You see, I'm not afraid of patriotism. It's jingoism that I worry about, patriotism's drunken cousin that always starts a brawl at family reunions. We have a sharp increase in gun sales across the country, sending a clear message to Osama bin Laden that if he comes out to Lubbock, Texas, he's gonna get his ass blown off. For a few days there, the code name for our military response was Operation Infinite Justice. This was stricken because it could be considered offensive to the Muslim world.
Superlatives have no place in military jargon.
Operation Ultimate Revenge, Operation Extreme Whomping, Operation Moneyback Guarantee, these should not be used by military commanders. I want the men and women who wield the tools of unimaginable destruction to speak in serious terms, not using action movie lines like Operation Unimaginable Destruction. Now our military has renamed the mission Operation Enduring Freedom. Although this sounds suspiciously like an 80's power ballad, at least this signals a departure from rhetoric that sounded suspiciously like a spaghetti western. As is usually the case in politics, a name like Operation Enduring Freedom makes a good graphic on TV news services, and it will make benefit songs easier to write, but it lacks meaning.