I heard that Congress was looking into the use of the code-name “Geronimo” for Osama Bin Laden’s capture.  For a moment I was trying to figure out what the heck the Republican Congress was doing– seems out of character — “Tea Party” contingent irked against “Political Correctness”.  No, it is the Senate. And it’s on a large list of concerns, somewhat fraught against Though many Americans associate the word “Geronimo” with a cry uttered when jumping out of an airplane . ..

The Senate Indian Affairs committee will hold a hearing Thursday on racist Native American stereotypes, a hearing that will now also address the Osama bin Laden mission and the code-name Geronimo.

While the hearing was scheduled before the mission, a committee aide today said the linking of the name Geronimo with the world’s most wanted man is “inappropriate” and can have a “devastating” impact on kids.

“The hearing was scheduled well before the Osama bin Laden operation became news, but the concerns over the linking of the name of Geronimo, one of the greatest Native American heroes, with the most hated enemies of the United States is an example of the kinds of issues we intended to address at Thursday’s hearing,” Loretta Tuell, the committee’s chief counsel, said in a statement.

Maybe.

To be fair, almost any name chosen for Osama would generate this kind of indignation. Bin Laden by any other name might smell as sweet, but call him a rose, and the flower lobby would be out in force. Call him Romeo, and the Anti-Shakespearean-Character Defamation League would be hooting and hollering and carrying on. Yes, Geronimo was a conscious choice, perhaps because the Native American leader was famously elusive, and there’s a hostile history there. Geronimo wasn’t even his original name. (That would be Goyahkla, “One Who Yawns.”) But say what you will about the history of wildly misappropriated terms for Native Americans — Washington Redskins, anyone? — the objection boils down to the fact that a code name for Osama that referenced anything with any redeeming qualities whatever would be drawing fire from some quarter.

Was his skull ever released from the Skull and Bones tomb?  Congress should look into that… or they would, but… you know… one member approaches the issue and gets stalked by their colleagues of … skull and bones.

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