Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, the Independent former Democrat who pretty much marches in lockstep with his former party except on national security issues (which admittedly is an important distinction), describes as Orwellian this in the latest of a series of terminology changes by the Obama administration.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on Sunday called the administration's proposal to avoid the term "Islamic extremism" in national security references "absolutely Orwellian and counterproductive."
Lieberman revealed on "Fox News Sunday" that he had sent a letter to the president's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, saying in part: "The failure to identify our enemy for what it is, violent Islamist extremism, is offensive and contradicts thousands of years of accepted military and intelligence doctrine to know your enemy."
The chairman of the Homeland Security Committee said the letter was the product of him growing "so frustrated" with the White House over the terminology issue. He said the Defense Department omitted references to "violent Islamist extremism" in its report on the massacre at Fort Hood...
Lieberman said that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were not carried out by "some amorphous group of violent extremists or environmental extremists or white supremacist extremists."Orwell considered himself a man of the Left but was quite outspoken against certain elements in the leftist movement, especially those apologists for Stalin's acts of mass murder and treachery.
