Our country seems to be experiencing an unusual obsession with words these days, especially words that can be deemed hurtful, inciteful, or demeaning by the most fragile ears. Those words need to be censored, Democrats say.
The most puzzling word evolution for me is how somehow the f-word has morphed from a crude, unacceptable verb into a f*****g adverb that seems increasingly acceptable, even for a f*****g president to utter in public. Who f*****g needs this?
One recent example of a strange word fight was the made-up controversy over "bloodbath," which Donald Trump used in a figurative sense but mainstream media chose to use against him literally.
Somehow, however, the deletion of three powerfully emotive words associated with patriotism from the mission statement of the U.S. Military Academy came and went quite quickly.
West Point is a very significant national institution. Thomas Jefferson founded it a few years ago — 1802, to be exact — as an academy to train a professional corps of Army officers.
For more than two centuries now, it has done that and continues to do a magnificent job of producing leaders for the military, who then may go on to become leaders in industry, education, business, and politics.
History books are full of their names — McClellan, Sherman, Meade, Custer, Patton, MacArthur, Bradley, Ridgway, Eisenhower, Schwarzkopf, Petraeus. When the Civil War ended in 1865, it was two West Point alums who met for the surrender at Appomattox. Robert E. Lee tendered his sword. Ulysses S. Grant accepted it, then handed it back in respect.
What West Point did this month was remove the words "Duty. Honor. Country." from its mission statement. The three words would seem to be at the core of a volunteer soldier's military commitment.
So, their sudden disappearance, absent a reasonable rationale or any official objections, seemed strange given the extreme ideology of the Biden administration.
In these divisive, hyper-partisan days, that also raised strong suspicions among some. Myself included.
That's what I chew on in this week's audio commentary. I'll be interested to see the opinions of readers/listeners in the Comments this week.
This week's column examines what Donald Trump needs to do to unite his fractured party and become only the second president in U.S. history to lose reelection and then regain the White House four years later.
Hint: What Trump should do for a slam-dunk win, he isn't doing. Yet, anyway.
I also wrote a post looking at the ongoing outrage of Joe Biden's border policies, or lack thereof. OK, it's a rant.
This action by Biden, or whomever is pulling his strings, is an outright subversion of national sovereignty. Nothing less.
The most recent audio commentary examines a rather unusual event in our nation's capital -- a very elderly political leader who recognizes it's time for him to leave the public stage.
The number of congressional members choosing to retire is increasing steadily this year. We'll see how big a wave it becomes.
But the good news, for now, is: It's term limits, self-imposed, but nonetheless creating openings for fresh, younger blood to take a shot at making Capitol Hill start working again.
