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The Karma of Words

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President Clinton has certainly carved out an odd legacy of language. Only months ago, his behavior in the Oval Office turned prime-time television news into salacious reports in need of parental monitoring. Now, the White House has introduced us to “Immaculate Destruction”—its inane description of what the administration hoped against hope would be a bloodless war.

If, in the Christian tradition, the Virgin’s birth - she was said to have been born free of original sin, hence “the Immaculate Conception”—made her worthy to bear the incarnation of God, will coopting the language of the sacred make us sinless too? In the land that has idealized the separation of church and state, are we to suppose that we have waged a war without sin and wrought destruction with the righteous aggression of a holy war?

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