Orwell Strikes Again
Problem solving by redefinition

Dana Milbank in the WP article Rumsfeld's War On 'Insurgents' gives another example of the double speak for which this administration has become famous:

Last weekend, while other Americans were watching football and eating leftover turkey, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ended the Iraqi insurgency.

It was easy, really: He declared that the insurgents would, henceforth, no longer be called insurgents.

"Over the weekend, I thought to myself, 'You know, that gives them a greater legitimacy than they seem to merit,' " Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon briefing yesterday, said of his ban on the I-word. "It was an epiphany," he added, throwing his hands in the air.

Encouraging reporters to consult their dictionaries, the defense secretary said: "These people aren't trying to promote something other than disorder, and to take over that country and turn it into a caliphate and then spread it around the world. This is a group of people who don't merit the word 'insurgency,' I think."

It is scary to be ruled by people who think perception equals reality.