Election jargon sneak peek (8/9)

By Ben Fritz

In a sneak preview of the aggressive political catchphrases coming soon to a TV near you, Democrats and Republicans have issued memos advising their candidates on how to berate their opponents with terms like "class warfare" and “Enron accounting” this fall.

In a National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) briefing book that was leaked to the Associated Press and a public memo (Adobe PDF file) from Democracy Corps, a Democratic consulting firm, candidates are advised on how to use poll-tested rhetoric to gain political advantage. But the net effect is to try to shift debate away from the issues and toward rhetoric meant to appeal on a solely emotional level.

According to the AP, the 280-page GOP campaign primer for candidates for the House of Representatives covers a number of issues, often advising candidates to use specific terms that avoid substantive points and paint Democrats as engaging in crude political tricks. On school vouchers, for instance, it recommends they say, “I'm not going to engage in class warfare. The real issue here is opportunity.”

Even more disturbingly, when candidates are asked about to describe a plan for Social Security, the NRCC recommends this vague answer: “There are a lot of studies, proposals, and options out there right now. Of course, it is difficult … to have an honest debate on the subject because Democrats are simply using scare tactics.”

Whether or not Democrats are actually using “scare tactics,” or saying anything at all, is irrelevant in this calculation. The advice is simply to use such focus group-tested, emotionally charged terms to make a debate about Social Security or vouchers solely about Democratic tactics.

On the other side, the consulting firm Democracy Corps, led by veteran Democratic campaign consultants James Carville, Stanley Greenberg and Robert Shrum, recommends its own set of well-tested, inflammatory terms to attack Republicans.

On the issue of corporate malfeasance, for instance, they recommend the claim that “[t]he Republicans gave a green light to these corporate abuses,” citing as some of its evidence that President Bush appointed former accounting industry attorney Harvey Pitt to head the Securities and Exchange Commission and made former Enron executive Thomas White Secretary of the Army. Neither this nor the other evidence they cite comes close to justifying a statement that Republicans actually “gave a green light” to the recent corporate scandals, an accusation based more on its ability to anger voters than its basis in fact.

Similarly, Democracy Corps advises statements on Social Security that distort Republicans’ positions and use inflammatory jargon. “[Republicans] favor plans to privatize Social Security,” it recommends Democrats say, “which cut people’s guaranteed monthly benefit for seniors and make their benefits dependent on the state of the stock market.” All of the plans to add private accounts to Social Security are voluntary and, in many cases, encourage citizens to invest some of their money outside the stock market in bonds or other vehicles. Given the recent performance of the stock market, though, this is an easy attack line for Democrats.

Finally, they suggest that Democrats attack Republicans for spending money from the Social Security trust fund, which party leaders promised not to do during the election. The recommended statement on this manages to work in a favorite bit of jargon from Democrats, “Enron accounting,” stating, “This kind of Enron accounting and gimmickry by the government threatens our retirement security."

The prospects for an improvement in the level of our political debate during the 2002 campaign are not promising.

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8/9/2002 02:13:02 PM EST |

The OMB press release fiasco continues (8/8)

A Bush budget man admits his mistake. But Robert Novak embraces it.
By Brendan Nyhan
[First published on Salon.com]

As reported last week, the Office of Management and Budget distributed a press release on July 12 that severely underestimated the percentage of the decline in the 10-year federal budget surplus caused by the Bush tax cut, claiming it was "less than 15%" rather than the 38 percent shown by the OMB's own data. This was probably an honest mistake -- it appears that the OMB attributed its analysis of the reasons for the deficit in the current fiscal year to the wrong time frame.

However, rather than directly admitting its error, the OMB simply changed the release on its Web site, posting an altered version (Adobe PDF file) without any disclosure that the incorrect bullet point had been deleted.

Criticism of the original release from New York Times columnist Paul Krugman prompted Trent D. Duffy, the OMB's communications director, to write a letter to the editor dated July 31 that was published Saturday. In it, Duffy calls the mistake an "error" that was "retracted weeks ago when noticed." But when contacted by phone, Duffy said this retraction was given only to reporters who contacted OMB about the original release -- there has never been a formal published retraction. Moreover, Duffy told me that the release was not changed on the Web site until July 26, which was one day after a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Adobe PDF file) criticized the error and only five days before Duffy's letter.

Duffy also claims that the release "assigned a true number to the wrong time frame" in his letter. The tax cut caused "a very small, less than 10 percent, effect on the change in our fiscal picture from 2001 to 2002," he writes, and this was "mistakenly applied" to the 10-year surplus rather than the 2001-2002 period in the original release. As I have pointed out, however, he fails to acknowledge in the letter that the original release stated that the tax cut was responsible for "less than 15%" of the change in the 2002-2011 surplus, rather than the correct figure of less than 10 percent stated in OMB's most recent report. When speaking with me, he admitted the mistake and said that 15 percent is an old, incorrect figure that he accidentally used.

The controversy intensified Tuesday when Krugman wrote about Duffy's letter and the altered release in his column. Paul Begala then brought up the issue on CNN's "Crossfire" that night, prompting a hilarious display from Robert Novak, his co-host. Though Novak claimed he had spoken with OMB, he displayed no understanding of the two different budgetary time frames at issue, or the fact that the 15 percent figure is incorrect even for 2002. Calling himself "a one-man truth squad," Novak defended the incorrect 15 percent figure, saying OMB "never retracted it" and attacking Begala for not scrutinizing Krugman's "lies."

"I know you hate to do reporting, but try it once in awhile," he taunted.

There may yet be a happy ending, however. Duffy told me at press time that by Thursday morning OMB will post a disclosure that the release has been altered on its Web site, so this carnival of errors and spin will hopefully soon be drawing to a close. [As of noon EST Thursday, OMB has added a disclosure to the release on its site that says "The initial press release posted in this space contained errors that have since been removed."]

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Related links:
-More spinning in OMB response letter (8/5/02)
-Ignore, ignore, ignore (Brendan Nyhan, 8/2/02)

8/7/2002 08:14:40 PM EST |

Coulter echoes Iraq spin (Bryan Keefer): Guest hosting CNN's "Crossfire" on Monday, conservative pundit Ann Coulter attempted to frame Democratic questions about a war in Iraq as supporting Saddam's regime (much as Andrew Sullivan and Rush Limbaugh did last week):

COULTER: While they have [members of Congress] hooked up to polygraph machines, we can ask the Democrats why they want to keep Saddam Hussein in power, why they want to release the names of detained terror suspects, and why they object to every reasonable national security measure taken by Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Coulter, whose factually challenged book Slander currently sits atop the New York Times bestseller list, is spinning wildly. Several prominent Democrats, including House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-MO, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-DE, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-CT, have all indicated their support for an attack on Iraq. Coulter's statement also frames opposition to a war as an affirmative attempt to keep Saddam in power, but logically such opposition does not necessarily indicate support for his regime. We deserve better than cheap attempts by Coulter and others to stifle one side of the debate over Iraq.

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Related links:
-The patriot patrol strikes again! (Bryan Keefer, 8/6/02)

8/7/2002 02:30:53 PM EST |

The patriot patrol strikes again! (8/6)

Questioning a possible war with Iraq is equated with supporting Saddam.
By Bryan Keefer
[First published on Salon.com (Salon Premium subscription required)]

With the invasion of Iraq under discussion, several commentators have made troubling first attempts to define opposition to a war as subversive and dangerous. The strategy directly echoes attacks on dissent in the wake of Sept. 11, questioning the patriotism and good faith of those who raise legitimate -- and important -- issues.

Leading the charge are two highly influential pundits: Andrew Sullivan and Rush Limbaugh. Last week, Sullivan vaguely suggested that articles in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times on the growing debate over invading Iraq and congressional hearings on the subject are part of a "campaign to protect Saddam's weaponry." He also suggested that such arguments opposing the war constitute "appeasement" of Saddam. This emotionally charged analogy to pre-World War II European policy toward Nazi Germany is too pat: Deciding not to invade Iraq is not obviously comparable to actively granting territory or other concessions in exchange for peace.

Limbaugh extended those allegations to their logical extreme last week, claiming [Windows Media Player audio] that "It is obvious now that the New York Times has launched an effort to thwart America's war effort." He continued by suggesting that, assuming the Pentagon is not intentionally leaking plans in an effort to deceive Saddam, "[The Times is] publishing detailed military options and plans under consideration by the Pentagon, which could end up harming or killing God knows how many young American soldiers. They're giving aid and comfort to our enemies." Of the Times' sources, Limbaugh commented, "I know we have a bunch of traitorous types in the State Department, but I never thought they existed at the Pentagon."

A close, and much nastier, cousin of this argument is the suggestion that Democrats want a war in Iraq -- but want it to fail in order to harm Bush politically. Frank Gaffney, a syndicated columnist and president of the Center for Security Policy, made exactly this point on CNN's "Crossfire" last week, suggesting in response to a question about leaks of potential attack plans, "I suppose it's because there are people who want the president's policy to fail in Iraq, and who keep leaking this information." [emphasis added] National Review's Rob Long makes a similar suggestion in the Aug. 12 issue, writing in a fictitious diary entry by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., that "some kind of quagmire in Iraq, with tens of thousands of American casualties and international scorn, is just not something I can really count on, unfortunately."

Attacking the patriotism and motivations of those who question aspects of the war on terrorism has been an all too common tactic since Sept. 11. It has also been devastatingly effective at quieting dissent. One can only hope that the debate over whether and how to invade Iraq is not truncated by the same kind of chilling rhetoric.

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8/5/2002 09:51:45 PM EST |

More spinning in OMB response letter (Brendan Nyhan): In a letter to the New York Times Saturday, Trent D. Duffy, the Communications Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), defends his agency against criticism from columnist Paul Krugman. At issue is what Duffy calls an "error" in a July 12 press release that was "retracted weeks ago when noticed". As I've pointed out, however, the alleged retraction apparently took the form of posting an edited version (Adobe PDF file) of the release on OMB's website with no disclosure that it has been altered. There has been no formal public admission of error that I know of.

Also, Duffy writes that the release "assigned a true number to the wrong time frame" -- specifically, that "[t]he 2001 tax relief law had a very small, less than 10 percent, effect on the change in our fiscal picture from 2001 to 2002" and that the first release "mistakenly applied the 10 percent figure to the 10-year estimated surplus, rather than to 2002."

But he's spinning again. The original release actually claims that the tax cut "generated less than 15% of the change" in the 2002-2011 surplus, not 10%. So OMB's error in the original release was apparently twofold -- the Mid-Session Review that the release was previewing states very clearly that the tax cut's accounted "for less than 10 percent of the $448 billion total shift in expected surpluses for 2002." And so it becomes clear why Duffy uses the strange locution "true number" -- "less than 10 percent" is "less than 15%", so the number in the original release was technically true for the change from 2001 to 2002. But it wasn't accurate, as he wants you to think.

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Related links:
-Ignore, ignore, ignore (Brendan Nyhan, 8/2/02)

8/5/2002 11:47:05 AM EST |

Democratic email demagoguery (Brendan Nyhan): In the subject line of an email to supporters yesterday morning, the Democratic National Committee admonished, "Don't let them steal your Social Security! Keep your retirement safe."

Of course, no one is actually going to "steal" anyone's Social Security. It's completely inappropriate to distill a complex policy issue to such a bombastic word, with its connotations of law-breaking and illegitimacy. There are fair ways to state one's opposition to private account plans or to reductions in the guaranteed benefit relative to current law, but this is not one of them.

The DNC also deceives by implying that private accounts would not be voluntary under the approach favored by President Bush, claiming that he "wants to risk your future with a Social Security privatization scheme that will gamble with your guaranteed benefits in the stock market."

Sadly, email's power to directly inform also makes it all too easy to spread this kind of misinformation unfiltered.

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Related links:
-Spinsanity on Social Security

8/4/2002 07:55:21 PM EST |

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