[BRIEF NOTE] Boy, Meet Wolf; Wolf, Boy

[rfmcdonald]

In his 17-minute speech, Mr Bush used the word freedom 27 times, implicitly defending the war in Iraq. And far from settling on a more modest and pragmatic foreign policy, he set his Administration enormously challenging goals. "The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations," he said. "The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it."

- from Michael Gawenda's article "Bush rings liberty bell, with force", published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 22 January 2005

I find Bush's claims to be promoting freedom to be unbelievable, at best. I wonder if this is because Bush et al use the word "freedom" and its cognates ("liberty," say) so frequently as to empty them of any sort of discernable meaning. When Bush says "freedom," all I hear is void.

It would be a pity if Bush really was trying to promote freedom and his use of language discouraged people from believing he was at all sincere.