Headlines: Bush/Iraq

by Casey Flynn

Bush Declines to Pardon Turkey: Breaking Presidential tradition for the Thanksgiving holiday, President Bush declined to pardon the Turkey after reviewing a memo regarding the matter from his newly-appointed Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. Alberto Gonzales, who thoroughly researched the matter, recommended against the pardon, citing Turkey's genocide against Christian Armenia.

American Troops Liberate Fallujah (again): We have used this headline once before, which is not really that concerning. In the e-zine business, where the standards are set by the likes of Matt Drudge and some 12-year-old, hopped up on crystal meth., trying out his new Dell, it's not unusual to reuse the headline: 'American Troops Liberate ______', what is unusual is that the name of the city should change in the cut-and-pasted headline. 'Liberate' is defined as 'to set free, as from oppression, confinement, or foreign control.' If the name of the city does not change, and say if you have to reuse this caption a year in the future, it is possible that you might be mis-using the word 'liberate.' The phrase 'to liberate' should be a little bit like 'losing one's virginity', if you use either phrase a lot in one year in reference to the same city or individual, respectively, eyebrows should be raised that perhaps something is askew.

Multinational Forces, huh?: On Fox television's (see also Fox News Network: the 'Go Team' network) broadcast of the Dallas Cowboys/Chicago Bears football game, they kept cutting to a group of coalition troops in Iraq, appearing above the caption: 'Multinational Forces.' I was a little confused with what this meant because they all appeared to be American soldiers, but then I realized that I was wrong, those were really multinational troops, Irish-American, German-American, African-American, Asian-American etc..

Bush and the Two Americas: George Bush (Secret Service name: 'America's Santa Anna') won reelection. Despite his victory, America is still strongly divided into two groups: those who are dying in Iraq and those who are working for Halliburton rebuilding Iraq. The Bush administration has announced that the first order of business is the war in Iraq; namely, the Pentagon wants to strengthen the position of our troops there by opening an eBay account to buy them body armor.