Claire Harvey: The fight for a better word

Claire Harvey

George Bush is often caught short, but there's always a euphemism to the rescue. At a United Nations meeting this month, he was busting for a wee and scribbled a note to sidekick Condoleezza Rice asking about the protocol involved with ducking out for a second.

The note, captured on camera by a Reuters photographer (to see the note, click the above 'More Pictures' link), revealed a lot of things about Bush, including that he mixes capital letters with lower case in his handwriting - "I thiNK I MAY NEED A BATHroom break? IS this possible?"

Apart from proving that he seeks Rice's guidance on even the most personal matters, the note demonstrated Bush adopts the rather puritan delicacy of so many Americans when describing the smallest room in the house.

Instead of lavatory or toilet - which sound too descriptive of porcelain and pipes and poo to polite American ears - Bush opts for the nicely vague bathroom.

So why would Bush seek help with his euphemisms from expert brander Kevin Roberts, the chief executive of global advertising firm Saatchi and Saatchi?

The ad magazine Brandweek has revealed New Zealander Roberts accepted an invitation from the US Defence Department in March to help military bosses come up with an improved phrase to replace "War on Terror".

Roberts delivered his audience a few compliments (such as that the American Army was "a threatening, punitive, brutal and unilateral fighting force of young, slightly pissed-off males"). (Yes, that was really a compliment). He suggested America become more of a "force for good" by tackling disease and poverty, thus turning itself into a "lovemark", a brand which people like.

"Call our struggle 'The fight for a better world'," Roberts suggested.

"The War on Terror is a dead space, literally and metaphorically. No WMDs. Pictures of torture. Car bombings and assassinations.

"When you change the language, you change the conversation," he said. "That's how global warming became climate change. Legalised abortion became the right to choose. The War on Terror becomes the Fight for a Better World."

Soon afterwards, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld started using a new phrase, "The global struggle against violent extremism", but the Administration has returned to trusty old "War on Terror".

And why not? As a euphemism, WOT has been enormously successful, partly because it fits neatly across tabloid and broadsheet pages and into TV news graphics. It also has nice, holy crusade overtones, depicting the enemy not as a human being or a nation, but a scary and irrational mindset.

It was shorter and punchier than Roberts' suggestion, but just as misleading.

The reality is that the War on Terror was never actually a war, and the victims are overwhelmingly not terrorists.

Afghanistan was no war. In their headhunt for Osama bin Laden, the Americans thundered in with aerial strikes, bombings and commando raids in clumsy pursuit of a man in a cave.

Iraq is no war. US forces employed their military superiority to invade a disorganised and shambolic country which crumbled into bloody chaos.

So far, tens of thousands of Iraqis, 1900 American troops and nearly 200 military personnel from Britain and other US Allies have died in what the Americans now call "rebellion".

Their deaths are "sacrifices in the cause of freedom".

The "Coalition of The Willing" was never a coalition, and most of the participants weren't so much willing as craven in their eagerness to impress a powerful ally.

And the euphemisms keep coming. In an address this week to the Republican Jewish Coalition, Bush talked about the "armies of compassions" (sic) which have helped to clean up after Hurricane Katrina. What he really meant were the families, charities and churches who were the only ones with enough sense and courage to immediately start rescuing and feeding and housing the victims, as federal and state officials dithered and politicians holidayed and shopped.

In his Republican Jewish Coalition speech, Bush promised to help the hurricane victims by creating "Gulf Opportunity Zones" (tax breaks) to help businesses recover, "Urban Homesteading" (state housing) and "Worker Recovery Accounts" (welfare).

He referred again to the War on Terror, and proudly claimed Iraq and Afghanistan were now on the "March of Freedom" - an optimistic description after this week's deadly firefight between a British tank crew and Iraqi police.

But back to the BATHroom. This collision of upper-case and lower-case scripts, according to graphologists, can be a sign of urgency (well, he did need to go), a lack of togetherness, inconsistency, unevenness of temperament and impulsiveness.

Bush himself is a collection of characteristics in serious need of a euphemism. Perhaps Roberts can help?