A case of mistaken distortion (9/13)

A GOP powerhouse is forced to disavow a radio ad, aimed at African-Americans, that compares Social Security to "reverse reparations."
By Ben Fritz
[First published on Salon.com]

For several years now, conservatives have targeted African-Americans as potential supporters of private investment accounts in Social Security, often making the misleading claim that the system discriminates against them. A recent ad along these lines, calling Social Security "reverse reparations," was mistakenly aired under the name of GOPAC, the high-powered Republican political action committee, putting one of the party's most influential groups behind a message it says was never intended to run.

(MP3 download: To listen to the ad, click here.)

The radio ad, which ran several times over the past few weeks on a Kansas City radio station with primarily black listeners, not only distorts how Social Security benefits work and the program's impact on African-Americans, but also incorrectly says it was paid for by GOPAC, chaired by former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating.

The ad was produced by Access Communications, a media agency that creates and airs political ads for conservative groups. GOPAC selected Access to produce and run ads targeting African-Americans, and the agency presented GOPAC with dozens to choose from. GOPAC selected seven ads, none of which dealt with Social Security. In what both organizations are calling a snafu, Access mistakenly believed GOPAC had selected the "reparations" ad and aired it under GOPAC's name.

"We totally disavow this ad," GOPAC communications director Mike Tuffin stated. "When we discovered it had run, we called them and had them pull it."

Access' mistake sheds light on how ads from interest groups come into being. This particular ad was most likely intended to hurt the local reelection campaigns of Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., and Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan. Access offered GOPAC a stock of dozens of issue-specific ads it could run, the same library it offers to its other interest-group clients. Such ads have become much more common in recent years as campaign finance reforms have limited the amount of money that candidates themselves can spend on campaigns; interest groups have stepped in, running ads intended to help certain candidates without mentioning them by name.

The ad in question uses racially charged language to link the controversy over whether blacks should receive reparations for the harm of slavery to a distorted claim that blacks receive substantially lower Social Security benefits than whites do. Hence, "reverse reparations." "Under Social Security today, blacks receive $21,000 less in retirement benefits than whites of similar income and marital status," the ad declares. "One-third of brothers die before retirement and receive nothing."

As the liberal group Campaign for America's Future has accurately pointed out, both these claims are misleading. The $21,000 figure, drawn directly from the Interim Report of the President's Commission to Save Social Security, compares blacks and whites who have identical incomes, noting that African-Americans receive less in benefits because their lifespan is seven years shorter.

But this is not a fair basis for concluding that Social Security subsidizes whites at the expense of blacks. The ad ignores the fact that in addition to having a shorter life expectancy, the typical African-American earns a lower income than an average white person -- which a fair comparison would take into account. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, when average income and life expectancy are taken into account, "the average rate of return on Social Security is modestly higher for African-Americans than for whites."

The statement that "one-third of brothers die before retirement and receive nothing" is even more misleading, because it ignores survivor benefits. While no dead person can receive benefits (for an obvious reason), surviving family members are guaranteed benefits.

Although GOPAC now rejects the Social Security ad, Access still stands proudly behind it. "This ad is perfectly good," said John Uhlmann, the agency's chairman. "Democrats want to distract people from the issue raised in the ad, that the current system discriminates against blacks and black families."

Access' president is Richard Nadler, a prominent conservative activist who has often advocated Republican outreach to minority audiences. In 2000, he came under fire for a controversial ad that ran in Kansas City advocating education savings accounts. The ad, sponsored by Nadler's Republican Ideas Political Action Committee, shows a group of children -- one of whom has a gun -- and dramatizes the decision of a fictitious mother who pulls her son from a public school.

"We didn't want him where drugs and violence were fashionable," the actress said in the ad. "That was a bit more diversity than he could handle."

The ad drew national attention and was disavowed by President Bush, Republican National Committee chairman Jim Nicholson, former representative Jim Talent (then running for governor) and then-senator John Ashcroft, among others. Nadler denied that "diversity" was a reference to race, saying it referred to "drugs and violence."

While the misleading ad about "reverse reparations" had a short lifespan this time, Uhlmann says voters may be able to look forward to its reappearance soon. "We fully expect some other client will want to run it," he said.

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9/12/2002 08:52:31 PM EST |

NEA myth spreads on Slate (9/10)

By Brendan Nyhan

An egregious version of the NEA myth escaped my Nexis searches last week. Eric Liu wrote in Slate on Sept. 3 that "the New York Times described a debate that has erupted between groups roughly of the left (the major teachers' union and several mental health groups), which want a psychobabbly, America-is-to-blame-because-of-its-own-racism approach to teaching 9/11, and conservatives like William Bennett and Lynne Cheney, who demand a moralizing, absolutist approach that emphasizes America's virtue above all else." Later, he adds that "the quarrel over curriculum is in the end a quarrel over fault. It seeks judgment about who's really to blame for terror."

The clear implication is that the NEA and other groups want to teach students that the US is to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks, a totally unfair characterization not supported by the inadequate New York Times story Liu cites, let alone the actual facts of the controversy. (That didn't stop Ellen Sorokin of the Washington Times and Sandy Rios of Concerned Women of America, however, from also pushing this lie).

Note in particular how Liu uses the weasel word "approach," which makes it possible to falsely attach a stereotype to the lesson plans recommended by the NEA without defending - or even addressing - the specifics of the material on its website. He has every right to disagree with the NEA's choices, but this sort of casual smear is not acceptable.

Update 9/12/02 2:40 PM EST -- Liu has sent me an email in response and asked that I publish it on the site:

I caught your reference to my piece last week on Slate, and thought I'd drop you a note. I just wanted to emphasize what I told a couple of folks on Slate's reader forum, which is that it wasn't my intent to attack the NEA's site -- as a jumping-off point for the piece, I simply tried to recount the way the NYT framed the debate, which seemed indicative of a larger tendency to reduce education issues into bipolar caricatures. It turned out to be a very sticky jumping-off point. (As it happens, an earlier draft of my piece included a line criticizing the NYT's simplistic and cariactured framing, but I cut it because I thought it would lead to a lengthy detour from my argument about civics teaching. Alas....)

In any event, I can see why, particularly in the wake of Sorokin's piece, you'd interpret my piece the way you did. I wish I'd explicitly pointed out that the NYT's framing of things was unfair, and I'm glad that you and others did. I agree there's no blame-America-first rhetoric on the NEA's 9/11 site, and the way I wrote the piece could create an impression otherwise. That's my fault, though it wasn't my aim. I do think the NEA and others should be doing more applied, experiential civics of the sort that I call for in my piece, but I could've better distinguished that criticism from the unfounded ones coming from sources like the Washington Times.

As for my line about the quarrel over curriculum being "a quarrel over fault," I'd say it's unfair to the degree it implies the NEA wants to blame America (again, an unintended implication), but it is otherwise fair -- after all, that's what the difference is between, say, a Noam Chomsky and a Bill Bennett, and between their respective adherents. My point in the Slate piece is that instead of getting caught up in such a debate, kids in schools should focus on practical skills of citizenship to address the nuts-and-bolts of public life post-9/11.

The net is, I appreciate your point and I especially appreciate your focus on clarity with a subject that can easily get clouded.

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Related links:
-The big NEA-Sept. 11 lie

9/10/2002 08:34:52 AM EST |

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