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Don't Romanticize Terrorism

So Iraqi insurgents in and around Baghdad have launched a series of Christmas strikes against hotels, banks, and embassies. All of these strikes deliberately target civilians.

Nevertheless, the Associated Press graces them with all the misguided, Soldiers-of-the-Lost-Cause romanticism the word ‘rebel’ implies.

Sorry, but no.

Luke Skywalker was a “rebel.”
Robert E. Lee was a “rebel.”

The English language is a very rich and nuanced language. And we already have a word for those who deliberately target noncombatants in hotels and embassies: We call them “terrorists.”

On Time's Person of the Year

So this year’s Time Magazine Person of the Year is “The American Soldier.”

I’m sure the Marine Corps appreciates the gesture.

Last year they couldn’t settle on anyone in particular, either. It was corporate whistleblowers like Sherron Watkins.

Don’t these guys ever go out on a limb, anymore? If there was ever a year for a President to be named “Man of the Year,” 2003 was it! This war was not some Tolstoyan tital wave of popular sentiment that carried President Bush along with it. The war that toppled Saddam Hussein--for good or for ill—was overwhelmingly the product of a single will—George W. Bush’s.

Time is defining their “Man of the Year” concept out of all usefulness.