by Terri Firma

Some of the controversies surrounding potential political landmines has been quelled by an approach best described as “call it a program.” This is after the disaster that was the Iran-Contra crisis, also called at the time “just sneaking around things.”  It is likely this is because if it is a program, it implies that it is established and must have parameters and origins that must be understood, which takes extra time and bandwidth. It also takes what is controversial and makes it boring and inoffensive.  It may also beb because is is harder to end something new than to start something new. This has mystified pundits, as the discovery of eavesdropping has been framed as part of a “terrorist surveillance program,” methods of torture and rendiiton part of an “enemy and detainee interrogation program,” corruption scandals part of a “lobbyist outreach program,” evolving “intelligence discordance refinement program.”

It remains to be seen if this approach helps frame issues related to the economy, like the newly labelled Social Security reform, or “keep people poor program”