Okay, okay, wars tend to change everything, but do they have to botch English usage as well?

Before we invaded Iraq, you could wait a lifetime before hearing the word “embed,” except perhaps in a class somewhere.  Now, joining this wartime extravaganza comes “surge,” as in “troop surge” in Iraq.

Who dictates these things anyway?  Why isn’t it just a “troop increase” or “an increase in the number of soldiers in Iraq”?  Because you can’t make the president look bad that way, that’s why.

“Embed” was fairly neutral, “surge” not so.  I can’t wait for the words that become mandated if a Democrat wins the White House in 2008 and the immediate troop withdrawal begins.  I’m sure there’s a positive spin word–the reverse of the negative “surge”–that will be employed.  I’m just not sure what it will be yet, although a review of the Vietnam fiasco might give us a preview.  Let’s “embed” ourselves in discovering what “surge” of new words will be used to make the Democrat look wonderful.