Your post is thoughtful and well researched and written (I did not confirm your references but will take your word for them). Yet I still find a shallowness to the enterprise of ‘parsing’ such as the Clinton administration bemoaned even while they were perfecting the technique (What is ‘is’?) <link> . Arguing over what is the ‘best’ euphemism to deploy or even about why all euphemisms are bad is worse than not arguing at all. Why not employ your intelligence and resources to the underlying problems which are being subjected to such euphemistic and offhanded dismissal?

It is self-serving to demonstrate how clever you are while not using your abilities to redress legitimate grievances in the public arena. It is the responsibility of democratically structured societies to engage in significant debate over the pressing problems of their times, even those problems which are perennial or recalcitrant. Resorting to catch phrases and euphemisms only makes the statement that the author is comfortably glum about business as usual, something which I regrettably expect from Mr. Hitchens but see no useful reason for his readers to emulate too.