The "K" word and who "got" bin Laden?

I nearly gagged on my coffee this morning when I opened the Oregonian and was hit with the paper's front-page banner headline:

How we got bin Laden

The only thing lacking was an exclamation mark.

"We"? Is that the editorial "we"? The editorial board "got" bin Laden?

Is that "we," as in "We, the People"? American citizens? I suppose our taxes had something to do with "the getting." Don't they always? Do we hold ourselves accountable? Do we take pride in "our" accomplishment? Was this really money well spent in our names? One wonders how much it cost? Billions certainly.

A more precise description of events leading up to what happened early Monday morning in Abbottabad would highlight the work of a few dozen brave Navy Seals and a small army of intelligence officers. Might they be a tad more "deserving of the credit" (if those are the right words) than "we" are?

Then there's the little matter of the verb "got."

"How we got bin Laden."

If we "got" him, where is he?

No, let's face it, "got" is a euphemism for "killed." During the Vietnam War the military used "neutralized," but they weren't fooling anyone. "Got" is just as bad.

Why couldn't The Oregonian bring itself to write the truth? "How the US stalked and killed bin Laden."

On the next page, on a "FactCheck" column, appropriately enough, the headline writer gets it right, sort of.

Operation began years ago, but credit Obama for the kill

If I'm not mistaken, the use of the word "kill" as a noun appears in stories about fighter pilots in combat. They get credited for "kills." Technically Obama shouldn't get that credit. He didn't literally pull the trigger although he certainly ordered that it be pulled.

Clearly the assassination of Osama bin Laden has put many of us in alien rhetorical and moral territory.

The Oregonian, like us, is groping for words to describe a looking glass world of death, subterfuge and destruction.

Rhetoric of violence corrodes entire political culture

In the aftermath of the shooting in Tucson, a lot has been inevitably been written about the vitriolic rhetoric of politics.

Blame has been laid on prominent Right-wing commentators such as Sarah Palin and her gun analogies, Rush Limbaugh and his demeaning smears, and Glenn Beck and his rants.

The political Right, of course, points accusingly at commentators on the Left.

The problem is much greater than either side would have us believe. The whole political establishment and the mainstream media are equally culpable for their own day-to-day rhetorical choices.

And we, the people, have become inured to them.

Without blinking, all political campaigns, Right, Left and everything in between, refer to (and the media blindly accept and transmit) “targeted audiences,” “war chests,” “the air wars” (TV ad campaigns), “sabotaging,” “counter-attacking,” “burying,” “sniping,” “war rooms,” “political bombshells,” "political cross hairs," and “ground troops.”

The list goes on and on.

Face it, much of American politics is defined by words of violence and war.

The unquestioning use and acceptance of such terms corrode our political culture.

Worse, the use of such words only increases the likelihood of terrible deeds like the shootings in Tucson.