Spin The Course - San Fransisco Chronicle

I spotted this editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle. It's so good, I'm reproducing it here, in its entirety:


"WAR IS PEACE. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength."

Let's hope we have not reached George Orwell's "doublespeak" future depicted in his novel "1984" where the Ministry of Truth erects a giant pyramid enshrining those slogans.

But when President Bush says "stay the course" doesn't mean "stay the course," you have to start worrying about our national leadership's ability to redefine almost everything.

If there are three words that define this administration -- regarding its attitude toward governance, tax cuts the war in Iraq, etc. -- they are "stay the course."

But here's what Bush told ABC's George Stephanopoulos: "Listen, we've never been 'stay the course,' George."

According to Bush's spokesman, "stay the course" now means "a study in constant motion."
Let's be charitable. Maybe the administration is just confused -- starting with the president.

On Oct. 11, Bush said the following: "Stay the course means keep doing what you're doing. My attitude is: Don't do what you're doing if it's not working. Change." But then he added, "Stay the course also means don't leave before the job is done. And we're going to get the job gone in Iraq."
Come again?

Those running the war are now grappling with the meaning of "win" -- a semantic debate with far graver consequences than former President Bill Clinton's musings about the definition of "is."

Doesn't winning mean defeating the terrorists in Iraq, as President Bush has been telling us for years?

Apparently not. On Tuesday, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "You have to define what it means to win." Winning, Pace said, now means security, good governance and a functioning economy. He gloomily predicted that terrorism in Iraq is going to be around "for the next 10, 20 or 30 years."

Remember how for months the administration pilloried anyone who wanted to set a "timetable" to end our occupation of Iraq? According to its math, "timetable" equals "cutting and running."
Now the administration is talking about its own benchmarks, deadlines, time lines -- and even timetables. Just not the kind of timetables proposed by those "cut-and-run" Democrats.

"Freedom is the freedom to say 2 plus 2 makes 4," Orwell wrote. "If that is granted, all else will follow."

Wouldn't it be great if our freedom-loving president acknowledged that 2 plus 2 equals 4 -- not some other fictional number?