It's time for the grammar police: All too often, reporters and politicians use the passive voice. Take British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett
October 14, 2006

It's time for the grammar police:

All too often, reporters and politicians use the passive voice. Take British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett in yesterday's USA Today: ""It's widely argued now that the existence of the camp is as much a radicalizing and discrediting influence as it is a safeguard for security." Well, who argues? A McClatchy story yesterday read, "Nearly 2,700 Iraqi civilians were killed in the city in September." Well, who killed them? Baathist insurgents or Iranian-backed militias? If the public read that Iranian-backed militias killed nearly 2700 civilians, we might be less willing to reward their murderers.

Really I'm speechless. The cheerleaders of this war are relegated to becoming the spell checkers of the media. Hell, 2700 civilians died, whose fault is it?Just blame the media folks. Maybe, just maybe it's Bush's fault because he attacked a country that didn't attack us. I'm just saying.

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