Move over "Heartland," here comes "Homeland"

So in some ways the name of the new agency, which is charged with coordinating FBI, CIA and myriad other bureaucracies to better defend against terrorism, is simply an example of verbal preparedness: "Homeland" was standing by, willing and ready for duty. An obvious alternative, like the Office of National Security, is too close to the National Security Council. But why not, say, an Office of Domestic Security, or an Anti-Terrorism Intragovernmental Office (ATIGO), or something equally governmentally bland?

Maybe because if at worst "homeland" sounds a bit totalitarian, at best it sounds like a new line of Campbell's soups. Maybe Bush and his advisors decided to go with homeland because they were deaf to the word's negative, historical associations but all ears to the media successes of homeland's first cousin: Heartland.

"Heartland" appeared in so many headlines and network TV slogans during coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing -- like Fox TV's "Terror in the Heartland" -- that The Heartland virtually became the nation's new name. That heart began beating regularly back in the Reagan years, silently in the Gipper's "Morning in America" reelection ad and all the gauzy beer commercials, and spoken outright in Chevrolet's "Heartbeat of America" campaign (where heartbeat acted as oblique dig at the "heartless" Japanese automakers). The commercial heart is infinite: Just this August, Bush (a deliberate sprinkler of hearts in his rhetoric) actually gave his month-long vacation a slogan: "The Home to the Heartland Tour." That not so subtly drove home the point that he was relieved as hell to get out of Washington and other phony places East.

Since New York City, at least prior to Sept. 11, was as far psychically from the Heartland as you could get, and since an "Office of Heartland Security" would be too cartoonish even for a "Wanted: Dead or Alive"-poster president, Homeland was the next best thing.

During this crisis and especially during his speech to Congress, Bush has produced thoughtful and balanced words, about the war not being with Arabs or Islam, about patience and doing conventional justice. But words like "homeland," "crusade," and "infinite justice" reveal impulses of his administration that make more than just Muslims nervous. What ultimately is being defended is indeed a way of life, one that likes things packaged in familiar bows and ties, especially at a time when so much is suddenly unfamiliar. Like "heartland," "homeland" sounds old-fashioned and cozy, promising to one day bring back the life we fear we lost just weeks ago. Homeland evokes images of us huddling in front of a hearth in a house on the prairie, the consonants of the last syllable even sketching (well, they do for me) the sense of a barrier that others mustn't ever cross.

That commercial fantasy of America is also threatened by this crisis, and "homeland security," like any good ad copy, does its best to bring it back. This time the problem isn't that Bush garbles his words; it's that some of his words oversell what the nation is capable of. As we enter this battle, perhaps it's useful to remember that "campaigns" exist only in three areas of life: politics, war and advertising.

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