Bush says call it "surge" and the media scum strap on their kneepads and comply

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.journalism.org./node/3697

Days before President Bush announced his plan for committing 21,500 more troops in the Middle East, speculation began in the news media about how the administration would frame the increase in troop levels. Since the battle for public support is often a matter of semantics, the syntax of the troop plan may influence its success.

In this case, the President’s plan faces growing public dissatisfaction with the war and a new Democratic Congress pushing for a phased withdrawal.

Supporters of an increased deployment have often used the word “surge” to describe the plan. The term, some say, suggests temporariness and strength. Democrats, on the other hand, have used “escalate” or “escalation”—a term associated with then president Lyndon Johnson’s unpopular move to send more troops to Vietnam. Unlike surge, escalate connotes an ongoing rise, which was underscored by Senator Dick Durbin’s rebuttal to President Bush’s speech, “The escalation of his war is not the change that the American people called for in the last election.”

But the president didn’t use either of the disputed words—“surge” or “escalate”—in his speech January 10. He used the word “commit.”

So what word has the news media adopted in their coverage of Iraq policy in the week after the President’s decision? PEJ conducted various online news searches of different data bases to find out.

Surge was the clear term of choice in print, television, radio and even blogs, the search suggests. About twice as many stories employed that term over the next most popular term, “escalate” or “escalation”.

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. I disagree.

Those aren't kneepads. They are callouses that have formed over time from kneeling at the RW altar. And the stains on their clothing aren't entirely from spilled Kool-Aid .