Pomo Rummy Posted by Michael Signer

Amid today's news (chronicled below, rather movingly, by Heather) of the President's further recalcitrance on Iraq, Dana Milbank has a WaPo article today recounting an interesting press conference by Donald Rumsfeld. 

In an agile, postmodern, linguistic pirouette, the Secretary attempted to remake reality through words.  Check this out:

[Rumsfeld] declared that the insurgents would, henceforth, no longer be called insurgents.

"Over the weekend, I thought to myself, 'You know, that gives them a greater legitimacy than they seem to merit,' " Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon briefing yesterday, said of his ban on the I-word. "It was an epiphany," he added, throwing his hands in the air.

Encouraging reporters to consult their dictionaries, the defense secretary said: "These people aren't trying to promote something other than disorder, and to take over that country and turn it into a caliphate and then spread it around the world. This is a group of people who don't merit the word 'insurgency,' I think."

It is the funniest thing for an administration allegedly populated by hard-nosed realists -- and dizzy-eyed idealists -- that the head of defense should believe such a postmodern proposition that reality actually just depends on what you call things.   

The Secretary's hardly a fan of France -- or of Old Europe.  But could he be a closeted admirer of Jacques Derrida? 

Here's the little French gnome in Of Grammatology:

[Phonetic writing] does not respond to any necessity of an absolute and universal essence. Using this as a point of departure, Saussure defines the project and object of general linguistics: "The linguistic object is not defined by the combination of the written word and the spoken word: the spoken form alone constitutes the object".

That's exactly what Rumsfeld thinks:  if a war is an artifact of public opinion, and if public opinion derives from words, and if words can remake the world (if "the spoken form alone constitutes the object"), then it stands to reason that words can win wars!

Unsurprisingly, Rumsfeld's fancy footwork came off as just dancing to the General standing next to him:

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace, standing at Rumsfeld's side, evidently didn't get the memo about the wording change. Describing combat in Iraq, he paused and said, "I have to use the word 'insurgent' because I can't think of a better word right now."

" 'Enemies of the legitimate Iraqi government' -- how's that?" Rumsfeld proposed.

Maybe General Pace just needs to go back to school -- in a beret.

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