A reporter on NPR this morning said, "The insurgency continues to be a bold challenge to US efforts to build a democratic government in Iraq."

Forgive me, but on a day when this:

Fire and metal shards from the blast ripped through the crowd of job applicants as well as the nearby vegetable and fruit market, which was filled with women and children shopping for their daily produce.

and this:

"My name is Florence Aubenas. I'm French. I'm a journalist with Liberation," she said in English on the undated tape, looking distraught and with her hair bedraggled. She was dressed in a gray sweatshirt and black trousers.

"My health is very bad. I'm very bad psychologically also," she said, staring intently at the camera as she held her knees up to her chest in front of a dark red background.

are the lead stories coming out of Iraq right now, I find the designation "bold challenge" just a tad sick and disturbing. Blowing up women and children and kidnapping 43 year-old French women frankly isn't very bold. And "challenge" is one of those euphemisms you hear in a corporate board meeting.

I can think of plenty other adjectives and a whole bucketful of nouns to describe these people, but "bold challenge" is nowhere in the list.