Still more Orwellian newspeak from the new administration from the head of Homesland Security, no less, Janet Napolitano. She wants to replace the word “terrorism” with “man-caused disasters.” The very person assigned to protect us from terrorism does not believe that terrorism exists, prefering to imagine it as an impersonal disaster her office just has to clean up after. This is too much even more for The Washington Post, or at least Gene Weingarten’s column/blog, “The Gene Pool”:
Today we learn that Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano no longer likes to talk about “terrorism.” She prefers the term “man-caused disasters.”
Even in the gated-community Gene Pool, a reliable redoubt for escaped New Dealers and Bleeding Heart Liberals from this and other eras, this smacks of the craven politics of pacification — political correctness gone nuts. Bhopal was a man-caused disaster. Three-Mile-Island was a man-caused disaster. Terrorism is terrorism. What Napolitano has done is remove the moral responsibility for it.
Thus, today’s challenge is to help Ms. Napolitano by giving her some additional expressions she might adopt for things that might otherwise not sound so nice. Your expression can be addressing any sort of social concern.
Here’s one:
Don’t say “Islamofascist suicide bomber.” Call ’em “fatal disease carriers.”
Weingarten asks readers to come up with their own suggestions. Let’s do the same. What are some other new terms that would be useful to the new Obama administration?
[THIS IS FOR REAL. NOT AN APRIL FOOL’S JOKE.]
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