11/30 Ben: Vidal critiques alleged New York Times spin with spin of his own

Sometimes some of the worst spin can be found in attempts to deconstruct the spin of others. That's the case with an article by writer and liberal political critic Gore Vidal in the December 17 issue of The Nation. In the process of criticizing the New York Times' analysis of last year's Florida presidential vote undertaken by a number of media outlets, Vidal repeatedly spews jargon at the Times and invents agendas without any evidence beyond his own assumptions.

Vidal begins with an overblown comparison, calling the New York Times, "our Pravda," referencing the Soviet paper which reported only the Communist party line. This sets up a running theme that the Times reflects the interests of America's ruling class, which Vidal continues in the same paragraph as he attacks the title of the piece, "Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote":

So much for those conspiracy theorists who dared attack the Court's interference in the election when the Court was, simply, as always, anticipating the will of the majority of those people that the Court has, from the very first admiralty suits of the original Republic to now, cherished--property owners.

Vidal's critique here does not fit the evidence. The title in no way comments on the people who attacked the Supreme Court decision, let alone implies that they are "conspiracy theorists."

Vidal continues to imply an agenda without any evidence as he moves into a paragraph-by-paragraph critique of the Times article. On the of Gore supporters as "partisans": Vidal writes: "Note 'partisan.' Ugly word. Do anything to win. We know about them. Bushites compassionate. Dumb maybe but real nice." While a partisan can pejoratively be a harsh term, the unfriendly comparison to Bush supporters that Vidal implies is entirely imaginary. The Times piece never refers to "Bushites" as "compassionate." Vidal continues to make up accusations by the Times against Gore supporters throughout his piece, saying that the Times implies they are "sore losers" and that Gore himself is "slimy."

Vidal also attempts to challenge the facts of the piece when he notes that it says a recount like the one ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have resulted in a Bush victory, contrary to what most thought at the time. "This is bald, bold," Vidal writes of this statement. "True? Keep reading the Times."

As we continue to read Vidal's piece, however, we find no actual contradiction of this statement. Instead, he points out numerous instances where ballots that would have helped Gore were not counted, while votes that should have been illegal and likely helped Bush were included. In fact, there is a case to be made that the Times' assumptions in stating that Bush would have won the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court were false--see this recent article by Mickey Kaus, for instance. Vidal, however, only critiques the priority the Times gave to certain facts it reported. Despite the implied promise of "True? Keep reading the Times," he doesn't disprove anything.

Sadly, while Vidal implies that the Times twists facts and attacks Gore supporters with harsh jargon, it's he who is doing these things. And perhaps most sadly, he continues this to the unfounded conclusion of his piece, when he writes "Vice President Cheney, in his 'undisclosed' bunker, is no doubt wondering whether or not to postpone the certain-to-be-divisive presidential election of 2004. After all, homeland security comes first."

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Related links:
-Limbaugh deceptive on recount and Hillary Clinton (Brendan Nyhan, 11/14)
-Dionne gloats on military ballots (Ben Fritz, 7/18)
-Intent in the Florida mess (Brendan Nyhan, 6/14)
-Election 2000 debate re-ignites (Ben Fritz, 6/6)
-Recount Reconsiderations (Ben Fritz, 4/17)

11/30/2001 05:15:16 PM EST |

11/29 Bryan: Don Feder's anti-liberal war jargon (part three) - tricks of the trade

(To read earlier installments of the series, scroll down or go directly to part one or part two).

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks we have witnessed some outrageous rhetoric, but syndicated columnist Don Feder's Monday column stands out for its suggestion liberals deserve the same fate as Osama bin Laden. In the third part of our series on his column, we'll look at how Feder attempts to justify his aggressive assertions using the psuedo-logic characteristic of modern punditry.

Here is Feder's vicious conclusion to his rant against liberals:

In a column shortly after Sept. 11, I called liberalism America's homegrown suicide cult and the real threat to our nation's survival. Osama bin Laden isn't the only one who deserves to be hiding in a cave, cowering every time he hears a jet overhead.

Looking closely at Feder's column, we can see how he builds to such an inflammatory conclusion by relying on labels and stereotypes twisted into broad generalizations rather than logic or rational argument.

First, Feder provides two examples of how liberals "continue to sleepwalk through history": the treatment of College Republicans who posted pro-war signs on the campus of California State Polytechnic University (Cal Poly) and a speech by Howard Zinn. The examples are rather tenuously related, so to help the reader connect the dots, Feder uses a series of labels such as "Ho Chi Zinn" and "sensitivity stormtroopers." Both of these labels play to pre-existing stereotypes about liberals. Feder also exaggerates the facts of the Cal Poly case in order to make the incident seem more serious than it is. Finally, Feder generalizes his first two examples into "the Cal Poly mentality" and claims they are "froth on the sea of liberal inanity."

Next, Feder use the ACLU's position opposing military tribunals for alleged terrorists to justify a broad set of allegations against the motivations of all liberals. As Ben showed yesterday, by distorting the ACLU's statement and using a series of rhetorical questions and exaggerated stereotypes of the ACLU and US courts, Feder discredits such positions without ever addressing their merits. Finally, he segues into an attack on all liberals, not just those he has specifically criticized: "When not combating anti-terrorist hate speech, liberals agonize over the post-World Trade Center detention of 1,100 suspects from nations with terrorist ties."

From there it's an easy rhetorical leap to his conclusion that liberals "are America's homegrown suicide cult and the real threat to our nation's survival" and "[deserve] to be hiding in a cave, cowering every time [they hear] a jet overhead." This is a direct and aggressively irrational threat against millions of Americans. Note how Feder has not bothered to make a logical argument to demonstrate that even the liberals he cites are a "threat to our nation's survival," let alone that liberals in general are such a threat.

Feder's column is typical of a new breed of political punditry that relies on manipulating the emotions of readers in order to lend credence to exaggerated and destructive generalizations about political opponents. Using a few shreds of evidence, most of which is distorted, he builds to broad, unsupportable allegations about all liberals. Feder simulates a rational argument by using the conventional structure of arguments supported by evidence, but twists that evidence and laces his argument with labels and emotional jargon. By priming his audience with both a traditional structure and deeply negative emotional language, he makes his absurd conclusion seem like the natural extension of his phony logic. Such tactics form the core of the new generation of aggressive, irrational political punditry.

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Related links:
-Don Feder's anti-liberal war jargon (part one) - exaggerated evidence (Brendan Nyhan, 11/27)
- Don Feder's anti-liberal war jargon (part two) - invented agendas (Ben Fritz, 11/28)

11/29/2001 12:40:31 PM EST |

11/28 Ben: Don Feder's anti-liberal war jargon (part two) - invented agendas

As syndicated columnist Don Feder transitions in his Monday column to defend the detention of about 1000 people in connection with the September 11 attack and President Bush's order allowing military tribunals to try terrorists, he brings out one of modern punditry's favorite tools. Done with his gross exaggerations of liberal "sensitivity storm troopers" examined by my co-editor Brendan yesterday, Feder inaccurately describes the motivations of the ACLU and other liberal critics of the tribunals and detentions, and then attacks them based on these invented agendas.

Feder begins by distorting a statement by Laura Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington National Office, on the tribunals. Murphy states that "the President's decision is further evidence that the Administration is totally unwilling to abide by the checks and balances that are so central to our democracy." Murphy is clearly saying that "checks and balances" are central to our democracy, but Feder twists this by saying "The ACLU ... claims such courts would contravene values "central to our democracy." While it is true that the ACLU opposes the establishment of such tribunals, Feder distorts their reasoning to make it appear much more fierce and simplistic.

With his accomplished, Feder continues with a jargon rampage. He invents motive after motive to explain liberals' alleged objections:

-Wouldn't it be tragic if bin Laden or one of his henchmen weren't able to invoke the exclusionary rule? (Were they properly Mirandized by the special forces that collared them?)

-Not to let some slick lawyer get the architects of the Manhattan massacre off on a technicality would threaten the very foundations of constitutional liberty, [the ACLU and its allies] complain.

-That trying suspected terrorists in open court would compromise intelligence sources and turn the proceedings into a media circus doesn't concern [self-styled civil libertarians].

In the first two cases, Feder picks the least popular aspects of U.S. courts, exaggerates their importance, and accuses the ACLU of supporting them, offering no evidence beyond his own rhetoric. It is both unfounded and offensive to allege that the ACLU wants the perpetrators of the September 11 attack to be released on a technicality. Furthermore, contrary to Feder's accusation, the ACLU has expressed specific concern about compromised intelligence. In Murphy's statement, she argues that the Classified Information Procedures Act allows national security to be protected in the context of a jury trial.

Feder uses a similar tactic in his dismissal of opposition to the indefinite detention of over 1000 people in connection to the terrorist attacks. Here is his description of liberals concerned about the potential racial profiling of these people: "It's so unfair to concentrate on jihadland nationals, instead of arresting random Scandinavians and Fiji Islanders to achieve a comforting diversity."

The term "jihadland," of course, is a crude and offensive term for the Arab states from which many of the jailed hail. Aside from this jargon, however, notice how Feder alleges that liberals want the government to arrest "random" people for the sake of "diversity." Once again, this is a wholly inaccurate description of liberals' motives. There have been no calls to arrest random people of any race, nor have any liberals actually proposed arresting more people to achieve diversity. Such a crude description of these liberals, however, allows Feder to dismiss them without taking on their actual concerns that many people of Arab descent are being detained based primarily on their race and without any publicly presented evidence.

Invented agendas are perhaps one of the most dangerous tools in the modern pundit's arsenal, as they allow him or her to simulate actually engaging the arguments of an opponent. In reality, however, these arguments are straw men, created by pundits unable or unwilling to make a fair case.

Tomorrow: Part three - Bryan on Feder's comparison of liberals and terrorists and his place in the pantheon of modern punditry.

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Related links:
-Don Feder's anti-liberal war jargon (part one) - exaggerated evidence (Brendan Nyhan, 11/27)
-OpinionJournal's convenient quoting (Ben Fritz, 8/16)
-ACLU fund-raising letter crosses the line (Bryan Keefer, 7/12)
-Identity politics insanity (Brendan Nyhan, 6/26)

11/28/2001 12:17:14 PM EST |

11/27 Brendan: Don Feder's anti-liberal war jargon (part one) - exaggerated evidence

In his syndicated column yesterday, Boston Herald columnist Don Feder brings together several strands of anti-liberal jargon related to the current war into a vicious broadside that deserves close scrutiny. Today I'll look at the exaggerated example he uses as the basis for a broad attack on liberals.

Feder attacks "sensitivity storm troopers" who are "vigilant against 'offensive' expressions of outrage over September 11." He cites as evidence an email sent to Brent Vann, the president of the College Republicans at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), by a university administrator, Patricia Harris, who was upset with the club's posters advertising a pro-war rally. In the email, Harris criticizes the posters and suggests they may have violated required campus organization bylaws by creating a climate that would cause emotional harm to students of Middle Eastern descent. Feder reports no further details, instead launching into a tirade directed at Harris.

From there, it was grist for the jargon mill as Feder turned out yet another example of cut-and-paste punditry. But the evidence falls short of justifying Feder's claim that the College Republicans are "under fire" from the "multiculturalist mujahedeen" he decries. Harris's email, which he cites, could certainly chill speech (even if she meant to express a personal opinion rather than an official adminstration position), but this is hardly evidence of "sensitivity storm troopers". (Note: Feder fails to cite Vann's claim of off-campus harassment in the WorldNetDaily article; the club has also posted scans of vandalized posters. The harassment claim is clearly much more serious but unverified, and in any event Feder does not cite it.)

Moreover, while a campus group did approach an administrator to complain about the posters, they were rebuffed. The Mustang Daily at Cal Poly newspaper reports the the administration said that "even though College Republicans may have contradicted campus club by-laws, the posters were protected under the First Amendment and free speech and no one could take them down." Moreover, the Republicans held the pro-war rally the posters were advertising without incident (and with the logistical support of the administration).

When all the facts are considered, Feder's rant about "sensitivity storm troopers", the "multiculturalist mujahedeen" and the College Republicans "under fire" seems exaggerated and deceptive. Regrettably, however, this is just par for the course in the modern punditry.

Tomorrow: Part two - Ben on Feder's attacks on opponents of military tribunals and critics of the detention of suspects in connection with the 9-11 attacks.

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Related links:
-Suppressing Dissent At Home, Fighting for Freedom Abroad? (Brendan Nyhan, 9/24)

11/27/2001 01:42:43 PM EST |

11/26 Bryan: Washington Times keeps the Clinton spin rolling

The Washington Times, along with gullible syndicated pundits, is doing its best to keep its spin on former President Clinton's November 7 speech alive.

My column last week dissected how the Washington Times manufactured the story that former President Clinton blamed slavery and treatment of Native Americans for the terrorist attacks of September 11, which became conventional wisdom when pundits took the bait and spread the Times's spin. Now the paper is back at it.

Last Monday, the paper printed an unsigned editorial citing its own spin as fact:

The former president, already on our minds for saying we had September 11 coming to us because of slavery and the conquest of the American Indian, resigned from the Supreme Court bar last Friday, forty days after the high court insisted he explain why he shouldn't have to.

Yesterday Times printed a column by R. Emmett Tyrrell, publisher of The American Spectator, which made the same claim: "At Georgetown University and more recently at Harvard University, America's moral laureate, former President Bill Clinton, elaborated on this point, asserting that the Islamic terrorists were duly ambushing Americans because of America's enslavement of Africans and expropriation of the red Indians." Aside from repeating the Times spin, Tyrrell's charge is factually false on a second count: Clinton's speech at Harvard contains only this reference to slavery: "And although we Americans have come a very long, long way from the days when people could kill slaves and Native Americans and get away with it, we still have the occasional hate crime rooted in race, religion or sexual orientation."

Finally, in an interview on November 23rd, Chris Matthews, the host of CNBC's "Hardball," commented on Clinton's discussion of slavery and historical treatment of Native Americans, saying that "ripping the scab off that right now is anti-American." To Matthews's credit, he took Clinton's remarks in context; yet his use of this label echoes other pundits like Thomas Sowell who also called Clinton's speech "anti-American."

At this point, the myth has become conventional wisdom. One example: a letter to the editor of Denver's Rocky Mountain News on the 18th claimed that "[T]he "honest' media [did not] report on Bill Clinton's slur about the U.S. being repaid for the abuses of slavery and the treatment of American Indians, by the attack on innocent civilians of all stripes, on Sept. 11."

In the last week, at least one commentator, Marianne Means, has pointed out how the Washington Times distorted Clinton's speech. Yet in spite of documentation by Means, Bob Somerby, Peter Roff of United Press International and myself, the lack of retractions from the pundits duped by the Times reflects poorly on all involved.

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Related links:
Clinton speaks, pundits spin: The Washington Times and the spread of a media myth (Bryan Keefer, 11/19)

11/25/2001 07:28:19 PM EST |

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