1/25 Brendan: The absurdity of catchphrase politics

Sometimes the media-driven rhetoric of politics can verge on the absurd, as it did yesterday when Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle squared off against Minority Leader Trent Lott.

With Enron hearings going on in Congress, Democrats are now trying to non-rationally associate the Bush administration's fiscal policies and the actions of the bankrupt energy trading company. Daschle first tried this on Wednesday when discussing new Congressional Budget Office projections (full transcript):

...I don't want to Enron the people of the United States. I don't want to see them holding the bag at the end of the day just like Enron employees have held the bag. I don't want to destroy their Social Security system, I don't want to destroy their Medicare system, I don't want to destroy their ultimate ability to look with confidence at their retirement. We are in a position that could be very similar to what Enron did to its people, the way we look at the impact of the tax cut, the impact of the budget, the impact that what the Bush budget is having today on the American people.

This analogy is deeply problematic. Daschle articulates no logical reason why the federal budget situation should be considered analogous to the fate of Enron employees. Enron executives allegedly concealed debt in possibly illegal off-balance sheet partnerships while continuing to encourage employees to invest in company stock. Eventually, employees were prevented from selling stock in their retirement funds altogether, causing many to lose a great deal of money. Some were also laid off. How is this comparable to the Bush tax cut and budget and its alleged effects? We don't know. Daschle simply makes vague comparisons about "the impact" of Bush's policies and retirees "holding the bag" like Enron employees.

Daschle went down the same road again yesterday, prompting this illuminating exchange of partisan catchphrases in the Washington Times:

"I think that we are slowly 'Enron-izing' the economy, 'Enron-izing' the budget," Mr. Daschle said yesterday. "We are taking the same approach Enron used in sapping retirement funds and providing them to those at the very top. That's exactly what Enron did." [Note: It has not been reported that Enron took retirement money and gave it to executives. This is false.]

...Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, said such rhetoric was "ridiculous." "Senator Daschle is trying to 'Daschle-ize' the budget by basically saying really what we need to do is less tax cuts, more tax increases and more spending," Mr. Lott said.

One is left wondering how much lower the discourse can go.

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Related links:
-Here Comes "Daschlenomics": The GOP Readies Its Rhetorical Playbook (Brendan Nyhan, 1/22/02)
-The "Enronomics" offensive (Brendan Nyhan, 1/15/02)
-Painting the Democrats as the isolationists (Brendan Nyhan, 8/6/01)

1/25/2002 12:14:57 PM EST |

1/24 Ben: Derrick Z. Jackson spins Massachusetts politics

A column by Derrick Z. Jackson in yesterday's Boston Globe is good evidence that irrational arguments and cheap attacks can be found just as often in discussions of local politics as national. Jackson's piece mixes ad hominem attacks on acting Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift with tricky attempts to associate two issues with no logical connection.

Jackson begins with a discussion of Swift's proposal to end free dental care for low-income people as part of a cost-cutting measure to plug a big budget deficit that Massachusetts (like many states) is currently facing. He begins with a cheap, ad hominem attack, stating, "Through pearly whites that must gleam for the cameras lest they stain her appearance, Swift tells the poor to accept rotted gums." He then goes on to supposedly explain Swift's rationale for the cuts, saying, "Perhaps Swift is just hoping that the poor, in their patriotic duty, are supposed to walk the streets homeless and toothless."

These are cheap shots, totally devoid of any rational discussion of why Swift made the cuts, or what the actual impact will be on Massachusetts' poor. Jackson also uses the heavily loaded word "patriotic" to imply that Swift is abusing the sentiment in her policy, when in fact she never brought that up at all. The glamorous description of Swift's teeth is also absurdly irrational, unless Jackson means to argue that only those with bad dental care of their own should make decisions about such policy.

Jackon then segues into a discussion of the possibility that an expansion of Fenway Park will be publicly subsidized with the dubious transition phrase, "Soon there will be other upper and lower decks to be considered." That could be dismissed as mere wordplay, except that Jackson frames his argument as a choice between subsidized dental care and the public paying for renovations of Fenway Park for the new owners of the Boston Red Sox: Jackson opens with "If the poor cannot have teeth, [new Red Sox owner] John Henry cannot sink his fangs into our public coffers," and concludes with the phrase, "[The next question] is whether Swift and the state's politicians will force the new owners of the Red Sox to pay for their own upper and lower decks or hand over our money, toothless."

This either/or framing is absurdly irrational, as the cuts in dental care were made in the face of a state budget with no plans to spend money on Fenway Park renovations. In fact, Jackson quotes Swift's press secretary as saying, "It's just too early to say whether the [previously proposed] funding is transferable [to the new Red Sox owners.]"

If Jackson is concerned about Swift's budget cuts, or proposals to publicly subsidize stadium renovations, he should take on each issue substantively. Instead, he offers Massachusetts readers a local taste of modern punditry's ad hominem attacks and irrational argument.

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Related links:
-Kyoto cheap shots at Bush (Brendan Nyhan, 7/24/01)

1/24/2002 10:13:55 AM EST |

1/23 Bryan: Washington Times continues Daschle spin

An unsigned editorial in today's Washington Times illustrates two key tactics in criticism of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

The second sentence of the Times piece claims that "Senate strongman Tom Daschle, the Democratic majority leader from South Dakota, sent his colleagues home after he blocked a vote on a White House-backed economic stimulus package." The "strongman" label echoes Paul Craig Roberts's inflammatory assertion that Daschle had "raise[d] the ugly head of tyranny" through his willingness to filibuster potential nominees and legislation. The implication that Daschle's resistance to some Bush administration priorities is illegitimate has been analyzed in depth by Chris Mooney of The American Prospect.

The Times editorial also employs the all-too-common trick of asserting the existence of a fact by quoting someone who misstates reality. In this case, the Times quotes Senator Zell Miller in order to establish the "fact" that Daschle blamed the May tax cuts for causing the current recession:

"Maybe it's at a level my brain can't reach," Mr. Miller told The Washington Times shortly after Mr. Daschle delivered his speech. "How do you have as one of your highest priorities to re-elect the moderate Democrats from South Dakota, Montana and Missouri on one hand, then on the other hand blame them for voting for a tax cut that he maintains has created this recession? Hello?"

That quote was first printed in a Times news story on January 8, a few days after Daschle's speech criticizing the Bush administration's economic policies. However, Daschle only blamed the tax cuts for deepening the recession, not causing it. The closest he comes to blaming tax cuts for the recession is in the context of an argument about their effect on the economy through long-term interest rates: "[N]ot only did the tax cut fail to prevent a recession, as its supporters said it would, it probably made the recession worse." While Daschle's argument is debatable, claiming that the tax cuts did not stop the recession is not logically equivalent to claiming that those cuts caused a recession. Miller's quote in the January 8 Times story, however, appears to have a led to a flurry of such accusations against Daschle, ranging from George Will's January 13 column claiming "Daschelized Democrats" are "blaming the recession that began in March on the tax cut that was not enacted until June" to a syndicated op-ed today by Jack Kemp asserting that "Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle said two weeks ago that President George W. Bush's tax cut caused the recession".

Notably, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe came extremely close to fallaciously asserting that the tax cut triggered the recession in his appearance on last Sunday's "Meet the Press" (as the Times op-ed correctly notes). McAuliffe claimed that "I think the tax cut was part of the reason we're in the steep recession we're in today." McAuliffe's strategically ambiguous statement represents a departure from Daschle's position. However, the Times piece concludes with the phrase "Back to you, Tom and Terry", an obvious attempt to lump Daschle's position in with McAuliffe's.

The Washington Times has every right to criticize Daschle and McAuliffe, but such criticism should be honest and not stoop to name-calling and factual distortions.

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Related links:
-Here comes "Daschlenomics" (Brendan Nyhan, 1/22/02)
-Blurring lines in the surplus debate (Brendan Nyhan, 1/11/02)
-Daschle and Bush spin debate on stimulus (Ben Fritz, 1/8/02)
-More of the economic blame game (Brendan Nyhan, 12/7/01)

1/23/2002 11:29:21 AM EST |

1/22 column: Here Comes "Daschlenomics": The GOP Readies Its Rhetorical Playbook

By Brendan Nyhan

Senator Tom Daschle's recent challenge to President Bush's fiscal and tax policies set off a storm of criticism - some justified and some not. Of course, robust debate over such issues should be welcomed, and Daschle deserves criticism for his misleading contention that the Bush tax cut is primarily responsible for short-term budget deficits, among other things. However, Daschle's speech has also been subject to repeated deceptive attacks from right-leaning pundits that are blending into a series of straw man arguments and catchphrases. Republicans have adopted some of the most effective labels and deceptive arguments - in particular, the term "Daschlenomics" - in a classic example of how the political parties now often follow the rhetorical lead of aggressive like-minded pundits. (read the whole column)

1/21/2002 07:00:34 PM EST |

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