Welcome Homeland

November 30, 2006 6:29 PM

When did the Bush administration first introduce the word "homeland" into their vocabulary?

Was it first used in association with the Department of Homeland Security, or did they phase it in before that? Any relevant links would also be helpful.

posted by Packy_1962 to law & government (9 comments total)

As best as i can tell, from this site, the word was introduced on 20 Sep 2001, during the Declaration of War on Terrorism, in which he announces the Department of Homeland Security.
posted by Tacos Are Pretty Great at 6:41 PM on November 30, 2006

Salon article from October, 2001
posted by Pollomacho at 7:36 PM on November 30, 2006

The earliest reference I found was a recommendation by a bipartisan congressional committee to create a "National Homeland Security Department" (Executive Summary of U.S. Commission on National Security Report) . The report is dated January 31, 2001.

By the way, I found this by searching Google Groups. It's a great tool for discovering when the first reference of a term appeared, since you can search by date range.
posted by helios at 8:31 PM on November 30, 2006

The Trouble With "Homeland"

posted by MLIS at 9:50 PM on November 30, 2006

Fascinating question...I had always wondered the same thing, since "homeland" just sounds very Third Reich-ish to me. The Jan 2001 reference is particularly interesting, as I had only ever heard it post-9/11, when it seemed to creep into the national lexicon overnight.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:35 PM on November 30, 2006

The earliest use I'm aware of was in the Hart Rudman Commission report, circa 1999.

America will become increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland, and our military superiority will not entirely protect us.
posted by funkbrain at 6:43 AM on December 1, 2006

Using homeland to refer to your country has been done for a very long time. But using it in the sense that the Bush administration does is a very recent occurance. It's the product of political marketing I'm sure.
posted by bigmusic at 9:04 AM on December 1, 2006

Searching the whitehouse site, this is the earliest I can find Bush mentioning the homeland.
posted by bigmusic at 9:36 AM on December 1, 2006

Hmmm, where did my comment from last night go?

I was agreeing with someone else, who stated that the word Homeland made him/her think of Nazis.
posted by zaphod at 6:44 PM on December 1, 2006