COMMENTARY | April 23, 2007
Bush's favorite phrase has created a culture of fear -- but beyond that has no useful function. And while we're at it, what's the right way to describe what the U.S. is doing in Iraq? continue...
By Dan Froomkin
froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org
Back in November, when NBC announced that it would start calling the conflict in Iraq what it is -- a civil war – the White House howled in protest and the Washington establishment belittled it as a semantic sideshow.
But I think it made a difference. Watching a major media institution assert its right to its own word choice (rather than letting the White House set the terms of the debate) emboldened the rest of the press corps. It ushered in a period of greater truth-telling. And after a while, even the White House was forced to admit that Iraq was indeed in a state of civil war – among other things.
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