Back to Andrew Sullivan, for his article in yesterday's Salon is still rubbing me the wrong way. It's amazing how much outright garbage he was able to pack into just a little over 300 words, but what I'm finding particularly irksome today is his use of the word "Islamo-fascism", which I've noticed he's rather fond of. This darling neologism that has been making the rounds of late among conservative pundits is classic Newspeak for a phenomenon that hits a little too close to home for the right to demonize it without an Orwellian name-change: we call it fundamentalism. Because you see, if the problem the West is facing these days lies with Islamic fundamentalists, and not Islamo-fascists, then we might have to suspect our own home-grown fundamentalists of being equally deranged and dangerous to world stability. For example, how about all those "born-again Christians" in Congress and the White House who believe that the Second Coming is literally going to happen within their lifetime - you don't think that may be skewing their policies on the Middle East, do you? (Of course not! What are you, some kind of an anti-Semite? Check out Antiwar.com for an interesting argument about who the real victims of anti-Semitism might be in this "war on terrorism" - hint, Arabs are also Semitic people - and further investigation into the neocons' creation of an Islamo-fascist bogeyman as a justification for regime change without end.)

I have an idea: why don't we starting calling our own fundies "Christian-fascists", and let's see how that plays in the Heartland!