One of my favorite things to listen to in the morning (besides the constant bickering of my kids at the breakfast table) is the "Bob and Sheri" radio show. (I used to be a "John Boy and Billy" man until it got to be more commercials than funny stuff). Anyway, Bob and Sheri’s format involves getting listeners to call in on the day’s topic and cracking wise in the course of the discussion. Since the e recent tragedies in New York and DC, however, they’ve taken a much more serious tone, expressing and allowing callers to express the grief and anger that most of us share. The other day, they were musing on whether or not it was time to get back to the lighthearted topics. "After all this," co-host Sheri Lynch wondered out loud, "can we really go back to doing "What body parts have you pierced and why?"

I have to say, I was wondering about that question myself. At what point in the grieving process is it okay to laugh again? When does it become okay to poke fun at the government again? Then I thought, there’s no time like right now. After all, if the terrorists have made us afraid to laugh, especially at ourselves, they’ve robbed us of one of the things that makes us American. They’ve scored a victory that I, for one, am not going to just hand to them. So we now return you to our regularly scheduled program of wiseacre commentary. God bless America.

First, let me just say that I have been pleasantly surprised by George Dubbya Bush’s handling so far of the situation created by the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Once he got his feet under him, he’s risen to the occasion and showed exactly the right mix of compassion and resolution. He’s been, well, downright Presidential, which is reassuring to those of us who thought he was more than a bit of a lightweight.

The President has, however, fought and lost a few skirmishes with an enemy he’s had to face longer than he’s had to face the threat of bin Laden. I’m speaking, of course of his old nemesis, the English language.

Bush started off his tussle with our mother tongue by referring to the war on terrorism as a "crusade". This didn’t exactly sit well with the Arab world, even the ones who are theoretically on our side. If you’ll reflect on history for a bit, you’ll see why. To an Arab, "crusade" does not evoke images of valiant knights riding off to bold adventure. It evokes images of bloodthirsty hordes descending on Arab cities bent on destruction and loot. So Dubbya had to back off the "crusade" language.

Then there was the problem with naming the military operation. For some reason, the one-word names we’re familiar with from World War Two (Operation Overlord, Operation Torch, etc) just don’t cut it anymore. Now everything has to have a double name, and it has to be something that gives the mission good PR. For example, the invasion of Panama was called Operation Just Cause. This, of course, led to the inevitable joke: "Why’d we invade Panama? Just ‘Cause we could!" (Don’t get mad at me. I heard it first from an 82d Airborne paratrooper.) Most famously, we had the three Operation Deserts: Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Desert Saber. (The little-remembered third one was the official designation for the ground war, which was over before any of the media had time to learn the name)

So they had to come up with a name for the military push to oust bin Laden and his Al-Quaeda network. And it had to be something with oomph, not something limp like "Just Cause". In the global strategic plan, words and how they’re perceived are almost as important as bullets and bombs. So some bright guy in the White House came up with the name (drum roll) Operation Infinite Justice.

The Muslim clergy responded with an immediate "Whoa Nelly!" (Or some Arabic equivalent). Only Allah, they pointed out, can provide infinite justice. So there was more embarrassed throat clearing and shuffling of feet from the White House. It sort of makes you long for the simpler days when all you had to worry about was wrangling with radical feminists over the use of "chairperson" as opposed to "chairman". Anyway , after some thought (and possibly some random riffling through the Oxford English Dictionary) they came up with the name Operation "Enduring Freedom."

Okay, I guess we can live with that, even though it lacks a certain something. It makes it sound like we’re trying to endure freedom rather than promote it.

Winston Churchill was one of those who moved the Allies away from their previous practice of using random names and phrases for operations in World War Two. He once wrote: " the world is wide, and intelligent thought will readily supply an unlimited number of well-sounding names which do not suggest the character of the operation or disparage it in any way and do not enable some widow or mother to say that her son was killed in an operation called "Bunnyhug" or "Ballyhoo." So, I suppose, it could be worse. The important thing is to win it, whatever it’s called.

COPYRIGHT 2001 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.