Deploy Nuance and Talking Points to Ferret Out Evil!
Must be 'With the Enemy' After All
By Brad Friedman on 7/28/2005, 10:59am PT  

In today's LA Times, Juliette Kayyem --- a former member of the National Commission on Terrorism --- speaks about the Administration's "rebranding" of Bush's failed "Global War on Terror".

In case you haven't heard, it's no longer a "war", it's now the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism" according to the latest nuance from the Bushies who are --- as they always have been --- more concerned with poll numbers and good P.R. than about National Security and keeping this country safe.

As we previously saw the color-coded "Terror Alert" system cynically manipulated to keep American's frightened prior to the election (and then go virtually unchanged ever since), Kayyem also points out the change in pre/post-Election usage of the word "war" by the dangerous and unrepentant opportunistic Chickenhawks in the White House:

Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution recently found that Bush used the term "war" three times as often in the six months leading up to the 2004 election as in the six months after. In the month before the election, he invoked it 71 times. But since the polls have closed, it's only been important enough to raise an average of 11 times in any 30-day period.

Even in his last publicized news conference, there was no GWOT, and the term "war" was mentioned only once. In contrast, Bush used the d-word (diplomatic or diplomatically) nearly a dozen times.

Looks like the Administration has gone downright "French" on us. What a bunch of girlie-men! It's almost as if John Kerry and those advocating "nuance" and "diplomacy" prior to the Election were right or something! As if they didn't actually "hate America" after all! What next for this White House? "Preparing indictments" like those "soft on terror" Liberals?

Kayyem closes with the obvious. Though clearly, it still requires repeating to get through the noise...

War, struggle, fight, effort, whatever — we still don't seem to be describing the smooth intelligence operation; the tough law enforcement; the suave, cooperative diplomacy; the delicate nation-building and vigilant homeland security that is needed to complement our military prowess. If administration officials put as much effort into getting these jobs done as they apparently put into rethinking their talking points, perhaps we'd have some real success in this global, uh, endeavor. And what we call it would matter a lot less.
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