Potato, Potahto

The Bush administration's fondness for manipulating language has descended into self parody.

In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, Secretary of State Rice denied that Bush's plan amounts to an escalation of the Iraq war.

In a heated exchange with Hagel, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, Rice disputed his characterization of Bush’s buildup as an “escalation.”

“Putting in 22,000 more troops is not an escalation?” Hagel, a Vietnam veteran and longtime critic of Bush’s Iraq policy, asked. “Would you call it a decrease?”

“I would call it, senator, an augmentation that allows the Iraqis to deal with this very serious problem that they have in Baghdad,” she said.

"An augmentation." Cute.

Unfortunately, people are going to die. Not so cute.