11/21 Ben: Bad comparisons on civil liberties
As the Bush administration takes more aggressive steps to combat terrorism and protect the nation from future attacks, some civil libertarians have been expressing legitimate concerns about the balance between security and civil rights. Unfortunately, in some cases, these critics have been unable to resist overstating their cases, descending instead into spin and hyperbole.
Crispin Sartwell, a philosophy professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art, struck an early blow in what could become a harsh rhetorical battle in the pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday. In numerous instances, Sartwell engages in dissembling and wholly inappropriate comparisons, qualified with "weasel words," that are more likely to inflame the rhetoric surrounding this issue than provide a solid case that civil liberties are being abridged.
Sartwell's specialty in this piece is hyperbolic comparisons that grossly overstate any actual violations of civil rights that have thus far taken places. Discussing Attorney General John Ashcroft's increased surveillance of young men of Arab descent, he says "it is hard not to view this as a possible first step in a wider internment program." Notice the use of the phrase "it is hard not to view this as" to qualify his groundless assertion that there are any plans for actual internment camps along the lines of those for Japanese-Americans in World War II.
Commenting on the names of the anti-terrorism legislation that passed both houses of Congress, the "Patriot Act" and the "Uniting and Strengthening America Act," Sartwell calls them "euphemisms ... worthy of the Bolsheviks." He refers to the new Office of Homeland Security as existing "essentially to oversee surveillance and quasi-legal punishments." And on the topic of the government's request that media outlets don't air statements from Osama Bin Laden or other suspected terrorists, Sartwell states, "Our leaders evidently believe that only their own propaganda should be broadcast."
All of these are issues that merit significant debate for those concerned about civil rights. In all of these cases, however, Sartwell distorts rather than defend civil liberties. Grandly titled bills are in no way similar to the censorship and Orwellian word twisting of Communist leaders in the Soviet Union. In the next two examples, Sartwell uses the weasel words "essentially" and "evidently" to sneak in false accusation against the Office of Homeland Security and government propaganda. In reality, the Homeland Security Office does much more than surveillance and "quasi-legal punishments," and of course there is a lot of news for the media to report beyond statements from Osama Bin Laden that would not fit with the government's official line.
In all of these cases, Sartwell uses slippery phrasing or outright distortion to make alleged infringements on civil rights seem far worse than they actually are. Such rhetoric takes an important debate down a dangerous path towards spin and emotional accusations, and away from the important issues at hand.
[Email this to a friend] [Subscribe to our email list]
11/21/2001 02:09:02 PM EST |
11/20 Brendan: Mullings on jargon from Rich Galen
The template for much of the new political jargon is pretty simple: re-frame an accusation to turn it back against the accuser, dissemble wildly on facts and claim a pervasive double standard. Republican consultant and pundit Rich Galen's latest newsletter provides a classic example.
On Sunday, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times took a shot at President Bush's new initiative to publicize the Taliban's abhorrent treatment of Afghan women, mocking the White House for being "suddenly shocked by five-year-old Taliban excesses" and pointing out that the US supports regimes in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia that limit the rights of women.
Galen, the former press secretary to both Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich, quickly came to Bush's aid, reframing the issue away from Dowd's criticism of Bush to former President Clinton. "This 'White House' has not been in a position to have been shocked for five years," Galen writes. "[T]his 'five year' business goes back to the 'White House' run by a guy who was actually in a position to have been shocked... William Jefferson Clinton."
After falsely claiming that "there weren't any" public denunciations of Clinton by liberal women's groups (there were, although feminist groups still supported him politically), Galen tries to establish a new double standard claim:
* In fact, let's see a show of hands from those in the class who can quote a single leader of a vocal, Liberal women's group supporting President Bush's effort to rid the world of the Taliban.
* None? Hmm. Now I'M shocked.
In fact, the Feminist Majority, one of the most prominent liberal women's groups, does support the war. Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal called the September 11 attacks "crimes against all of humanity" and last week said that "[t]he defeat of the Taliban means the liberation of women from the regime's draconian decrees." Note how Galen uses "a show of hands" as a slippery way to make a false claim.
Galen then quotes First Lady Laura Bush's radio address condemning the Taliban so that he can contrast her with Hillary Clinton:
* Where was First Lady Hillary RODHAM clinton during the second Clinton Administration? Speaking out for the rights of women in the Middle East? Nah. In fact, she was embracing - literally - Mrs. Arafat.
* Hillary RODHAM clinton was too busy being "shocked" by anyone who raised questions about her husband's activities. No mention of her being "shocked" by the treatment of women by the Taliban.
Here Galen is blatantly priming his readers with false allegations that Clinton did not speak out for the rights of women in the Middle East, or that she didn't criticize the treatment of women by the Taliban. This is the reason Galen uses "[n]o mention", which is another tricky way to avoid responsibility for a false allegation.
This Washington Post article includes a report on a 1998 Clinton speech that is just one of many examples that contradict Galen: "Hillary Clinton gave a full-throated exhortation on the rights of women. She condemned the Taliban fundamentalist movement that controls Afghanistan..." It should be pointed out that the Clinton administration and the First Lady only began seriously criticizing the Taliban in late 1997, but since then she has consistently and strongly condemned the regime.
This inflammatory little story about partisan feminists and hypocritical Clintons was such an effective appeal to pre-existing conceptions that Rush Limbaugh read it on the air Monday (Windows Media Player audio), saying he wished he had written it himself. Too bad it's not true, and that it's just one example of a new technology of rhetorical manipulation that increasingly pervades American political discourse.
[Email this to a friend] [Subscribe to our email list]
Related links:
-Scheer Deception: The Lies and Jargon of Robert Scheer (Ben Fritz, 10/8)
-The Evolving Jargon of Clintonization (Brendan Nyhan, 9/4)
-Ann Coulter: The Jargon Vanguard (Brendan Nyhan, 7/16)
-Civil Rights Jargon in the Boy Scouts Debate (Brendan Nyhan, 6/25)
-Jargon 101: Pardons and Punditry (Bryan Keefer, 4/9)
11/20/2001 02:46:50 PM EST |
By Bryan Keefer
On November 7, former President Bill Clinton gave a speech at Georgetown University on foreign policy and globalization in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11. Within 24 hours, Clinton's words had been twisted into the nonsensical allegation that the former president had blamed slavery and America's treatment of Native Americans for the attacks. Even though this myth has been repeatedly debunked by Bob Somerby's Daily Howler, among others, it continues to surface on television, radio and op-ed pages. The history of how this deception spread shows how newspaper editors and pundits can manufacture lasting stories about political opponents from nothing more than a few strokes of the pen. (read the column)
11/18/2001 09:29:16 PM EST |
Home | Columns | Posts | Topics | Email list | About | Search
This website is copyright (c) 2001-2005 by Ben Fritz, Bryan Keefer and Brendan Nyhan. Please send letters to the editor for publication to letters@spinsanity.org and private questions or comments to feedback@spinsanity.org.
Comments by YACCS
|