Words have meaning. And when we use them in a sentence, we intend to convey a meaning. Otherwise, all we do when we speak is just make a loud, annoying noise.
In order for one person to speak, and another to understand what is spoken, it is essential that words have a common meaning. Indeed, words cannot be allowed to have their meaning changed, for when words are intentionally manipulated to have a new meaning, it is an attempt to create a new reality.
Yet, during the Bush years, and even prior to that, we have seen many attempts by Republicans and conservatives to take words and redefine them for their own purposes. In fact, not only do Republicans redefine them, they give the words their opposite meaning most times.
The Republicans have tried very hard to make George Orwell’s alternate reality in 1984 become our reality. Under the guise of laudable goals of establishing democracy and liberation, the Bush Administration has engaged in oppression, greed, violence, occupation all in the attempt to forment neverending war. For neverending war is profitable for the businessman and the politician alike. For the businessman, prices rise on speculation and new armanents always require manufacture and sale. For the politician, a country at war is full of citizens living in fear and will to accept almost anything.
So I disagree with Eugene Robinson’s column in the Washington Post yesterday, wherein he says the following:
It’s not a “timetable” for extricating U.S troops from Iraq that George W. Bush is suddenly talking about, and heaven help anyone who accuses him of proposing a “timeline.” No, the Decider says he is now amenable to a “time horizon,” which apparently is a whole different kind of time thing — not at all like the sensible course of action that Democrats and other critics of the Iraq occupation have been demanding.
If Bush were known for exquisite subtlety in his use of the language, I’d note that a horizon is, by definition, a line that can never be reached. But pigs will streak across the sky at Mach 2 before this president displays a diabolical mastery of semantics. His new “time horizon” formulation is just smoke, intended to obfuscate and stall. In six months, Iraq becomes somebody else’s problem.
Actually, while Bush himself cannot be accused of being a master wordsmith, the Republican speechwriters he employs have been operating with exquisite subtlety for years now. Indeed, they all must be wistful as Bush’s term comes to an end, for if they had an effective communicator like Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama to spread their Orwellian message of fear and fascism, only God can know what horrors would have been unleashed. The phrase “time horizon” is no doubt their invention, not an off-the-cuff Bushism.
And it is a classic example of Republican language reinvention. Against recent events of vast majorities of Americans, Iraqis, and the Iraqi government itself favoring a timeline for American withdrawal from Iraq, this phrase was crafted with the ultimate skill. It was designed to give the impression that even Bush himself was not opposed to bringing our troops home someday. However, as Mr. Robinson points out, this new Orwellian phrase has a certain truth to it.
For when you look for the meaning of “horizon” in the dictionary, you find:
ho·ri·zon – noun – the apparent junction of earth and sky.
As you know, there is no junction between earth and sky. The junction is only apparent to the observer due to an optical illusion. As you walk the sphere of the Earth, the horizon line moves with you, not unlike the various goalposts of success established by the Bush Administration and the various Washington pundits over the last five years. As such, it cannot ever be attained.
Thus, for once, the Bush team of speechwriters have told the truth. By having Bush say he is amenable to withdrawing our troops at some time horizon in the future, all he is saying is that we might withdraw at some point, but it will never happen. It is actually quite masterful politically, when you think about it. Sure we may laugh at the awkwardness of the phrase, but it says to those who can still be swayed by President Bush but who also want to get out of Iraq that he too shares there goals of withdrawing troops; while at the same time he says to his fascist base that he will never withdraw troops.
That is exquisite subtlety, and just another milepost in the Republican war on language.