Ending TWOT

* Mike Allen in Time:

"But increasingly the phrase (TWOT) is being regarded with hostility by many Democrats, who view it as little more than propaganda, and with a degree of skepticism by some Republicans, who consider it tired and vague. The left lobe of the blogosphere roared its approval in March when the House Budget Committee directed its staff to eschew "global war on terror" and instead use more precise language like "the war in Iraq" and "ongoing military operations throughout the world." And last month the British government announced that it too had retired the phrase.

Now Kerry's former running mate is declaring his independence from a phrase that politicians have been brandishing with brio for more than five years.

...Edwards tells TIME that he will no longer use what he views as "a Bush-created political phrase."

"This political language has created a frame that is not accurate and that Bush and his gang have used to justify anything they want to do," Edwards said in a phone interview from Everett, Wash. "It's been used to justify a whole series of things that are not justifiable, ranging from the war in Iraq, to torture, to violation of the civil liberties of Americans, to illegal spying on Americans. Anyone who speaks out against these things is treated as unpatriotic. I also think it suggests that there's a fixed enemy that we can defeat with just a military campaign. I just don't think that's true."
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"What they have proven beyond any doubt is that the exercise of raw power does not make you a leader," Edwards said. He stated he doesn't know why the other top-tier Democrats didn't join him in boycotting GWOT, but added: "My conjecture is that they've used the term so many times themselves that they would be concerned about saying that they reject it now. And they're also concerned about the political implications. I'm going to say the truth, and that's it."

But the truth is that the war on terror is destined to outlast a change in the Oval Office — or in vocabulary."