Truth be told

Apparently, they thought bailout was bombing.

So they switched to rescue.

In the middle of the darkest financial disaster since the Great Depression, Washington this week went hunting for a dictionary.

Rather than attempt to explain to their constituents exactly what led to this mess and why they feared financial apocalypse if nothing was done, the people we elected to navigate this nation through dire times like these huddled in search of a more palatable name than the one originally pinned on this problem: bailout.

Rescue plan was the pick.

Sailors shipwrecked at sea are rescued. Children trapped in a burning building are rescued. Cats caught in trees are rescued. The word rescue suggests the people in need of aid landed in the predicament through no fault of their own.

That definitely is not what happened here.

The wrecking of the Wall Street investment banking industry and mangling of the Main Street mortgage industry were no accidents. The people who ran and regulated those industries piloted them upon the rocks. They lit the match.

So what's next for our wordsmiths in Washington? If a bailout can be called a rescue plan, why not refer to the poor as asset free? Or instead of unemployed Americans being called jobless, would it not be kinder and gentler to call them leisurefilled?

Here's an even better idea. Call the minimum wage the maximum wage. The minimum wage is the least that workers in America can be paid legally. Who wants to make minimum wage? Nobody. So simply refer to it as the maximum wage and think of it as the most that employers in the nation are required by law to pay their employees.

Bingo.

But why stop there? Forthwith, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should refer to smog as clouds.

Clouds are in the sky. Smog is in the sky. Clouds are grey. Smog is grey. Clouds make it tough to get a suntan. Ditto for smog. Frankly, what's the difference?

Imagine all the problems we can eliminate with nothing more than the stroke of a pen.

Children who quit high school before they graduate are not dropouts. On the contrary, they are dropins to the American work force.

Illegal immigrants are unannounced visitors.

Shipping jobs overseas is economic diplomacy.

Runaway health care costs are advances in medicine.

Unlawful spying is safeguarding democracy.

The media is not biased. It is sympathetic.

The Chicago Cubs do not lose every year. They defer victory.

Nothing is too far-fetched or beyond belief in this clever game of hide the truth, of Real or No Real. The possibilities are endless.

After all, if torture can be called enhanced interrogation techniques and if mistakenly killing innocent civilians can be called collateral damage and if bailouts can be called rescue plans without so much as a blink of an eye or a blush from the people thumbing through the dictionary, it is that preposterous to think we someday might be referring to war as peace and hate as love.