Not for the first time, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has become an object of media derision over a language question. The word-loving secretary is always a tempting target, but this time -- as in the past -- journalists might have done better to hold the jokes. Words are the media's stock in trade, after all. It's not such a bad thing for a public official to take them seriously, even when he turns out to be wrong.
Of course, it was amusing when, at a Pentagon briefing last Monday, Mr. Rumsfeld took it upon himself to end the pesky Iraqi insurgency by the simple tactic of declaring that there were no insurgents in Iraq and never had been. He had experienced an "epiphany" about it over the weekend, he said.
"I thought to myself, 'You know, it gives them a greater legitimacy than they seem to merit,' " he said, referring to the use of the word insurgents for Iraq's violent opposition. "I think that you can have a legitimate insurgency in a country that has popular support and has a cohesiveness and a legitimate gripe. These people don't have a legitimate gripe."