Naming is a political act

As Deborah Stone says in her terrific book, Policy Paradox. Case in point, also from the New Yorker:

What is the name of a certain political party in the United States—not the one which controls the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government but the other one, which doesn’t? The question is a small one, to be sure: a minor irritation, a wee gnat compared to such red-clawed, sharp-toothed horrors as the health-care mess and the budget deficit, to say nothing of Iraq and Lebanon. But it has been around longer than any of them, and, annoyingly, it won’t go away.

Last week, the gnat was buzzing at a high altitude. . . .