A brief note on language

Dear Pundits, Journalists, and the rest of you who would stop inviting me to your cocktail parties if you knew I was a dirty hippie blogger,

Please stop describing the Bush administration escalation plan as a "Hail Mary." I know that very few of you actually understand -- let alone played or care about -- football, but you're grossly misusing a common sports reference. Unlike most butchered metaphors (yes you, Tom), this one is actually contributing to a public misunderstanding of the situation.

In football, if a team is losing, and the only way they can win is with a long, last-gasp touchdown pass, it sends all its receivers to the end zone, hoping for a miracle. This play is called a Hail Mary because it is, essentially, a prayer. It works infrequently but everybody has one in the playbook in case of emergency.

Here's the key thing about a Hail Mary, however: if a team tries it and it fails, the team is no worse off than before the play. If you're losing, and only a touchdown will do, you throw a Hail Mary knowing that if you complete it, you have a miraculous victory; if not, you simply have the loss that was inevitable before the attempt.

The U.S., Iraq, and, most importantly, tens of thousands of living, breathing people have a lot to lose if escalation fails. This isn't just "let's try it and if it doesn't work we're no worse off than before." Such a formulation is grossly, horrendously callous and represents a fundamental lack of understanding and caring about both national security and human life. Sometimes in warfighting, things go wrong and a mission doesn't accomplish what you expect it to. But that's different than trying a plan that nobody expects to work in the first place. Plans that go wrong should do so because of something unexpected, not because it was a tossup from the beginning.

To call it a "Hail Mary" gives the indication that escalation is the only choice, or that we won't be any worse off if it doesn't go smashingly, both of which are false. The American people understand this, I understand it, and now you do. So enough with that particular analogy, please. This has been a public service announcement.

thanks,
AJ

Update P.S. The reason why the escalation won't work, including some of the potential ways it will make things worse -- hence, not like a Hail Mary -- is explained here.