Last week I submitted an article for editorial review on Political Cortex titled, "Rhetoric of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." It spent about one week in the queue, was voted up and down, and then finally disappeared from the queue. I would like to open a discussion about this controversial article for the purpose of gathering people's thoughts about it, and to learn why it was not deemed suitable for publication on this website.

Though the mainstream media frequently talks about the "War on Terror" with terminology lifted from the battlefields of World War II, the net has featured some terrific discussion of what it means to engage in warfare against an enemy that refuses to fight by your own standards of "honorable behavior."  In particular, Pericles' diary on asymmetrical warfare is one of the clearest, most informative pieces of writing you're likely to find in any forum.

But as we're appreciating the difficulty that conventional armies face in asymmetrical engagements, let's remember the quote by Mao Tse-Tung: "all politics is war."  And on the political language front, Democrats are fighting a conventional war against an enemy that just won't "fight fair."

The Republican message machine is broken--but it's still blaring louder than ever.  In the Situation Room on Monday afternoon, Nicolle Wallace (aka Nicolle Devinish, married during Katrina) attempted to respond to Wolf Blitzer's question about the "horrible" poll numbers the President is racking up week after week.  Sixty-eight percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.  What was Nicole's response?

"The American people know that this Administration is focused on their priorities, you know, securing our borders, and reining in spending." (CNN's most recent poll indicates 65% disapprove of Bush on immigration; only 37% approve of his job performance.)

This brings me to a subject near and dear to my heart, as well as to my profession:  the political abuse of language and truth.