACATING - which means in essence, saying whatever, true or not, to avoid a confrontation.

If nothing else, he was highlighting for these Islamic leaders that their sheep over here are being brainwashed and they had better get them back on track.

While I know he is a devout Christian that doesn't mean he needs to comment, in his position, on Pat Robertson's rantings or anyone else's for that matter. I think him doing so makes it look as though Pat and his ilk have more sway than they do.

IMO he should just keep himself out of it as nanny and others have suggested. There is no way to bring up this issue in his position without being insulting to one side or the other so why not just keep quiet? Why then choose the side he has?

(Why?? because he's not afraid Christians will rise up and declare Jihad on America in response!)