Cokie Roberts on the

Cokie Roberts, on the case for the White House, from this morning’s Morning Edition …

Steve Inskeep: “Democrats are promising to defeat President Bush’s proposed solution, or partial solution anyway, this imposition of private accounts. Do they have the power to stop it?”

Cokie Roberts: “Well you see, by saying ‘private accounts’ you’ve already entered the debate, as far as the White House is concerned. They’re calling them ‘personal accounts’ not ‘private accounts’ to just try to change the rhetoric so that seniors again will not get frightened.”

In fairness, the rest of her commentary on the subject wasn’t that bad. But do journalists really have to genuflect every time the White House issues a new vocabulary directive?