Fighting jihadist terror and being at war with Islam are, of course, two different things that can remain distinct from each other. The Bush and Obama administrations both went to great efforts to try to make it possible to maintain this distinction. Nonetheless, official statements that the US is not fighting against all of Islam and even the reality that Muslims enjoy more religious freedom in the US than in almost any other country in the world, something which both Presidents Bush and Obama have pointed out while in office, will be very easily overshadowed if this Islamic Center is not allowed to be built now. It has become almost a cliché to point out that the current Republican Party would have rejected Dwight Eisenhower or Ronald Reagan for being too liberal, but the debate over the Islamic Center suggests that they would reject George W. Bush on these grounds as well.