Pastor Terry Jones might not be an expert in theology, politics or basic human decency, but he more than compensates with media savvy. He can wring every last drop of press attention out of even a retreat, as he demonstrated last night when he announced the cancellation of Burn a Quran Day and then, not four hours later, issued a semi-retraction, claiming that he’d been misled (those sneaky Muslims!) and suggesting he might still burn some Qurans after all.

As I write this, the fate of Burn a Quran Day is still up in the air, but my guess is it probably won’t happen. Instead, Jones will soak up another news cycle or so of sweet, sweet infamy, before publicly declaring that he’s holding off “out of respect for the troops,” whom his actions could endanger. The career Muslim-haters who previously called him out for going just a teensy bit too far will thank him profusely, leaving open the door to future friendship, interviews and well-paying speaking engagements.

But even if my prediction turns out to be completely wrong, the leaders of the right-wing’s anti-Muslim brigade nonetheless owe this man a fruit basket. He may not have sparked the recent explosion of Islamophobia, but he’s done as much as just about anyone to drag it into the mainstream.

Don’t get me wrong: When even Alan Keyes thinks you’ve crossed the line, that means that the actual line is about two or three time zones behind you. But that’s rather the point. Jones is so extreme — so outlandishly, cartoonishly vile — that Keyes, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Pamela Geller and the rest of the armchair holy warriors can condemn his intolerance in the same breath that they echo thinly veiled versions of his sentiments.

This is what they wanted all along: to be able to say startlingly bigoted things without being perceived as bigoted per se. Which is why Geller, for example, gets so worked up when you take her rabid hatred of Muslims out of context and call her “anti-Muslim.” Now she has a new line: she is on the record against burning a big pile of Qurans, which conclusively proves that she has nothing against Muslims and is merely a concerned citizen.