Bush's new big word:caliphate-a caliph is “a successor of Muhammad ...

[dajoki]

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Lisa Miller And Matthew Philips
Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15239205/site/newsweek/


Updated: 4:11 p.m. ET Oct 12, 2006

Oct. 12, 2006 - When President George W. Bush starts using fifty-cent words in press conferences, one has to wonder why, and on Wednesday, during his Rose Garden appearance, he used the word “caliphate” four times. The enemy, he said—by which he clearly meant the Islamic terrorist enemy—wants to “extend the caliphate,” “establish a caliphate,” and “spread their caliphate.” Caliphate? Really? Many people live long, fruitful lives without once using the word caliphate. Almost no one, with the exception of our president and some of his advisers, uses it as a pejorative.

As NEWSWEEK reported last month, the president and the people who prep him are still clearly casting about for the right phrase to pin on America’s elusive enemy. “Axis of evil” is outdated by now. “Islamist,” the preferred choice of scholars, has been deemed too jargony and academic. “Islamofascist” is a recent favorite, and in a speech last month the president used it as punctuation in a litany of other tags, notably “Islamic radicalism” and “militant jihadism.” The beauty of “caliphate” is that no one but students of Islamic history have much more than a vague idea of what it means. “Bush has been successful in defining terms in his own way,” said Steve Ebbins, a former Democratic speechwriter. “ has captured the language. If you control the language, you control the message and are able to sway people’s attitude toward your policy. It’s a policy-endorsing mechanism.” Until last January, the president rarely used it, if ever. Since then, he’s used it more than 15 times.

A caliphate, according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, is the “office or dominion of a caliph”; a caliph is “a successor of Muhammad ... spiritual head of Islam.” Simply put, the caliph is Islam’s deputy to the world. After the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 A.D., his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, became the first caliph. (At the heart of the schism between Sunni and Shia Muslims, even today, is the question of succession: who has the right to become Islam’s caliph?) From the time of the Prophet’s death until the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258, caliphs ruled over Muslims and presided over the Muslim expansion throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe. These were the caliphates; some beneficent, some warmongering, in concept not unlike any other empire or dynasty.

[LonelyLRLiberal]

1. They are extremely skilled at the word game.

Perhaps the religious implications of the word are the goal - maybe what they are trying to get across is "what if the evil Islamofascists come over here and make all the Christians convert to Islam by force?

Who knows?

What do the rest of you think about this new vocabulary word our fearless leader has learned?

[MadHound]

11. Actually I think that is one of the more intelligent and knowledgeabe

Things that he has said during his term. Indeed, bin Laden and his adherrants want to establish a caliphate, headed by a caliph the successor to Mohammed. It's straight out of the works of Sayyid Qutb. Proper wording in the proper context, hey, it's a start. Of course we all know this was done with writers, teleprompters and lots of Pavlovian rehearsals, but it worked. What a sad commentary that when Bush says something properly it is so very jarring.

[dajoki]

20. Sorry, I can't give * credit for this one...

or any other, for that matter.

[dajoki]

21. I think he is what is called in...

the psyciatry field as an "intelligent moron". He can learn things, but has trouble grasping it and using it properly.

[BadgerKid]

2. “Bush has been successful in defining terms in his own way"

He's not to be misunderestimated. It could be a winning strategery. :sarcasm:

[conscious evolution]

3. Why doesn't he name the caliph?

[opihimoimoi]

4. Because the dude has no idea what he just said....He is faking his way

through History....and it shows big time....in my day, peeps like him were referred to as a PETER

[conscious evolution]

5. Exactly. Thats what I ask no-fundies.

They don't know what it is either.

Dumbasses

[opihimoimoi]

8. I guess he wants to impress them NEO CONs with 20 cent words

The PNACers prolly fed Bush a whole list of words to use.....

[xchrom]

6. steve ebbins is giving credit where it isn't due.

the notion that “Bush has been successful in defining terms in his own way,” has been given to him by an enabling media.

he persistently says nonsensical phrases and meaningless verbage to convey meaning -- and the media fills in all the blanks and praises president numb-nuts all the while.

[VOX]

7. He's also using the right-wing playbook with "Democrat (sic) Party"...

Even Saint Ronnie used the correct phrase, "Democratic Party."

If he were human, he wouldn't be Republican, and he would be an object of pity. If he weren't such a despicably useless sock-puppet, he'd be funny.
But he's neither.

It's incredible that this do-nothing, know-nothing, simpleton is a two-term "president," or more properly put, "Cheney's 8-year Mouthpiece."

[frogcycle]

9. Why Cheney really shot his friend

He couldn't control of his shotgun because his hand was sore from being stuck up bush's ass moving his mouth

[dajoki]

19. Ignorant people, cheating and SCOTUS n/t

[sutz12]

10. He probably doesn't realize how that undermines his Iraq venture.

After all, one of bin Laden's goals is purportedly to re-establish the Caliphate of Baghdad. In that, Shrub is right. However, for bin Laden to do that, he would have had to unseat Saddam Hussein, a secular leader, from his throne in Baghdad, thus putting to death the last vestiges of any theory of "al Qeada's connections to Saddam Hussein."

As most of us around here knew all along, Hussein and bin Laden were mortal enemies. For them to cooperate before 9/11 was almost unthinkable. Saddam wanted nothing to do with religious fanatics, and the religious fanatics couldn't stand that a secular despot ruled Iraq from their holy city of Baghdad. (Is there any city anywhere in the Muslim world that isn't Holy?)

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

12. Captured the language, my ass.

[elperromagico]

13. He must have one of those "Talking Point A Day" desk calendars.

[argyl]

14. He used the word peninchula several times also. So WTF is a

korean peninchula?

[Eurobabe]

15. Bush thinks that means Arnie's getting relected: CALI-FATE

LOL

[LibDemAlways]

16. Bush has no idea what "caliphate" means.

If it was in his opening remarks, those were certainly not prepared by him. If he used it in response to a question, it was just what was being fed to him through his earpiece. I would bet big money that the chimp had never heard that word before that Rose Garden appearance.

[dajoki]

18. Someone told him to use it...

because he said it about four times. And when he learns a new word he can't help himself.

[Igel]

17. What's making it pejorative is partially the inference of the

reader, and partly the Islamists themselves.

There have been fatwas saying that bin Laden is not qualified to issue fatwas, and that the declaration of jihad must proceed from an emir in a caliphate. No other declaration of jihad is acceptable. Note that this is a kludge: Rather than diss the idea of jihad and act like the Sufi interpretation is the only interpretation, these ulema make it a logical impossibility. That way nobody has to actually deal with the meaning and import of 'jihad'.

The immediate response was to increase the number of people calling for establishing a caliphate. Most of the earlier calls for establishing one and repeating the past resulted from a fascist-like glorification and purification of the past. Under the caliphate Islam spread nearly to Vienna and France, and was supreme, and undefiled--it did nothing wrong, and those living under it were all righteous and prosperous, living under righteous rulers; as the caliphate waned, Islam was humiliated (note that humiliating Islam as the same status as waging war on terror) and in retreat; and the disbanding of the caliphate was contemporaneous with the final humiliation of Muslims. The caliphate is a point of honor, based on a honor-driven falsification of history.

My vote for article of the week: http://nationaljournal.com/rauch.htm# (which essentially says nothing novel, although the thesis is widely dismissed by ethnocentrists because it means that there really is a problem, but it says it rather well).