Humpty Dumpty had a great "detainment"

Quote:
Guests who are late for dinner will call to say they have been detained but will be along shortly. Being a “detainee” suggests that at most any moment the person detained will find him or herself back in civilian life with sufficient government supplied funds to buy a bus ticket home. Unfortunately for those detained by Mr. Bush, however, he, having invented that particular use of the word has, as he has with so many of his inventions, given it new meaning. Someone detained by Mr. Bush will not simply be a few minutes late for a dinner. The person detained may never get to the dinner and, worse yet, may spend the rest of his or her life wondering why not since Mr. Bush has decreed that someone who being detained and misses dinner, is not entitled to know the reason for the detention. In that respect detainees differ from prisoners, the latter being entitled to know why they are what they are.

Reason for Nomination:
It's good to see writers centering on the games being played with the language.

His citing of “When I use a word” Humpty Dumpty said . . . it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less.”
-- Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
is also a wonderful summation of what the administration has been doing.