A challenge: "I believe that the responsibility for peace is going to rest with the Palestinian people's desire to build a democracy and Israel's willingness to help them build a democracy."—George W. Bush.

Go ahead, diagram that sentence! It sounds good when that grand euphemism, "democracy," is thrown around, but what does it mean? The "responsibility" rests with Palestinian "desire" and "Israel's willingness"? Usually "responsibility" rests with one or more people, not with abstract notions such as "desire" and "willingness," which cannot be measured.

Some will say, "You know what he means," but that's the trouble with this president; we all know what he means by his grand labels, like "compassionate conservativism": he means whatever we want to think he means.