12/19 Bryan: Goldberg's misleading defense of Ashcroft

In his latest column, Jonah Goldberg of the National Review Online makes a disingenuous defense of Attorney General John Ashcroft. Goldberg defends Ashcroft's December 6 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by caricaturing criticism of the Attorney General, then claiming Ashcroft's testimony was misinterpreted.

Ashcroft has been widely criticized for his December 6 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which he stated:

We need honest, reasoned debate; not fear-mongering. To those who pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists -- for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.

Goldberg begins his defense of Ashcroft by constructing a straw-men version of such criticism, claiming that "there's this growing consensus that [Ashcroft is] a McCarthyite." Goldberg provides a single example of that "consensus" from a week-old column by Bob Herbert which compares Ashcroft to McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover. Yet most of the criticism of Ashcroft has refrained from such rhetoric - see, for example, editorials by the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times. By presenting "McCarthyite" rhetoric as representative of all criticism of Ashcroft, Goldberg can quickly dismiss it without ever dealing with the merits of such criticism with the claim that "According to Ashcroft's opponents, you can say anything -- anything! -- about what the government is doing and it would be McCarthyistic for Ashcroft to say, 'You're only helping the terrorists.'"

Goldberg also digs a second line of defense for Ashcroft, one first pioneered by Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker (which I dissected last week). The first part of this strategy minimizes the scope of Ashcroft's remarks. Goldberg claims "Go back and read what he actually said. Saying people shouldn't lie and distort the truth is hardly McCarthyism. He didn't say anyone who questions the government is wrong, let a long a traitor." As I argued in a previous column, this defense uses the first part of Ashcroft's statement that [w]"e need honest, reasoned debate" as a way of deflecting attention from the second part where he attacks critics. In doing so, such a defense avoids the intentionally ambiguous phrasing of Ashcroft's assault on his critics, which uses the construction "to those who" followed by a series of extremely broad categories of people. Ashcroft clearly intended his statement to have achilling effect on dissent; Goldberg's defense of that attack is intentionally misleading.

At the end of his column, Goldberg takes another page from Tucker's book. He concludes:

Look at it this way, in World War Two the government told people not to waste fuel because to do so would in effect help the enemy. Were the people who left the living room lights on "traitors"? Of course not, and it would be the height of stupidity to think that's what the government meant. . . . Well, such stupidity only helps the terrorists.

Like Tucker, Goldberg is claiming that critics misinterpreted Ashcroft's words and, in so doing, aided terrorists in exactly the way Ashcroft was talking about. Rather than debating Ashcroft's critics on the merits of their criticism, Goldberg dismisses their objections by caricaturing them and then suggesting that such criticism "only helps the terrorists." As I argued before, as a high-level public official Ashcroft has an obligation to foster open debate rather than attempting to close it down. Goldberg's defense of Ashcroft is just as indefensible.

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Related links:
-Closing Down Debate: Ashcroft's Attack on Dissent (Bryan Keefer, 12/10)
-Race and "Racial McCarthyism" (Brendan Nyhan, 4/23)
-Jargon 101: Pardons and Punditry (Bryan Keefer, 4/9)

12/19/2001 07:07:43 PM EST |

12/17 column: The John Walker Attack on Liberalism

By Ben Fritz

The example of American Taliban fighter John Walker has proven irresistible to many conservative pundits. But neither the facts of the case nor their own rhetoric support the argument these pundits want to make. (read the whole column)

12/17/2001 07:15:06 AM EST |

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