Rhetoric

"President Bush is a liar. There, I said it, but most of the mainstream media won't," writes Eric Alterman.

"Marketing a war is serious business. And no product requires better brand names than one that squanders vast quantities of resources while intentionally killing large numbers of people," Media Beat columnist Norman Solomon writes. From 1989's Operation Just Cause to 1991's Operation Desert Storm to today's Enduring Freedom, Solomon suggests that naming military operations is nothing more than a form of "media cross-promotion" meant to sanitize war.

"As Bush leads the nation toward a confrontation with Iraq and his party into battle in midterm elections, his rhetoric has taken some flights of fancy in recent weeks," Washington Post staff writer Dana Milbank wrote. "Statements on subjects ranging from the economy to Iraq suggest that a president who won election underscoring Al Gore's knack for distortions and exaggerations has been guilty of a few himself." Milbank quotes Brookings Institution scholar Stephen Hess suggesting that some of Bush's "overstatements" may be intentional.

"U.S. food companies can seek federal approval to avoid using the word "irradiation" on labels of foods treated with the disease-killing process, and instead use language such as "cold pasteurization," the Food and Drug Administration said. ... The FDA issued guidelines explaining how companies can petition the agency to use more neutral language on the label of food treated with irradiation.