Shorter spockamok: There's a perceived clash of civilizations primarly because alot of political entrepreneuers and their constituents in the Muslim communities made a choice to interpret the world in civlizational terms, and view every geopolitical happening through a prism that colors everything as a humiliation for either "Islam" or the "other". They didn't have to boil religion and politics down to that simple formula, but they did. And it causes problems for all of us, but most of all for them. Some U.S. policies have fed the perception but it was already well-entrenched before Bush was President, indeed, before he even sobered up. Therefore, while assertions by our current Prez that there's no fundamental conflict and certainly don't hurt, and might help a little, the "civilizational clash" problem won't occur until Islamists get a more sophisticated way of thinking about the world than their current zero sum paradigm and lose their obsession with keeping scores and settling scores.

"Next, the President made clear that there must be a political space for Islamist movements in the Arab world." & "The implication of the President's words is clear: we have no war with Islamist movements that reject violence and pledge to abide by democratic practices. & "America will accept partnerships with Islamic political movements that reject violence is perhaps two of the most effective weapons in the counter-insurgency toolbox for the United States (and of course let's not forget the fact that he reiterated his intention to have US troops out of Iraq by 2012)." The three quotes above assume that a U.S. unwillingness to accept Islamist politics is a source of the conflict between the U.S. and Islamist factions like Al-Qaeda. But the U.S. has always been accepting of Islamist politics, violent and non-violent alike, as long as they do not initiate attacks (or verbally discuss attacks) on the U.S. or its allies. The Gulf and Morrocan monarchies are Islamist. The central government of Bosnia was governed by a party with an Islamist agenda. During the Cold War the U.S. preferred Islamists to radical secularists and nationalists, and the Mujhadeen of Afghanistan is by no means the only example. The U.S. made space for Islamist politicians on its own territory, by granting political asylum to the Blind Sheikh, despite the fact he was a vituperative critic of a U.S. ally. What is Saudi Arabia if not Islamic fundamentalist? Yet the U.S. has been allied to Saudi Arabia because of common economic and geopolitical interests. Saudi Arabia even vocally criticizes U.S. policy at times and provides aid to anti-Israeli groups. But, in the end official Riyadh and Washington could get along because they compartmentalize the areas in which they agree, and in which they disagree, from each other. Saudi never got on the same s*it list in America as Libya, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan because their chief executive never ordered terrorist attacks on Americans, never tried to conquer a neighbor and never made a rhetorical habit of claiming how he was going to kick America's ass in the region. So, I have just illustrated that America has picked its enemies in the Muslim world based on their policies, not disapproval of their religion. This is not to say America has picked its enemies wisely or been in the right, it is just to say that it is unsupportable to claim that chauvinism against Islamic religion or law drives U.S. policy. Nope, the proximate origin of the U.S.'s recent conflict with Sunni Islamists, in its violent and non-violent forms, is that since 1990 or so Sunni Islamists have increasingly insisted that there is a conflict. They have willfully decided to "keep score" in such a manner that says that any exercise of American power in earshot of a Muslim is a mark of disrespect for Muslim authority. The Islamists that the U.S. considers "radical" are the ones who have abandoned old style Saudi compartmentalization, and who insist that any fight that any Muslim happens to be in anywhere in the world for any reason is a fight where they have to take sides. "If that is not a shot across the bow not only to Al Qaeda, but also to ossified Arab regimes that reject any role for Islam I don't know what is." Name an Arab regime that rejects any role for Islam. You can't find one. Every Arab government has some degree of sensitivity to Islamic religious and cultural attitudes. What the Arab regimes object to is challenges to their own political power and patronage networks. Besides just wanting to maintain their power, surely most Arab leaders are believing Muslims who just tend not to see why would be politicians who are part of parties that formally call themselves Islamist would be better rulers than they. Ossified they are, but rabidly secularist they are not. "No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party." You know, I did love this speech, and I think pretty much everything the Prez said was true, even if he was interpreted as changing a U.S. attitude toward political Islam that he was not. I think he offered a great challenge to governments with the quote above, and he would not have wanted to load it with more words...but his statement would have encompassed more of the real problems if he had rendered it thus: "No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power (and for all who want to hold power): you must maintain your power through consent (you must seek power through consent), not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party." In other parts of the speech he did challenge seekers of power as well as wielders of power, both need to be more responsible in that region.

Of course it is political, and arguing otherwise is silly. It's also political in a very specific way, that tracks with partisan definitions of liberal and conservative. If members of the court's opinions were distributed on the basis even of political or constitutional philosophy, there would be alot more judges who are populist or libertarian. Instead, those members of the court most interested in regulating business are least interested in private behavior, and those least concerned for individual privacy or the rights of the accused are also least interested in regulating business. Those in the middle, fall in the middle of this particular continuum of american style "conservative" and "liberal". Seeing that distribution of opinions on the court rather than a distribution along the libertarian-populist axis is all the proof that's needed that the court's composition reflects the distribution of elected political power at the time of justice's appointments.