Egg > Pre-chicken > Ovoid Reproductive Vessel.

Democrat > Liberal > Commie
Republican > Conservative > Fascist
Arab > Muslim > Terrorist

Given recent events abroad, things are bound to heat up here at home during the next few days' news cycles. Showdown time at the ad hominem Corral, if you will. What better time to ponder the tactical and strategic abuse of the Queen's English? Propagandacritic.com exhumes The Institute for Propaganda Analysis, ca. 1937-42. Definitions, tips, tricks, maneuvers and rhetorical pirouettes, neatly dissected for the layman or hobbyist. Here's a contemporized sample from "Euphemism", a relative 3rd-stringer in the game.

The comedian George Carlin notes that, in the wake of the first world war, traumatized veterans were said to be suffering from "shell shock." The short, vivid phrase conveys the horrors of battle -- one can practically hear the shells exploding overhead. After the second world war, people began to use the term "combat fatigue" to characterize the same condition. The phrase is a bit more pleasant, but it still acknowledges combat as the source of discomfort. In the wake of the Vietnam War, people referred to "post-traumatic stress disorder": a phrase that is completely disconnected from the reality of war altogether.

[edited 9:31 for clarity > sloppiness > unadulterated hack-ness]