“Hey: I wasn’t the one who said it!”
That’s essentially the message of President George Bush who has made it clear that as far as he’s concerned the “war on terrorism” REMAINS “the war on terrorism” on the war on “violent extremism” as some of his advisors began to call it as the latest round of PC fever seemingly hit Washington:
GRAPEVINE, Tex., Aug. 3 – President Bush publicly overruled some of his top advisers on Wednesday in a debate about what to call the conflict with Islamic extremists, saying, “Make no mistake about it, we are at war.”
In a speech here, Mr. Bush used the phrase “war on terror” no less than five times. Not once did he refer to the “global struggle against violent extremism,” the wording consciously adopted by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other officials in recent weeks after internal deliberations about the best way to communicate how the United States views the challenge it is facing……
In an interview last week about the new wording, Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush’s national security adviser, said that the conflict was “more than just a military war on terror” and that the United States needed to counter “the gloomy vision” of the extremists and “offer a positive alternative.”
People can and do debate this issue (and even on this site there has been some disagreement). But perception means a lot and SO:
But administration officials became concerned when some news reports linked the change in language to signals of a shift in policy. At the same time, Mr. Bush, by some accounts, told aides that he was not happy with the new phrasing, a change of tone from the wording he had consistently used since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
It is not clear whether the new language embraced by other administration officials was adopted without Mr. Bush’s approval or whether he reversed himself after the change was made. Either way, he planted himself on Wednesday firmly on the side of framing the conflict primarily in military terms and appeared intent on emphasizing that there had been no change in American policy…..
But Bush has also noted — it is indeed “nuance” — that “war on terror” may not completely describe what’s going on:
Mr. Bush made a nod to the criticism that “war on terror” was a misleading phrase in the sense that the enemy is not terrorism, but those who used it to achieve their goals. In doing so, he used the word “war,” as he did at least 13 other times in his 47-minute speech, most of which was about domestic policy.
“Make no mistake about it, this is a war against people who profess an ideology, and they use terror as a means to achieve their objectives,” he said.
There seems to be a larger issue here, which goes beyond the war. It’s the ease with which politicos of both parties and government officials try to change wording to make something more PC or to disguise what’s really going on.
When you see the phrase “Pre Owned Cars” you know what they really are. But there’s a reason why advertisers and car dealerships use that instead of the phrase “used cars.” Ditto with the war on terror (war on violent extremism), creationism (intelligent design), liberal (progressive), constitutional option (to hide phrase REPUBLICANS originally used to journalists “nuclear option”) etc. Why not use the original phrases and stand by them? They are all valid and defensible?
Yours truly,
The Not Democrat Not Republican Not Liberal Not Conservative But Always Right Unless I’m Wrong Voice
(People say “moderate” is a frowned upon word..)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.