The so-called "Global War on Terror®" is now the so-called "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism®"

"U.S. Officials Retool Slogan for Terror War"
- 26 July 2005 - New York Times:

The Bush administration is retooling its slogan for the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, pushing the idea that the long-term struggle is as much an ideological battle as a military mission, senior administration and military officials said Monday.
In recent speeches and news conferences, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the nation's senior military officer have spoken of 'a global struggle against violent extremism' rather than 'the global war on terror,' which had been the catchphrase of choice. Administration officials say that phrase may have outlived its usefulness, because it focused attention solely, and incorrectly, on the military campaign.

Note how badly they want to control the language of the present apocalypse, and how supine we and our media sources of information have been in accepting their language. The international media almost always called attention to the abstract entity the Bush Administration up until recently called "the war on terror" by placing it in quotation marks or prefacing it with the "so-called" label that pointed out that wars on abstract concepts are doomed to fail. Note how when their language isn't working, they do not change their actions, they just change the phrase that has garnered unfavorable attention or poll numbers (Social Security Privatization anyone?). Or at least they try to. We can't let them. If they control the language (Death Tax, Partial Birth Abortion, Hillarycare), then we lose.
We need to control the language of the current scandal too. We can't let it be reduced to "Rovegate" or "Plamegate," because that story will end when Karl is frogmarched from the West Wing. "Iraqgate" belongs to Reagan and Bush Senior and their arming of Saddam, "Wargate" is too general (and probably a video game) .... I still like Whiggate, because I think that as soon as you start explaining who the WHIGs are (they make Nixon's Plumbers looks like penny-ante thieves in comparison), you've linked the aims of the Downing Street Memo, the White House Iraq Group's conspiracy to falsify the reasons for war, and the outing of Valerie Plame to cover up those falsifications, in one narrative. "Rovegate"suggests a deceptively simple isolated story, which ends when the long-awaited frogmarch finally takes place. Whiggate forces you to ask, Who's next? Card, Libby, Cheney ... ? It has the feel and power of Watergate to reach farther and farther up the ladder, with the end target being obvious. Also, we can make up t-shirts that say "W stands for Whiggate."

What do you think?
True Blue Liberal