Casualty of War: The English Language

George W. Bush has degraded everything Americans value--our morality, our reputation in the world, our political system--and today we see what he is doing to our language.

In his umpteenth promise to veto Congress’ war-funding bill, the President says, "That's not to say I'm not interested in their opinions. I am. I look forward to working with members of both parties to get a bill that doesn't set artificial timetables and doesn't micromanage and gets the money to our troops."

Someone should explain that the actions of a co-equal branch of government are not “opinions” but legitimate exercise of their constitutional responsibilities.

Someone, perhaps the Republicans who now seem willing to negotiate benchmarks for the Iraqi government, should tell him that branding them “artificial timetables” doesn’t make the urgency of setting them any less real.

Someone should point out that, if Congress is trying to “micromanage” the war, it’s the result of his mismanaging it for four years.

But that would not likely be enough to get Bush to give up the talking points of Rovespeak and start addressing us in plain English.