In the pretend-shaped world of the Me-Too Left, where students who finish fourth and fifth in contests are described as “winners,” in deference to their delicate self-esteem, the left-wing Associated Press surrendered yesterday to a fresh round of leftist feel-goodism.
The wire service that brings the news of the world to most American newspapers – and serves as their arbiter of writing style – declared it no longer will use the phrase “illegal immigrants.”
After a fresh rhetorical bath and politically correct scrubbing, the A.P. said that illegal aliens hereafter will be referred to by the more genteel, incomplete, denuded description of “immigrants.”
Legal or illegal, makes no difference.
Illegal aliens and their backers, said the A.P., found the whole darned term offensive – accurate, but offensive.
Just as thugs object to their label. They prefer to be known as Persons Who Wear Gloves and Masks to Work.
Walk Softly, Shlep a Tiny Stick
Hewing rigidly to the iron-strength dictates of the effete left, the liberal wire service said that it also is junking “undocumented” and “unauthorized,” both as an adjective and a noun, when dealing with illegal aliens.
Having shamelessly sunk to its well-worn knees, the Associated Press’s revised stylebook says in this crucial area:
“Except in direct quotes essential to the story, use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant. Except in direct quotations, do not use the terms illegal alien, an illegal, illegals or undocumented.”
Kathleen Carrol, a standup comedienne who doubles as the A.P.’s Executive Editor, giggled as she said:
“Our goal always is to use the most precise and accurate words so that the meaning is clear to any reader anywhere.”
So, Kathy, Baby, what’s not to understand about “illegal aliens”?
Might a left-winger think you are referring to soap power? Or a new breed of spider?
Or might he think you are talking about someone who sneaked into our country, taking a sledgehammer to the law, and nervously masked the truth the rest of his life?
The serial deniers on the Me-Too Left celebrated with abandon last evening, the same unembarrassable boys and girls who were forced to call abortion “reproductive rights” and global warming the more amorphous “climate change” in trying to sneak deceptive changes past normal Americans.
Living on the left means never having to own up to the truth.
The Dream Act crowd will love this final fillop:
The A.P. styleguide instructs reporters to specify that illegal aliens brought to our country as minors “should not be described as having immigrated illegally.”
Meanwhile, the boys at Alcatraz spent yesterday afternoon loudly banging their heavily-dented tin-cups against the bars in their cells. “Don’t call us criminals,” they chanted. “We demand to be known as Gentlemen Temporarily Unavailable.”
