The fever breaks?

The GOP's Anti-Muslim Wing Is In Retreat

Make no mistake.

The neocons like McCain dumping the Islamophobes like Gaffney is symptomatic of the declining influence of both.

They have all wanted an attack on Iran since GW was in the White House and have been unable to get it done.

The global war on terror was a global war against Islam and both the rhetoric of the latter and the reality of the former are in decline.

Which is not to say the US will even come close to dumping Israel or ceasing to insist on being chief meddler in the Middle East.

And highly visible security measures will not be abolished for a long time, yet.

On the other hand, the chance of some of the more absurd and conspicuous measures at last being surreptitiously focused on the actual threat – profiling airport and air travel security measures, for instance – will go up.

And none of this, of course, means that Islam isn’t a “totalitarian political ideology,” or even that fewer Americans think so.

And a renewal of the fever is entirely possible, anyway.