Columnist John Leo’s latest effort at media criticism is an entertaining foray into the "euphemism and gobbledy-gook" all around us. He cites hundreds of such stupidities in fields like business and health (oops! I’m redundant) and religion and politics.
In that last category, he chastises the "mainstream media" for employing "insurgents" instead of "terrorists" to label people who blow up innocent bystanders.
Note, first that. Leo – whose syndicated thinking originates with US News and World Report - is...is... the "mainstream media." Pretending otherwise enables him to play outsider and riff on the fiction of the "liberal media bias." (Yes, it’s the old Rush Limbaugh ploy.)
Also, since Leo is so alert to the proper use of the word "terrorist," how in the world did he neglect to cite the White House’s brilliant slogan – "the war on terrorism"? That gobbledy-gook helped the neo-cons conflate two different circumstances, 9/11 and Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, thereby persuading the gullible to permit a war on Iraq.
I doubt he neglected it. I suspect he subscribes to that bit of sophistry which, last I looked, has been deadly to 1,750 young Americans and I don’t know how many Iraqis.
Hey, Leo is entitled to his views. It's the feints and juke, yes, the deception that's obnoxious, particularly from a critic.