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COPYRIGHT 2006 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
A President is well advised to choose his words carefully. This is something the incumbent, left to his own devices, is not always capable of doing. A State of the Union speech finesses that difficulty. The speaker speaks off the teleprompter, not the cuff. And the words that scroll down on the angled reflectors to his left and his right are as carefully--or, at any rate, as exhaustively--considered as bureaucratic thoroughness can make them. Every prepared Presidential address has multiple authors, but a State of the Union is the product of whole buildings full of them. The text that George W. Bush recited last Tuesday night had gone through thirty drafts.
It's safe to assume, therefore, that the President was not speaking casually when he identified America's mortal enemy as "radical Islam." This is the latest milestone in a wandering terminological journey that began shortly after September 11, 2001. "War on terror" has always been problematic, at both ends. The word "war" has the requisite urgency, and it has proved useful in intimidating the political opposition at home. But, as we have seen in Iraq and elsewhere, its associations--pitched battles, clashing states, disciplined armies with general staffs--can invite actions that are, at best, beside the point. "Terror" is...
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