While a fierce battle over President Bush's "new way forward" in Iraq is being joined in the halls of Congress, an even more ferocious war of words is taking place to win the hearts and minds of the American people.
Among Democrats, Republicans and the media at large, a rhetorical conflict to control the marketing of the Bush message on Iraq is well underway. From almost the moment the Iraq Study Group report landed with a thud on the President's desk, the mainstream media reported on Bush's pending "surge" in U.S. force levels. Democrats portrayed Bush's doubling-down in Baghdad as an "escalation". (Interestingly, only "escalation" appears in the Pentagon's official U.S. military dictionary.) And just last week, the feckless Secretary of State Condi Rice feebly hoped to assuage the Senate by referring her boss' new Iraq strategy as an "augmentation."
As ever, Perrspectives is here to help resolve the rhetorical confusion. Here, then, is a quick vocabulary lesson in understanding the White House: