News: Safire trivializes Global War on Terror

In his recent "On Language" column for The New York Times Magazine, Safire writes about how his attempts to understand "benchmark" and "timetable" met with resistance:

To try this in today’s poisonous atmosphere is to strike a match in a room filled with gasbags. One source I approached for definitions and distinctions castigated me for trivializing the war.

Indeed. Why split hairs over artificial timetables for defeat and subjective benchmarks, when we're about to make our move on Iran? Doesn't Safire know that the GWOT is a generational conflict to rid the Earth of evil once and for all?