A euphemism for a euphemism?
"It just seems to be a term that cropped up that seemed useful," says Lewis Sorley, a retired Army officer and prominent military historian.
Sorley notes that the word is politically savvy because "surge" seems to suggest a sharp but passing event. "If you're trying to engender support from those who have doubts about the war, it's a useful word," he says. "Because if this is a temporary event, it might be more palatable."
The surge will not be temporary. Nor will be the steady flow of BS. The media have fallen into the soup.
"Surge" falls into "the Orwellian zone between language and politics," says Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which studies and evaluates the media. "The president and his advisers would be remiss if they didn't come up with a term suited to their new policy. But journalists would be equally remiss if they just thoughtlessly repeated the term without pondering the policy and its implications."
Remissing the boat? The tide of BS rises. Only in DC is this considered progress, a new way forward. Whatever.
