Philo turned me on to this article from the Times.

Apparently the administration is ditching the term “War on Terror” in favor of “global struggle against violent extremism” in an attempt to remind Americans that the military is only one part of the solution. According to the article, the word “war” implies that this is purely a job for our soldiers when, in fact, the Bush administration is using all of America’s tools.

Well, it certainly is a struggle.

If the administration is concerned that “war” is too limited a term and that “struggle” is better, I’ll play along. To me, a struggle accurately describes our lack of specific mission, exit strategy, or plan. It says that Bush and his cronies were wrong to chuckle at Senator Kerry’s insistence that the “War on Terror” was far more complicated than the administration let on. It says that our military is stretched so thin that we could not fight another front in this “war” even if we wanted to, so we’ll have to rely on Karen Hughes and Condi Rice in the State Department. And it says that Bush’s attempts to take up the mantle of Wilsonianism and apply it to 21st Century problems has been a bust because he has abandoned his idealistic crusade in favor of an ideological quagmire and business-as-usual.

Does this mean that Bush is no longer a “war-time president?” Can we start stripping away some Executive powers and roll back some of the PATRIOT Act?

I hope the White House Press Corps has fun with this.

~The Stuffed Tiger