regulate – verb (reprise)

To aid and abet.

road map – noun

A diagram of roadways used by travelers to find circuitous routes to their destinations—including scenic detours, rest stops, eateries, and tourist attractions—or to change their itineraries mid-trip.

USAGE: President Bush unfolded a road map for peace in the Middle East.

The idea of a "road map" for Israeli-Palestinian peace was not entirely an invention of President George W. Bush, but was in fact his response to a request by Jordan's King Abdullah in a White House conversation. After their official talk, according to another person in the room, King Abdullah said, "What we need is a road map." Bush then turned to Assistant Secretary of State for the Near Bast William Burns and said, "He wants a road map. Can we give him a road map?"

COMMENT: If peace were the chief goal of peace negotiations, then a treasure map would be a more apt metaphor: a set of directions toward a singular destination, promising a lost, difficult to acquire, and immensely valuable reward. Or, to bring the proper terminology up to date, "GPS directions for peace" might suffice.

Road maps are not only designed for countless users with myriad possible destinations (read: agendas) in mind, but they're also notoriously difficult to interpret once you decide where you want to go. In addition, they're impossible to use as you're driving, and they stubbornly resist folding for storage and repeated use.

On the whole, then, kudos to Bush for another brilliant coinage.

risk management – noun

The art or practice of formulating complex exculpatory explanations for enormous losses incurred from daft speculation.

(See also: "crisis management.")

rating agency – noun

An advertising firm that specializes in the sale of bonds.

Issuers thus were forced to seek credit ratings (or else their bonds would not be marketable). The agencies—realizing they had a hot product and, what's more, a captive market—started charging the very organizations whose bonds they were rating. — Roger Lowenstein

reverend – noun

1. A person who quotes the Bible, pontificates about morals, seeks donations, but doesn't run for public office.

2. A person deserving of the same awe and respect one has for non-existent objects.

3. A stand-up comic with a religious routine.

4. An expert consultant on sex and graft scandals.

revisionist – adjective

Insufficiently laudatory or elevating.

reform – noun

A legislative reversion to policies in place when one's political party was in power.

refugee – noun

An evacuee of color.

AMERICANS OPEN DOORS TO KATRINA REFUGEES

"I trust these people," says Lila Ashmore, a magazine editor and grandmother of two.

-- USA TODAY, Sept. 5, 2005.

reality-based - adjective

Grounded in the falsification of popular opinion and the frustration of cherished ideals.

reconstruction - noun

A lull between destructions.

resign – verb (reprise)

Government. To explore opportunities in the private sector.

rebrand – verb

To induce collective amnesia.

regime change – noun

Minor international surgery that invariably has serious complications.

rule of law – noun

1. An asymmetric strategy for undermining the powers of the unitary executive.

2. What one hires a lawyer to nullify.

redact – verb

To abridge for the short attention spans of Internet readers.

realism – noun

A political doctrine that holds all other states act amorally in pursuit of their own interests, therefore so should ours.

resign – verb

To decide to spend more time with family.