For the last few years we have been ruled by lexicographers. Never has anadministration spent so much time creating, defining, or redefining terms,perhaps because no one (since George Orwell) has grasped the power andpossibility that lay hidden in plain sight in the naming and renaming of words.In a sense, our post-9/11 moment began with two definitions: The Bushadministration named our global enemy "terrorism" and called the actsthat followed a "war," which was soon given the moniker "theglobal war on terror" (later reduced to the acronym GWOT, also known asWorld War IV), which was then given an instant future -- being defined as a"generational struggle" that was still to come. All this, along with"war" itself, was simply announced rather than officially"declared."