1/18 Ben: Firefighter statue is conservative pundits' newest excuse for broad liberal bashing

After the New York City Fire Department and the developers who manage its headquarters decided to make a statue with one black, one white and one Hispanic man commemorating the firefighters who died on September 11, many conservatives were up in arms over what the New York Post called a return to "the disturbing political correctness of pre-9/11 America."

Just yesterday, the Fire Department decided to look for a new statue design, partly in response to the many pundits, firefighters and citizens who said the statue should accurately represent the picture on which it was to be based, which portrayed three white men. Some of the pundits, however, betrayed a disturbing lack of loyalty to the facts at hand, using this one case as an excuse to indict numerous, unconnected examples of alleged political correctness. Regardless of the merits of this case, these pundits simply assume a broad agenda by liberals without demonstrating what one case has to do with another.

Mona Charen did this in her syndicated column, saying with no evidence that one of the reasons people were upset about the planned alteration to the statue is that they are "so tired of the truth being distorted to save favored people's feelings." This is total conjecture on Charen's part, of course, since most of the complaints about the statue have focused on staying true to the photo on which the statue was to be based, which means the men portrayed would be white.

This conjecture, however, allows her to bring up numerous examples of supposedly related political correctness, including that President Franklin D. Roosevelt is portrayed at his memorial in a wheelchair, that a Hollywood film portrayed President Kennedy as having been assassinated by the CIA, and that Harvard President Larry Summers was recently criticized by some for his reprimand of African-American studies professor Cornell West. In all of these cases, Charen grossly oversimplifies reality—FDR, for example, did use a wheelchair, although the press at the time did not discuss it or show it in photos. Controversies over displaying a president with the wheelchair he actually used, who killed JFK, or the merits of Cornell West's scholarship are all specific issues. Charen implies they are all cases of "the truth being distorted to save favored people's feelings," but doesn't show what truth was distorted to save whose feelings in any of her supposedly related examples.

Columnist Ann Coulter similarly connects this one case to numerous other unconnected examples. Instead of other alleged distortions of the truth, though, Coulter argues the decision to make one of the firefighters in the statue black and another Hispanic is a typical pattern for liberals, who "love erasing the truth." As evidence of this, she brings up examples of individuals who have refused to say the pledge of allegiance, or feel uncomfortable with the American flag. Coulter also, in typical fashion, puts words in her liberal opponents' mouths, saying they prefer a memorial of "a diverse group of Americans burning the flag," amongst other insulting inventions. Once again, Coulter fails to demonstrate a pattern. Did the people who supported including a black and Hispanic in the statue refuse to say the pledge of allegiance? Are any of them flag burners? She implies it in order to paint a broad condemnation of liberals, but offers up no evidence.

With the Fire Department's decision to come up with a new statue design, it's clear that conservatives have scored a victory in this case. At the same time, though, they should be concerned at the tactics used by pundits like Charen and Coulter in arguing for their side. As with the Enron collapse, one polarizing example has become the base from which partisan pundits make broad condemnations, without logically connecting the examples they claim fit a pattern.

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Related links:
-Ann Coulter: The Jargon Vanguard (Brendan Nyhan, 7/16)

1/18/2002 09:36:52 AM EST |

1/16 Bryan: Enron association game continues unabated

As more details emerge about the collapse of energy-trading company Enron, pundits on both sides continue to spin madly in an attempt to link their political opponents with the company's problems.

Robert Scheer's latest column is a study in the use of innuendo and suggestion in place of fact. Scheer details Enron CEO Ken Lay's connections and donations to President Bush before concluding with this:

Whether the contacts between [Bush and Lay] were actually illegal and not merely an egregious betrayal of Enron's employees, shareholders and consumers, it remains for the eight investigations planned or underway to reveal what Bush and White House insiders knew, and when they knew it.

Nowhere in his column does Scheer point to any laws that Bush may have violated, nor does he bother to explain how taking political donations from a corporate CEO constitutes "an egregious betrayal of Enron's employees, stockholders and consumers." Instead, he merely phrases the suggestion of impropriety on Bush's part as a foregone conclusion by positing a false choice between two ugly alternatives (illegality and "egregious betrayal"). This, of course, is not suggest that we can be certain there were not any such violations - but Scheer should wait for the facts (if and when they emerge) rather than tar the President with innuendo and deceptive rhetoric.

On the other side of the aisle, the Wall Street Journal sprang to Bush's defense on Monday with some deceptive rhetoric of its own. In an editorial "imagin[ing] what revelations will come next if Enron really is another Whitewater," the Journal constructs an elaborate set of inflammatory comparisons between the Whitewater scandal and Enron.

The piece concludes with a mechanical example of the application of public relations tactics to politics:

Rather, the ultimate lesson may turn out to be that Enron was able to play fast and loose in a financial boom and Clintonian moral climate, and was called to account in a recession when the moral climate has turned Ashcroftian.

The strategy is a simple one: create a negative association of Enron with Clinton, then create a positive association with the actions of the Bush administration. Of course the Journal can't be bothered to make a serious argument about exactly how the company's financial misdeeds were the result of a "Clintonian moral climate" just as it cannot explain exactly how the company's financial unraveling was the result of a "moral climate that has turned Ashcroftian." Enron's demise is a question of economics and finance, rather than one of the "moral climates" created by a Presidential administration. The Journal, however, simply want readers to make mental associations, not to think too hard about them.

Readers should beware the rhetorical attacks of Scheer and the Journal, and anyone else attempting to implicate political foes in the Enron scandal without the benefit of fact or argument.

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Related links:
-The "Enronomics" offensive (Brendan Nyhan, 1/15/02)
-Scandalous Rhetoric Before the Scandal: The Growing Enron Debate (Ben Fritz, 1/14/02)
-Spin works its way into liberal harping on Enron (Ben Fritz, 12/13/01)

1/16/2002 06:49:23 PM EST |

1/15 Brendan: The "Enronomics" offensive

Just as Republicans and conservative pundits have drummed the phrase "Daschle Democrats" into our heads in recent weeks, Democrats are pushing a new catchphrase that attempts to non-rationally link the Bush administration with Enron in the minds of the public.

As first predicted by George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week", Democrats are planning to employ the phrase "Enronomics" to delegitimize President Bush's economic policies by comparing them to the bankrupt energy trading company:

Jennifer Palmieri, the Democratic National Committee press secretary, said a nationwide party offensive beginning Jan. 21, which was to focus on the consequences of the return of deficits, now will also seek to popularize the term "Enronomics" as a critique of Bush's tax and budget policies.

"He cooks the books, uses rosy economic scenarios and doesn't worry enough about the human side of the ledger," Palmieri said. "It was so hard to explain before. Now you can explain it."

Of course, ease of explanation is no justification for tricky PR tactics. Note the inherent problems with directly analogizing from the possibly illegal actions of corporate executives (under securities law) to the political realm, where deception - however egregious - is protected by the First Amendment (with the exception of libel and slander). While the Bush administration has been repeatedly deceptive on tax and budget issues, it is not fair to analogize between such political tactics and the possibly illegal maneuvering of Enron management. Further, vague comparisons between the plight of laid-off Enron workers who lost much of their retirement savings and Bush's concern for "the human side of the ledger" fall far short of rational argument.

The term "Enronomics" appears to been coined in a December 14 article on the Democratic Underground website. It then appeared in a New Year's Eve Online Journal article and a January 3 Seattle Weekly story before Stephanopoulos made his prediction on January 6. The term subsequently popped up in an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on January 11 and an article in the British newspaper The Observer on January 13. Since Palmieri's quote, it has appeared in a Christian Science Monitor editorial and on the Democratic site Buzzflash.com.

Over time, the meaning of the term has varied somewhat in usage, but the essential purpose is the same as "Clintonization" - to embed meaning into a term so that it can be invoked to trigger negative perceptions of a public figure. This blatant attempt to shape the non-rational mental associations of the public represents our politics at its most debased.

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Related links:
-Scandalous Rhetoric Before the Scandal: The Growing Enron Debate (Ben Fritz, 1/14/02)
-Spin works its way into liberal harping on Enron (Ben Fritz, 12/13/01)
-The Evolving Jargon of Clintonization (Brendan Nyhan, 9/4/01)

1/15/2002 04:52:46 PM EST |

1/14 column: Scandalous Rhetoric Before the Scandal: The Growing Enron Debate

By Ben Fritz

Liberal pundits started attacking the Bush administration soon after Enron went bankrupt, and their rhetoric has recently led to a full-fledged debate amongst pundits on the issue of an Enron scandal. There have yet to be any substantive allegations of wrongdoing against Bush administration officials, however, making the Enron debate a lesson in how rhetoric surrounding a scandal can descend into spin before the scandal is even shown to exist. (read the whole column)

1/14/2002 08:11:38 AM EST |

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