HIS HAGIOGRAPHERS WILL ALWAYS think otherwise, but what President Barack Obama said about America’s relationship with the Islamic world during his interview with al Arabiya–namely, that “Americans are not your enemy”–only restated what American presidents have been saying in word and deed for almost 20 years now.

Obama’s immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, was often caricatured, especially in the Islamic world, as a crusading cowboy and enemy of Islam. Perception is important in this media-saturated age, to be sure, but facts are stubborn things.