Monday, January 22, 2007

I sense the dark hand of George Lakoff in all of this.

You remember George Lakoff, don’t you? Lakoff was the mastermind academic who officiously volunteered to help the Democrats remake America’s political terminology. I’m not sure any of the following can be laid at Lakoff’s feet, but his game was garden variety exercises in Orwellian stuff like referring to reckless government expenditures as “investments” or a troop surge as an “escalation” or surrender as “redeployment.”

But this time, they’ve gone too far. Yesterday on ABC News, Dianne Sawyer did a glowing puff piece on the new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi may dress like she owns stock in Chanel, but worry not – according to Sawyer she’s “galvanized steel with a smile.” At one point in the interview, Pelosi talked about the Congressional Medal of Honor that was posthumously awarded to Jason Dunham last week. Here’s how Pelosi described Dunham’s heroism:

“I just had the privilege of meeting with the family of the young man who received the Congressional Medal of Honor. He jumped on a hand grenade and saved the lives of his other young people in his unit.”

I know the Democrats have developed as one of their pet Lakoffian tics the habit of describing our warriors as defenseless children. Thus, when Pelosi refers to Dunham as a “young man” and the men he saved as “other young people,” she’s merely falling into a bad habit.

But it’s a real bad habit; a truly offensive one. This is a matter of more than just mere semantics. Jason Dunham was a Marine. So, too, were the men he saved. They see themselves as warriors, and that’s what they are. The term “young people” is meant to demean them, and in Dunham’s case denies him the dignity that he has so completely earned.

Corporal Jason L. Dunham was 22 years old when he left us. He came from the small town of Scio (sigh-oh) population 1900. It’s the kind of town where everyone knows your name... where values and respect still mean something. It was here, along a winding country road filled with rolling-meadows, and a swift moving creek, that Jason L. Dunham was brought into this world.

As you turn into the Dunham’s long driveway that leads to their house, the breeze catches a yellow ribbon tied to the mailbox and the story begins to unfold. The further you drive; two flags adorn the front porch, an American flag and the United States Marine Corps flag. And both seem to play the same quiet song, and yet both stand tall for this fallen young man. There is a final reminder that Jason Dunham is no longer with us… a blue star in the front window has been replaced by a gold star, symbolizing the Dunham family loss.