So John McCain is taking his imaginary friend campaigning with him in Florida. Candidate McCain has just kicked off a bus tour called the “’Joe the Plumber’ Keep Your Wealth Bus Tour.” Joe, being imaginary, will not actually be on the bus. The real Joe, as everyone knows by now, is not named Joe, does not have a plumbing license, and is a tax delinquent. Or he was until a sympathetic Oregon radio host raised $1,200 to pay his tax bill, Queen-for-a-Day-style.
In his famous exchange with Barack Obama, Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher fretted that his ability to buy a business would be undermined by the Obama tax plan – although in fact, an Obama administration would improve Wurzelbacher’s bottom line. Since he earns around $40,000 a year, he actually would get a bigger tax cut under Obama’s plan than under McCain’s, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center. [http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/]
You’d think that these revelations would enough to make the Republican to tiptoe quietly away from their new Everyman. But wait, there’s more! As one blogger put it in a headline, “Joe ‘the Plumber’ Wurzelbacher related to Charles ‘the Crook’ Keating.” Oops.
It turns out that Joe is a close relative of Robert Wurzelbacher, son-in-law of Charles Keating of the infamous savings and loan scandal that tainted McCain’s early political career. You might think that the campaign would have done a better job vetting the man they planned to reference 22 times in the final debate. You might also think that Joe the Plumber was a Republican plant.
Either way, it makes no difference. A week later, the real Joe’s story is out there, his tax arrears, his unlicensed status, his disreputable relations. Yet Joe the Plumber has transcended these inconvenient facts and become Joe the Political Metaphor. A story in yesterday’s Miami Herald reports on a Florida polling phenomenon they call the “Joe the Plumber Effect,” which apparently has improved McCain’s standing in Florida.
For an imaginary friend, Joe seems to be working out pretty well for John McCain. Better than his imaginary enemies anyway.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Raising the Kids: Whose Job?
In the course of her work, my daughter recently has had occasion to read various “mommy blogs,” an outlet for maternal obsessing that wasn't available when I was a new mother. (Instead I got to bore people in person.) My daughter was horrified by the compulsive preoccupation with every trivial detail of baby care, and it has put her off the whole of idea of motherhood.
She had a similar reaction to a Sex and the City rerun we watched together. It was the famous baby-shower episode, where a mommy character announces that she's given up a career as a corporate senior vice president to stay home with her child. “That is so unrealistic!” Cait said. “No one would ever do that.” “Yes they would, and they do,” I said.
Personally I guess I wouldn't recommend putting a career on the back-burner. Luckily for me I never had to make that choice, not being a senior vice president of anything when I got pregnant. As a self-employed writer, I could shape my work around taking care of my child. I could even channel my maternal preoccupations into my work by writing for parenting magazines. I never had to contend with the heartrending, impossible balancing act of mothers with employers and office jobs.
I wanted to say something reassuring to Cait about how times have changed and there were more options available. I wanted to say that the senior vice president would now be able to take a year of parental leave and return to her previous job without penalty. That the part-time or reduced-hour work week was widely accepted. That there were excellent government-subsidized childcare and education centers, and that these high-quality programs were staffed by trained well-paid workers. That she could contribute to her pension fund even in the years she wasn't working.
Unfortunately, there’s no way I can say such things. Most of these family-work reconciliation measures I mention are taken for granted in Europe. There, caring for the next generation is considered to contribute to the social good. But In this country, we are rugged individualists, where the prevailing attitude is, “you had 'em, you raise 'em.” This backward attitude toward family benefits is unique in the developed world.
Realigning our family policies would be an investment that pays dividends for everyone. Literally. Because these future generations will, if we’re lucky, be paying the taxes that fund our social security dividends
She had a similar reaction to a Sex and the City rerun we watched together. It was the famous baby-shower episode, where a mommy character announces that she's given up a career as a corporate senior vice president to stay home with her child. “That is so unrealistic!” Cait said. “No one would ever do that.” “Yes they would, and they do,” I said.
Personally I guess I wouldn't recommend putting a career on the back-burner. Luckily for me I never had to make that choice, not being a senior vice president of anything when I got pregnant. As a self-employed writer, I could shape my work around taking care of my child. I could even channel my maternal preoccupations into my work by writing for parenting magazines. I never had to contend with the heartrending, impossible balancing act of mothers with employers and office jobs.
I wanted to say something reassuring to Cait about how times have changed and there were more options available. I wanted to say that the senior vice president would now be able to take a year of parental leave and return to her previous job without penalty. That the part-time or reduced-hour work week was widely accepted. That there were excellent government-subsidized childcare and education centers, and that these high-quality programs were staffed by trained well-paid workers. That she could contribute to her pension fund even in the years she wasn't working.
Unfortunately, there’s no way I can say such things. Most of these family-work reconciliation measures I mention are taken for granted in Europe. There, caring for the next generation is considered to contribute to the social good. But In this country, we are rugged individualists, where the prevailing attitude is, “you had 'em, you raise 'em.” This backward attitude toward family benefits is unique in the developed world.
Realigning our family policies would be an investment that pays dividends for everyone. Literally. Because these future generations will, if we’re lucky, be paying the taxes that fund our social security dividends
John Adams: The Courage to Sign
It's not only youth that's wasted on the young, as George Bernard Shaw famously remarked. So is education. Other than learning to read and write, and maybe do the odd sum, is there any point in going to school before you're 40-something or even or 50-something?
Certainly teaching me history was a waste. As a schoolgirl, I was too self-absorbed and my imaginative powers were too undeveloped for me to fully appreciate any historical event. If it happened before I was born, my M.O. was “memorize and forget.”
This occurred to me recently because I am in the middle of watching “John Adams,” the seven-part HBO miniseries about the founding of our country. There are aspects I don't much like about the production, mainly Paul Giametti's John Adams -- he seems to have two facial expressions, both of them cribbed from Homer Simpson.
But I have found the history unexpectedly moving, and have for the first time begun to grasp what it really means. Watching scenes from the Continental Congress, where the terms of Independence were hammered out, I understood for the first time how terrifying it was for these men to repudiate their government -- how extreme an act, and how uncertain of success.
They had reason to be scared. Benjamin Franklin (played brilliantly by Tom Wilkinson) expressed everyone's mood when he said, “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.” And so they would have. Because we know how the story comes out, it's hard to fully appreciate the courage and audacity of these 56 men. In signing the Declaration of Independence, they might well have been signing their own death warrant.
Strip away the mythologizing and the pieties of history-books, and the fact remains: those Patriots were extraordinary men. Not only courageous, but also smart. Pretty much the same bunch went on to frame the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; they created a substantially new form of government that has proved durable and important.
Certainly teaching me history was a waste. As a schoolgirl, I was too self-absorbed and my imaginative powers were too undeveloped for me to fully appreciate any historical event. If it happened before I was born, my M.O. was “memorize and forget.”
This occurred to me recently because I am in the middle of watching “John Adams,” the seven-part HBO miniseries about the founding of our country. There are aspects I don't much like about the production, mainly Paul Giametti's John Adams -- he seems to have two facial expressions, both of them cribbed from Homer Simpson.
But I have found the history unexpectedly moving, and have for the first time begun to grasp what it really means. Watching scenes from the Continental Congress, where the terms of Independence were hammered out, I understood for the first time how terrifying it was for these men to repudiate their government -- how extreme an act, and how uncertain of success.
They had reason to be scared. Benjamin Franklin (played brilliantly by Tom Wilkinson) expressed everyone's mood when he said, “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately.” And so they would have. Because we know how the story comes out, it's hard to fully appreciate the courage and audacity of these 56 men. In signing the Declaration of Independence, they might well have been signing their own death warrant.
Strip away the mythologizing and the pieties of history-books, and the fact remains: those Patriots were extraordinary men. Not only courageous, but also smart. Pretty much the same bunch went on to frame the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; they created a substantially new form of government that has proved durable and important.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Obama Plays the Age Card
Young people don't vote. That's the conventional wisdom, and this year it's big news that, in the primaries, young voters surged to the polls as they haven't in a long time. In 1970, when the voting age was lowered to 18, 55 percent of the young voters went to the polls, but in recent elections that figure has dropped dramatically.
This year, though, they're coming back--mostly, no surprise, to support Obama. He has delighted them in part by challenging the baby boom generation, whose members, he has said, should "get over themselves."
From an age standpoint, it’s hard to think of another election year that has been as interesting as this one. For the first time ever, three generations are represented in the Presidential horse race. Obama has declared that it's time for a representative of a new generation to enter the White House, namely him.*
Not baby boomer Hillary Clinton, born in 1947, the same year the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. And certainly not John McCain, whose 1938 birth date makes him a son of the Great Depression. The year Obama was born, 1961, was the year John F. Kennedy exhorted Americans to "Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country." Some seasoned political hands say they see in Obama the youth and hopefulness of JFK.
After 16 years of running the country, maybe it is time for our generation to step aside. But it's annoying to hear Obama sound off on the subject. As even he acknowledges, many of the social reforms we now take for granted were initiated by the 60s politics that he now called "tired." If the Democratic nomination does end up going to him, I imagine he will begin to soft-pedal the anti-boomer rhetoric. We are, after all, still the largest generation in American history and we do vote.
*According to some demographers, Obama, with his 1961 birthdate, qualifies as a late boomer. But he counts himself as part of the baby bust, a.k.a. the boomer backlash. If you doubt there is such a thing, take a look at the blog dieboomerdie.
[http://dieboomerdie.blogspot.com]
This year, though, they're coming back--mostly, no surprise, to support Obama. He has delighted them in part by challenging the baby boom generation, whose members, he has said, should "get over themselves."
From an age standpoint, it’s hard to think of another election year that has been as interesting as this one. For the first time ever, three generations are represented in the Presidential horse race. Obama has declared that it's time for a representative of a new generation to enter the White House, namely him.*
Not baby boomer Hillary Clinton, born in 1947, the same year the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. And certainly not John McCain, whose 1938 birth date makes him a son of the Great Depression. The year Obama was born, 1961, was the year John F. Kennedy exhorted Americans to "Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country." Some seasoned political hands say they see in Obama the youth and hopefulness of JFK.
After 16 years of running the country, maybe it is time for our generation to step aside. But it's annoying to hear Obama sound off on the subject. As even he acknowledges, many of the social reforms we now take for granted were initiated by the 60s politics that he now called "tired." If the Democratic nomination does end up going to him, I imagine he will begin to soft-pedal the anti-boomer rhetoric. We are, after all, still the largest generation in American history and we do vote.
*According to some demographers, Obama, with his 1961 birthdate, qualifies as a late boomer. But he counts himself as part of the baby bust, a.k.a. the boomer backlash. If you doubt there is such a thing, take a look at the blog dieboomerdie.
[http://dieboomerdie.blogspot.com]
Monday, March 17, 2008
Pious Politicians
Here's a civics question: What successful candidate for President of the United States, when news leaked that he had never been baptized, announced that he'd get to it when he could - probably after the election? Hint: This didn't happen yesterday.
No recent presidential contender could have gotten out of the starting gate with such a casual attitude to the most basic ritual of Christian faith. The correct answer is Dwight D. Eisenhower. (Baptized or not, Ike considered himself a Christian, and it was he who signed off on inserting “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance.) In the half-century since the Eisenhower years, voters have come increasingly to expect candidates to fervently profess a personal relationship to the Almighty, in the form of the Christian God.
How did it happen that such public religiosity became a prerequisite for high office? This question is tackled in a recent book called “God in the White House,” by Randall Ballmer, a professor of religion at Barnard College. A self-professed evangelical Christian, Ballmer is also a firm supporter of the separation of church and state, and no fan of what he calls the “religionization” of the Oval Office.
It has been argued that this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind, that they believed their new nation would be Christian in spirit. Some did, some didn't. Some did one week and didn't the next. Their writings can be (and often are) selectively quoted to favor either side of this issue. But the law of the land which they wisely chose to put in place holds that the institutions of church and state are to remain separate.
I am very uncomfortable when candidates push the God button. Presidential contenders do this while at the same time
No recent presidential contender could have gotten out of the starting gate with such a casual attitude to the most basic ritual of Christian faith. The correct answer is Dwight D. Eisenhower. (Baptized or not, Ike considered himself a Christian, and it was he who signed off on inserting “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance.) In the half-century since the Eisenhower years, voters have come increasingly to expect candidates to fervently profess a personal relationship to the Almighty, in the form of the Christian God.
How did it happen that such public religiosity became a prerequisite for high office? This question is tackled in a recent book called “God in the White House,” by Randall Ballmer, a professor of religion at Barnard College. A self-professed evangelical Christian, Ballmer is also a firm supporter of the separation of church and state, and no fan of what he calls the “religionization” of the Oval Office.
It has been argued that this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind, that they believed their new nation would be Christian in spirit. Some did, some didn't. Some did one week and didn't the next. Their writings can be (and often are) selectively quoted to favor either side of this issue. But the law of the land which they wisely chose to put in place holds that the institutions of church and state are to remain separate.
I am very uncomfortable when candidates push the God button. Presidential contenders do this while at the same time
Friday, February 29, 2008
Pious Politicians
Here's a civics question: What successful candidate for President of the United States, when news leaked that he had never been baptized, announced that he'd get to it when he could - probably after the election? Hint: This didn't happen yesterday.
No recent presidential contender could have gotten out of the starting gate with such a casual attitude to the most basic ritual of Christian faith. The correct answer is Dwight D. Eisenhower. (Baptized or not, Ike considered himself a Christian, and it was he who signed off on inserting “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance.) In the half-century since the Eisenhower years, voters have come increasingly to expect candidates to fervently profess a personal relationship to the Almighty, in the form of the Christian God.
How did it happen that such public religiosity became a prerequisite for high office? This question is tackled in a recent book called “God in the White House,” by Randall Ballmer, a professor of religion at Barnard College. A self-professed evangelical Christian, Ballmer is also a firm supporter of the separation of church and state, and no fan of what he calls the “religionization” of the Oval Office.
It has been argued that this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind, that they believed their new nation would be Christian in spirit. Some did, some didn't. Some did one week and didn't the next. Their writings can be (and often are) selectively quoted to favor either side of this issue. But the law of the land which they wisely chose to put in place holds that the institutions of church and state are to remain separate.
I am very uncomfortable when candidates push the God button. Presidential contenders do this while at the same time claiming that they intend to govern in a way that is “inclusive.” But in courting the approval of one, group of citizens, Christians namely, they are excluding people of other faiths as well as people of no faith. (I also wonder why, if an individual's relationship with God is personal, it should be offered up for public vetting. )
In writing this, I have had to resist the inclination to convey my own feelings about religion. They are not relevant to the point I'm making, and neither are anyone else's.
No recent presidential contender could have gotten out of the starting gate with such a casual attitude to the most basic ritual of Christian faith. The correct answer is Dwight D. Eisenhower. (Baptized or not, Ike considered himself a Christian, and it was he who signed off on inserting “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance.) In the half-century since the Eisenhower years, voters have come increasingly to expect candidates to fervently profess a personal relationship to the Almighty, in the form of the Christian God.
How did it happen that such public religiosity became a prerequisite for high office? This question is tackled in a recent book called “God in the White House,” by Randall Ballmer, a professor of religion at Barnard College. A self-professed evangelical Christian, Ballmer is also a firm supporter of the separation of church and state, and no fan of what he calls the “religionization” of the Oval Office.
It has been argued that this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind, that they believed their new nation would be Christian in spirit. Some did, some didn't. Some did one week and didn't the next. Their writings can be (and often are) selectively quoted to favor either side of this issue. But the law of the land which they wisely chose to put in place holds that the institutions of church and state are to remain separate.
I am very uncomfortable when candidates push the God button. Presidential contenders do this while at the same time claiming that they intend to govern in a way that is “inclusive.” But in courting the approval of one, group of citizens, Christians namely, they are excluding people of other faiths as well as people of no faith. (I also wonder why, if an individual's relationship with God is personal, it should be offered up for public vetting. )
In writing this, I have had to resist the inclination to convey my own feelings about religion. They are not relevant to the point I'm making, and neither are anyone else's.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
McCain's Gay Baiting
If you were a member of a conservative household in Florida last week, you might have picked up the phone and heard a recording that accused Mitt Romney of being soft on gay rights. The "robocall," as these canned communications are known, featured a woman's voice reminding voters that Romney once "told gay organizers in Massachusetts that he would be a stronger advocate for [their] special rights than even Ted Kennedy."
This was the sound of the John McCain campaign taking the low road. Ironic, but not surprising. Senator McCain learned a thing or two after Karl Rove masterminded a smear operation against him in the 2000 South Carolina primary. This year, who should McCain have hired to help run his campaign but the same Bush operative who orchestrated the whispering attacks against McCain seven years ago?*
Those robocalls in Florida were aimed at stirring up anti-gay sentiment among voters by pointing out Mitt's flip-flop on gay rights. Yet McCain's own record on the issue is not entirely flip-flop-free. Four years ago he called a constitutional ban on gay marriage "antithetical to the core philosophy of Republicans." Two years later, he told televangelist Jerry Falwell that if states didn't pass laws prohibiting gay marriage, he would back a constitutional ban.
It remains to be seen whether McCain's courting of the religious right will succeed. He may be sound on abortion and gay marriage. But his anti-Mitt robocall also stressed that America needs someone who will preserve "the sanctity of marriage." It's a bit rich that John McCain thinks he can out-marriage-sanctity Mitt Romney—who, after all, is still on his first wife.
To refresh your memory, here's a recap of the McCain divorce: While McCain was imprisoned at a Vietnamese POW camp, his wife Carol, a former model, was in a serious car accident. Her injuries left her four inches shorter, considerably heavier, and disabled -- not what McCain expected when he came home, himself still suffering from severe injuries. By his own account, he "ran around" for a while. Then he met a wealthy 25-year-old from Arizona with whom he began a steady adulterous relationship. Soon after, he dumped Carol, who had reared their three children while McCain was in prison. A month after the divorce was final, he married the heiress.
Hypocrisy seems to come with the territory of being a social conservative (examples supplied on request). But how rotten do you have to be to treat another person like this? People carry on about Bill Clinton's character issues, but, really, Slick Willie seems like a stand-up guy compared to John "Sanctity of Marriage" McCain.
This was the sound of the John McCain campaign taking the low road. Ironic, but not surprising. Senator McCain learned a thing or two after Karl Rove masterminded a smear operation against him in the 2000 South Carolina primary. This year, who should McCain have hired to help run his campaign but the same Bush operative who orchestrated the whispering attacks against McCain seven years ago?*
Those robocalls in Florida were aimed at stirring up anti-gay sentiment among voters by pointing out Mitt's flip-flop on gay rights. Yet McCain's own record on the issue is not entirely flip-flop-free. Four years ago he called a constitutional ban on gay marriage "antithetical to the core philosophy of Republicans." Two years later, he told televangelist Jerry Falwell that if states didn't pass laws prohibiting gay marriage, he would back a constitutional ban.
It remains to be seen whether McCain's courting of the religious right will succeed. He may be sound on abortion and gay marriage. But his anti-Mitt robocall also stressed that America needs someone who will preserve "the sanctity of marriage." It's a bit rich that John McCain thinks he can out-marriage-sanctity Mitt Romney—who, after all, is still on his first wife.
To refresh your memory, here's a recap of the McCain divorce: While McCain was imprisoned at a Vietnamese POW camp, his wife Carol, a former model, was in a serious car accident. Her injuries left her four inches shorter, considerably heavier, and disabled -- not what McCain expected when he came home, himself still suffering from severe injuries. By his own account, he "ran around" for a while. Then he met a wealthy 25-year-old from Arizona with whom he began a steady adulterous relationship. Soon after, he dumped Carol, who had reared their three children while McCain was in prison. A month after the divorce was final, he married the heiress.
Hypocrisy seems to come with the territory of being a social conservative (examples supplied on request). But how rotten do you have to be to treat another person like this? People carry on about Bill Clinton's character issues, but, really, Slick Willie seems like a stand-up guy compared to John "Sanctity of Marriage" McCain.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Gay Marriage for All
When I was young, and ferocious feminists roamed the earth, it was a widely held view that marriage mainly benefited the state. Why should committed co-habiting couples need official sanction? Of course, people kept on getting married nonetheless (including formerly ferocious feminists). Except when they couldn't.
It is true that marriage serves the common good. A sizable marriage penalty is written into the tax code; rich and poor, working married couples pay more in taxes than they would if single. Married couples are more likely to fill caretaking roles for each other, saving government money in social benefits for the sick or disabled. And married parents have the legal responsibility to support their children, making the children less likely to become wards of the state.
The government does shell out Social Security survivorship benefits to married people and not to co-habiting couples, no matter how long they have been together. But the cost is small compared to the economic value marriage generates.
Leaving aside all questions of fairness, marriage between committed couples, no matter what their sexual persuasion, should be encouraged simply on the basis of the bottom line. Yet there is heated opposition to gay marriage, much of it on religious grounds.
So why not take the state out of the marriage business altogether? Straight or gay, all couples would enter into the same kind of civil unions now proposed for gay couples. These would be carried out by the government, and would confer the same rights, benefits, and obligations as marriage now does. Couples wishing to enter into a marriage sanctified by a church could do so as a private, supplemental matter. And there would be no need for one group to impose its beliefs on anyone else.
There would be another benefit as well. It would take the divisive issue of gay marriage off the table in the coming presidential election. I find it painful to watch candidates tie themselves in knots over this one, and, frankly, we as a country have more pressing things to worry about.
It is true that marriage serves the common good. A sizable marriage penalty is written into the tax code; rich and poor, working married couples pay more in taxes than they would if single. Married couples are more likely to fill caretaking roles for each other, saving government money in social benefits for the sick or disabled. And married parents have the legal responsibility to support their children, making the children less likely to become wards of the state.
The government does shell out Social Security survivorship benefits to married people and not to co-habiting couples, no matter how long they have been together. But the cost is small compared to the economic value marriage generates.
Leaving aside all questions of fairness, marriage between committed couples, no matter what their sexual persuasion, should be encouraged simply on the basis of the bottom line. Yet there is heated opposition to gay marriage, much of it on religious grounds.
So why not take the state out of the marriage business altogether? Straight or gay, all couples would enter into the same kind of civil unions now proposed for gay couples. These would be carried out by the government, and would confer the same rights, benefits, and obligations as marriage now does. Couples wishing to enter into a marriage sanctified by a church could do so as a private, supplemental matter. And there would be no need for one group to impose its beliefs on anyone else.
There would be another benefit as well. It would take the divisive issue of gay marriage off the table in the coming presidential election. I find it painful to watch candidates tie themselves in knots over this one, and, frankly, we as a country have more pressing things to worry about.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Mistakes Were Made. Again.
I opened my newspaper the other day and learned that, once again, "Mistakes were made." In this case, the mistakes involved Bernie Kerik, a associate of Rudy Giuliani who is under investigation for suspected entanglements with organized crime. You will notice that the subject of the previous sentence is "mistakes." The former mayor used the same construction in his non-admission of what was a serious lapse in judgment. "There were mistakes made with Bernie Kerik," Giuliani told a reporter.
Who made these mistakes? What spectral being or elusive force could have been responsible? Thanks to his adroit use of the passive voice, we are left guessing. If I were Rhetoric Czar – oh, and by the way, I am – I would impose a fine on this affront to candor. When sentences have no subjects – no human ones, anyway – no one is ever accountable for anything. Along with George Orwell, I believe that creeping passive voice is a sign of moral bankruptcy. He wrote in his classic essay, The Politics of the English Language, "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity."
It is as true in our time as it was 60 years ago that political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Language dictates thought, and the diabolical part is that language that is intended to mislead and manipulate works—even when we are fully aware it's a con.
Our newspapers parrot Administration phraseology that tries to "name things without calling up mental pictures of them," as Orwell wrote. This is why we read about "the Special Removal Unit" (kidnappers) tasked to perform "extraordinary rendition" (outsourcing torture, also know as "enhanced interrogation"). "Political language," according to Orwell, "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable... "
And if there are lies, there must also be liars, right? But not Condeleeza Rice, who merely "misspoke herself," when she testified before the 9/11 Commission that she'd received no warnings about Al Quada's plans.
Then there is "opposite talk," an attempt to legitimize a policy by giving it a name that is directly contrary to its actual aims. The Administration's Clear Skies Initiative, for example, was anything but; it substantially weakened pollution controls. And of course there is the Protect America Act. If there were truth in naming, would be called the Police America Act, as it broadly expands the government's power to spy on Americans.
So who will police the policers? Who will point out to the public the discrepancies between language and reality? Journalism should have a "rhetoric beat," according to an essay by Brent Cunningham in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. He argues that people ought to be following and reporting on the ways that political language is twisted to influence thinking.
Sign me up. As Rhetoric Czar, I will do my best to identify the latest linguistic offenses against clarity and truth as they occur. (With the presidential campaign heating up, I expect an avalanche.)
Who made these mistakes? What spectral being or elusive force could have been responsible? Thanks to his adroit use of the passive voice, we are left guessing. If I were Rhetoric Czar – oh, and by the way, I am – I would impose a fine on this affront to candor. When sentences have no subjects – no human ones, anyway – no one is ever accountable for anything. Along with George Orwell, I believe that creeping passive voice is a sign of moral bankruptcy. He wrote in his classic essay, The Politics of the English Language, "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity."
It is as true in our time as it was 60 years ago that political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Language dictates thought, and the diabolical part is that language that is intended to mislead and manipulate works—even when we are fully aware it's a con.
Our newspapers parrot Administration phraseology that tries to "name things without calling up mental pictures of them," as Orwell wrote. This is why we read about "the Special Removal Unit" (kidnappers) tasked to perform "extraordinary rendition" (outsourcing torture, also know as "enhanced interrogation"). "Political language," according to Orwell, "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable... "
And if there are lies, there must also be liars, right? But not Condeleeza Rice, who merely "misspoke herself," when she testified before the 9/11 Commission that she'd received no warnings about Al Quada's plans.
Then there is "opposite talk," an attempt to legitimize a policy by giving it a name that is directly contrary to its actual aims. The Administration's Clear Skies Initiative, for example, was anything but; it substantially weakened pollution controls. And of course there is the Protect America Act. If there were truth in naming, would be called the Police America Act, as it broadly expands the government's power to spy on Americans.
So who will police the policers? Who will point out to the public the discrepancies between language and reality? Journalism should have a "rhetoric beat," according to an essay by Brent Cunningham in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. He argues that people ought to be following and reporting on the ways that political language is twisted to influence thinking.
Sign me up. As Rhetoric Czar, I will do my best to identify the latest linguistic offenses against clarity and truth as they occur. (With the presidential campaign heating up, I expect an avalanche.)
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