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The bad old Axis of Evil is back in the news. That's not because President Barack Obama has resurrected the label, but because he's now planning to hold direct talks with its two surviving charter members, Iran and North Korea.

It's one of many signs of change (if not hope) that the phrase itself, "axis of evil," has become less welcome in Washington's diplomatic calculus than envoys of that axis itself. Even before Obama scrapped the entire concept, President George W. Bush during his second term had abandoned the formulation.

Yet, the phrase still hangs around in collective memory. In some cases it serves as shorthand for headline writers, in others--not mutually exclusive--as a derisive jest. And then there are those, myself included, who think it lingers...