Gil Gutknecht discovers the "Islamofascist" word

Or: What happens in Iraq stays in Iraq

It wasn't long ago that Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-MN) returned from a weekend trip to Iraq and pronounced, "All of the information we receive sometimes from the Pentagon and the State Department isn't always true," that the situation in Baghdad was worse "than we'd been led to believe," and that "we learned it's not safe to go anywhere outside of the Green Zone any part of the day."

Some news media even claimed he advocated "that troop withdrawals begin immediately."

Apparently, all of that never happened. At least one would think so judging from Rep. Gutknecht's latest "e-line". Because in his latest take on the war he states that:

Since 9/11 we have become a nation dedicated to stopping these Islamofascists who use terror and civilian murder as war tactics. And today we are still fighting this fight.

Within weeks after 9/11, American forces in Afghanistan captured or killed hundreds of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. And the world is safer with a budding democracy in Iraq rather than under the rule of a vicious dictator or in the hands of unmerciful insurgents. Whether or not Americans agree, Osama bin Laden and his followers have made it clear that Iraq is at the center of their war against the United States.

It appears that the congressman is back to his old self again, the one who so forcefully warned his colleagues in Congress shortly before his Iraq trip that "this is not the time to go wobbly."

It's almost as if the weekend jaunt to Iraq is like normal folks' weekend trip to Vegas: soon forgotten. Or in other words, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

It's also obvious that the congressman has recently picked up on the Republican word-du-jour, "Islamofascist" — a word that apparently didn't exist outside a small cadre of presidential political planners before Mr. Bush mentioned "Islamic fascists" a few weeks ago. Gutknecht used it on Monday, Sept. 11, at the Rochester Chamber of Commerce debate with Tim Walz. But before then there's no record of him publicly ever stating it.

Yet once a new word is discovered, as any 4th grader will tell you, it's hard not to repeat it ad nauseam just so you can prove to your friends how smart you are. For example, from not mentioning it at all to using it once (I think) on Monday to having it appear four times on his one-page Friday e-line, well... that's quite some demonstration of a newly expanded vocabulary.

Of course, Rep. Gutknecht shouldn't be chided alone for his adventurous use of the lexicon. He is merely echoing what his fellow lemming-like Republican cohorts are doing. The President is using this exciting new word, so we're gonna use this exciting new word too!

This leads us to two inevitable and immutable conclusions:

(1) What happens in Iraq stays in Iraq, and

(2) What's true in fourth grade is true in Washington.

— LP