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Bombers who kill? You don't say!
 dd "homicide bombers" to the "moronic politicization of the language" file. President Bush and his spokesman assert that "suicide bombers" ignores the main intention of the bombings: to kill other people. As if anyone would read "bomber" and think of someone using dynamite to build a tunnel. If you're buying this crap, you'd better start saying "homicide assassins" and "homicide gunmen" and "homicide hit men," too. Heck, why not "homicide killers who kill homicidally with intent to commit murder in a not-at-all-friendly fashion"?Yes, Mr. President, we know that the bombers are very, very bad people. Perhaps we should call them "dumb stupidhead buttface bombers" to do justice to our ire. But we call them suicide bombers to differentiate them from the equally bad bombers who, like most homicidal types, prefer to live. The suicide part is what's distinctive about their actions. Some say that "suicide" lends an undeserved air of romance to the bombers. I worry about people who think that (to me, "pathetic" comes to mind long before "romantic"), but even if it were true, that impression would come from the act itself, not the accurate description of the act. It might be in the president's interest to gloss over the facts when describing these atrocities, but accuracy is kind of important in journalistic writing. Is there a more neutral word for suicide than "suicide"?
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