From Dictionary.com:
Terrorist: adj: characteristic of someone who employs terrorism (especially as a political weapon); "terrorist activity"; "terrorist state" n : a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells; often uses religion as a cover for terrorist activities
Fine.
Now what about my title? Terrorists in Washington D.C.? "Shock and Awe" ring a bell?
more below...
a radical...
These are not Republican values being enforced, these are radical policies invoked by a `new' type of American political figure. These ' new ' politicians so far are successfully masking themselves as conservatives under the GOP's banner. These people do not represent traditional GOP values; they have simply captured the Republican Party.
...
Mr. Bush and his associates are radicals, and when the 5 to 4 majority on the Supreme Court handed them the reins of power, they did what radicals always do; they grabbed power with both hands and ran with it! - The Bradley Report, 1/6/04
...who employs terror...
Cheney said Tuesday in Des Moines that if voters make the "wrong choice" Nov. 2, "the danger is that we'll get hit again, and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States." - USA Today, 9-8-04 more here
...
"We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. "And anything that raises the issue in people's minds is good for us."
A senior GOP strategist added, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush." - quotes from 10-31-04
...as a political weapon...
The fundamental point I'm leading up to on these events is the fact that the Bush administration is rather blatantly using fear as a political weapon, and the media is lapping it up. But how can the administration so easily wag the dog, so flagrantly play on people's fears, and not have people recognize it?
A lot of it has to do with the fact that people do not want to admit that they are afraid, and even more, do not want to admit that they allow their fears to dictate their actions. I suggested as much to one person I was debating with on the Internet, suggesting that fear was being used as a tool--and that person completely rejected the possibility, as if it were ludicrous to even suggest that it could be done.
But it is a classic political weapon, used down the ages. Make the people afraid, and then tell them you are the one who can save them. - The Blog from Another Dimension, 8-4-04
more here
...usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells...
A Senior Pentagon policy maker created an unofficial "Iraqi intelligence cell" in the summer of 2002 to circumvent the CIA and secretly brief the White House on links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa'eda, according to the Senate intelligence committee. - The Telegraph, 11-7-04
One could also make the case for "cells" being The White House, State Department, Pentagon, etc.
...often uses religion as a cover for terrorist activities.
Crusade. I remember a momentary feeling of vertigo at the President's use of that word, the outrageous ineptitude of it. The vertigo lifted, and what I felt then was fear, sensing not ineptitude but exactitude. My thoughts went to the elusive Osama bin Laden, how pleased he must have been, Bush already reading from his script. I am a Roman Catholic with a feeling for history, and strong regrets, therefore, over what went wrong in my own tradition once the Crusades were launched. Contrary to schoolboy romances, Hollywood fantasies and the nostalgia of royalty, the Crusades were a set of world-historic crimes. I hear the word with a third ear, alert to its dangers, and I see through its legends to its warnings. For example, in Iraq "insurgents" have lately shocked the world by decapitating hostages, turning the most taboo of acts into a military tactic. But a thousand years ago, Latin crusaders used the severed heads of Muslim fighters as missiles, catapulting them over the fortified walls of cities under siege. Taboos fall in total war, whether crusade or jihad. - The Nation, 9-20-04 more here
There are, of course, thousands of other examples besides the text I've provided. Much of it coming from Republicans themselves. I'm sure you could come up with your own too.
But I hasten to say that the greatest weapon of fear that the terrorist Bush Administration has in its arsenal is that of calling anyone who disagrees with them "unpatriotic."
Samuel Johnson once said "patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels."
Johnson also began on one of his most important works, A Dictionary of the English Language, in 1747. It was not completed until 1755. Although it was widely praised and enormously influential, Johnson did not profit from it much financially.
hmmmm, dictionary.....definitions.....which, I guess, brings us back to the beginning, full circle.
BushCo: - slang, often derogatory moniker given to the administration of George W. Bush - see also terrorist