NPR ON THE USE OF ‘SURGE’ TO DESCRIBE TROOP LEVELS: CNN’s Jack Cafferty Labels Term as Code for Escalation

As a follow up to a previous post, NPR runs this story on the use of “surge” to describe the Administration’s plan for more of the same in Iraq, featuring an interview with linguist Deborah Tannen.

Earlier this week, CNN’s Jack Cafferty called the Administration’s bluff, describing the use of “surge” as masking their intentions to escalate the war in Iraq. See the clip above.

Here’s my question: If journalists are well aware of the strategic and misleading nature of the term, why do they continue to use it in all their reports? Sometimes you just have to scratch your head and wonder.