Update your dictionaries: just as recently, when Obama pushed for it, the bailout became “rescue”, so does the economic plan gets readjusted to fit lower expectations. The announcement comes surprisingly from the NYT

In a notable shift, Congressional leaders and officials of the incoming Obama administration are actively trying to retire that term and use the more marketable “economic recovery program” as the descriptor for the multibillion-dollar economic initiative to be considered early next year.

I suppose the pollsters have decided we like that word better

“ ‘Stimulus’ is Washington talk, and ‘economic recovery’ is how the American people think of it,” said Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff for the incoming White House team.

Public opinion researchers have found that voters do not consider the term particularly reassuring, perhaps because past stimuli have not proved to be personally rewarding or maybe because the phrase is just too Pavlovian in trying to elicit a predetermined economic response.

but it seems THE ONE is on the page as well

President-elect Barack Obama hit the economic recovery theme hard in his recent public pronouncements as did his top advisers. Speaker Nancy Pelosi caught herself last week just as she was about to let the S-word slip. “We’re not using the word ‘stimulus,’ ” Ms. Pelosi confided at a news conference.

And somewhat, this is not about hypocrisy either, but the “power of imagery” (read – the power of the media) and the auto industry is blamed again:

a check to cover a quick trip to the electronics store.

Still, they are well aware that imagery has proved powerful in the economic crisis. Besides the ill-fated labeling of the bailout, executives of the nation’s automakers learned the hard way last week that flying to Washington on corporate jets to plead for federal aid was not the most effective message for car manufacturers to send.

Oh, I won’t cry for those CEOs, but I know the money were refused because some of them were going into pension funds – helping actual workers rather than bankers.

So, I prefer to end this one with the buried lede

For Democrats like Mr. Emanuel, there is a serious purpose behind the semantic stagecraft: they want the public to get accustomed to the idea that turning the economy around is going to take some doing and that the money coming down the Congressional pike is not just a short-term, one-shot burst intended to produce instant results.

and it was also the Republicans term

Republicans, who note that they have been talking about their own “economic recovery” proposals for quite a while, are skeptical that the Democrats are doing anything more than changing a few lines in the talking points.

They may be skeptical, but  I see a lot of significance in using GOP talking points