Spinsanity - Countering rhetoric with reason

Misrepresentations in the Santorum debate (4/25)

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The recent furor over comments by Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) about homosexuality and anti-sodomy laws has been fueled in part by misrepresentations of what he said by some journalists and critics.

In an interview with the Associated Press taped on April 7, Santorum said this with reference to the Supreme Court's upcoming ruling on the constitutionality of Texas's anti-sodomy law:

We have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that has sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose. Because, again, I would argue, they undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family. And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was created, it was created in Griswold -- Griswold was the contraceptive case -- and abortion.

Santorum is clearly stating his opposition to constitutional protection for what he calls "homosexual acts" earlier in the interview. In mentioning polygamy, bigamy, incest, and adultery, however, he did not state that they are morally equivalent to homosexual acts. Instead, he made the legal argument that if the Supreme Court overturns Texas's sodomy laws prohibiting anal and oral sex amongst homosexuals, those other acts would have to be legalized by the same principle of a constitutional right to privacy.

Unfortunately, several media outlets have misrepresented Santorum's quote to imply that the senator explicitly compared homosexuality to polygamy, incest and adultery. The problem can be found in several reports such as the lead of an Associated Press article: "Gay-rights groups, fuming over Sen. Rick Santorum's comparison of homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery, yesterday urged Republican leaders to consider removing the Pennsylvania lawmaker from the GOP Senate leadership." Maureen Dowd made the same allegation in her New York Times op-ed column, stating, "Rick Santorum, the obnoxious Pennsylvania senator who is No. 3 in the G.O.P., equated homosexuality with incest, bigamy and polygamy." A Washington Post piece also stated that, "The leading Democratic presidential contenders and congressional leaders condemned [Santorum] for comparing gay sex to incest, bigamy and polygamy in an interview published Monday by the Associated Press."

Some critics were more fair, picking on actual controversial comparisons that Santorum did make. Later in the interview, for instance, he makes an apparent comparison of homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality: " In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing."

Critics have every right to object to Santorum's beliefs and to his legal arguments. But they are obligated to accurately depict the substantive points he made in a real legal debate about how far the constitutional right to privacy would extend if the Supreme Court overturns Texas's anti-sodomy law.

Correction (4/26): This piece has been corrected to make clear that Texas's sodomy law, like those in Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri, applies only to homosexuals. It previously incorrectly indicated that the law applied to all people, but "essentially outlawed homosexual sex." Thanks to a watchful reader for pointing out this error.

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4/24/2003 11:41:35 PM EST |

Patriotism attacks on Snowe and Voinovich (4/23)

By Bryan Keefer

A controversial new television commercial implying that Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and George Voinovich (R-OH) are unpatriotic for not supporting President Bush's full tax cut proposal has hit the airwaves, and pundits are already trotting out the tried-and-true tactic of whitewashing its implications. This strategy -- reminiscent of attacks on former Georgia Senator Max Cleland in the last election -- represents an unsettling attempt to use irrational associations from debates over foreign policy against domestic political foes.

The commercials, which are paid for by the conservative Club for Growth, claim that "President Bush courageously led the forces of freedom. But some so-called 'allies' like France stood in the way. At home, President Bush has proposed bold job-creating tax cuts to boost our economy. But some so-called Republicans like George Voinovich stand in the way." With the last sentence, the ad depicts Voinovich with a French flag beside him, and text on the screen reads "George Voinovich Stands In The Way". A similar version substitutes Snowe for Voinovich. The group has also issued a press release referring to the senators as "Franco-Republicans."

Both the ad's visuals and the parallel construction of the text are clearly intended to equate Snowe and Voinovich's opposition to part of the Bush tax cut proposal with France's opposition to the U.S.-led war against Iraq. In doing so, it implies that the senators are not "allies" of the United States. The commercial is also a misleading attempt to establish an irrational, emotional link between the tax cut proposal and the popular Iraq war.

Yet pundits have already begun to whitewash the ad's insinuations. Writing in National Review Online, Club for Growth President Stephen Moore dodged the question of whether the ads question the senators' patriotism, instead stating that "My group doesn't want to kick Snowe and Voinovich out of the party. We simply want them to start acting more like Reagan and less like Daschle. Is that asking so much?"

James Taranto, however, has gone so far as to deny that the ad is an attack on the patriotism of the senators. In his Best of the Web Today column on the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal website last Friday, he claimed that "The Club for Growth is accusing Snowe of disloyalty to her party, not to the country."

Taranto's claim echoes those of several pundits who defended a commercial run last year by Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia in his campaign against incumbent Democrat Max Cleland. The ad visually associated Cleland with Saddam Hussien and Osama bin Laden and accused Cleland of "breaking his oath to protect and defend the Constitution" based on an obscure vote against an amendment to a chemical weapons treaty.

Shortly after the election, however, the Wall Street Journal carefully ignored the evidence in suggesting the notion that Chambliss had challenged Cleland's patriotism was a "cock-and-bull story" and a "liberal political legend". Fred Barnes, writing in the Weekly Standard, also claimed that the idea that Cleland "lost because his GOP foe, Saxby Chambliss, insinuated he was unpatriotic" was a "myth."

Earlier this month, Taranto resurrected that spurious argument and took it one step further in an attempt to discredit Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry in the wake of controversy over his inflammatory suggestion that "we need a regime change in the United States." Taranto suggested that it was Cleland himself who raised the patriotism question by suggesting that it had been questioned -- and that liberal pundits' response to attacks on Kerry constituted the same thing.

Certainly, politicians exaggerate attacks on their patriotism at times. But Voinovich and Snowe -- like Cleland -- have been attacked not with rational arguments, but with irrational appeals that clearly imply they are unpatriotic. Taranto's attempts to reverse the charges are intellectually dishonest.

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4/22/2003 11:00:48 PM EST |

Letter: Limbaugh's webmaster responds (4/22)

Dear Brendan,

I just read your piece on Michael Wolff and wanted to let you know that contrary to what Mr. Wolff says, we never posted his e-mail address or his website URL on RushLimbaugh.com. We did not link to any of his articles on that day when Rush covered the CENTCOM briefing sound bite.

His e-mail address is listed at the bottom of his columns. If people found it, that's where they found it on their own, not with any encouragement from Rush or his website, nor via any link from the site.

Sincerely,

George Prayias
Webmaster, RushLimbaugh.com

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Related links:
-Wolff's misleading Limbaugh story (Brendan Nyhan, 4/22/03)

4/22/2003 07:26:50 PM EST |

Spinsanity donation drive (4/22)

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4/22/2003 08:13:08 AM EST |

Wolff's misleading Limbaugh story (4/22)

By Brendan Nyhan

Since he asked a critical question at a CENTCOM briefing on March 27, Michael Wolff has been peddling a tale of woe. In numerous articles and media appearances, the New York Magazine media critic has blamed a flood of hate mail on Rush Limbaugh, who Wolff claims denounced his question, accused him of racism and gave out his email address on the air. But Wolff is severely distorting what happened, as Limbaugh has repeatedly pointed out.

As the Associated Press reported that day, Wolff generated applause from reporters for asking Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, "I mean no disrespect by this question, but I want to ask about the value proposition of these briefings. We're no longer being briefed by senior-most officers." Limbaugh criticized Wolff on the air on the same day (Windows Media Player audio), stating that if a conservative reporter had asked the same question of Brooks, who is black, the reporter would have been accused of racism.

In an article in The Nation, Michael Massing claimed Limbaugh "gave out Wolff's e-mail address and urged listeners to vent their displeasure. More than 3,000 messages poured into Wolff's inbox, accusing him of being unpatriotic, antimilitary and worse." This account, which apparently came from Wolff, was picked up in an April 10 article in the Austin American Statesman, which stated that Limbaugh "incited an e-mail campaign against" Wolff.

On April 11, Wolff claimed Limbaugh "gave out my email address" on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" (Real Player video). Then, in a New York Magazine article about his experience, Wolff expanded on his account, claiming that, "according to Rush, that great defender of the rights of African-Americans, I was a racist" and that "Rush gave out my e-mail address," prompting "3,000 e-mails, full of righteous fury." (This was later repeated in a reprint of the article in The Guardian, a British newspaper.)

Throughout, Limbaugh has questioned Wolff's account, beginning on April 8 and continuing on April 11 and April 14. Each time, Limbaugh has correctly pointed out that he never gave out Wolff's e-mail address. Wolf has continued to repeat his story, however, and to date, no corrections have been published that I can locate.

When asked by email about this discrepancy, Wolff replied, "my URL [the address of his website] appeared on his [Limbaugh's] website." When asked where the URL appeared since it is not currently posted on the original page about Wolff, "Hmmm...don't know. Not looking at it now. But I did see it--it was my burnrate.[com] address. And hundreds and hundreds of the emails referenced it." He later elaborated: "www.burnrate[.com, his website] goes to me but we took it down because [the] server got overwhelmed; it also identified my direct email."

However, even if Limbaugh did link to Wolff's website, that does not mean Limbaugh gave out Wolff's email address on the air and told people to email him, as Wolff has clearly implied multiple times. Links, even in a negative context, are not tantamount to inciting an email campaign. Limbaugh has an audience of twenty million listeners; in an audience of that size, many people will send emails to those discussed on the air even if the host does not tell them to do so. As Limbaugh has pointed out, if he actually told people to email Wolff or anyone else (which he specifically does not do), the deluge would most likely overwhelm them with tens of thousands of emails. Moreover, as Limbaugh correctly contends, he never accused Wolff of racism, but instead alleged a double standard in criticism of high-ranking black officials.

In short, Wolff's account is highly misleading at best; he should stop repeating it. For a journalist to be peddling such a tall tale is an embarrassment.

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4/22/2003 07:06:41 AM EST |

Unfair comparisons to Fedayeen, Iraqi and Syrian officials (4/22)

By Brendan Nyhan

Recently, pundits have begun to smear their domestic political opponents by comparing them to Iraqi and Syrian officials in a resurgence of a popular post-9/11 strategy of comparing one's opponents to the hated figures of the moment such as the Taliban. These crude emotional appeals began to surge even before the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

Among liberals, Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in The New Yorker on April 7 of "the neoconservative fedayeen of the op-ed pages and the cable talkathons," comparing pundits to the Fedayeen Saddam, a group of regime enforcers that violated the rules of war in conducting attacks on US troops while disguised as civilians. Writing on his Daily Howler website, Bob Somerby initially accused pundits of "Saddam-like behavior" (3/31) and quickly progressed to labeling opponents "Fedayeen" twelve separate times in one "Saddamist" or "Saddamists" six times in another. And prominent writer and Yale lecturer Jim Sleeper, who was the author of Liberal Racism, attacked "Fedayeen Uncle Sams" in an April 14 article in the Yale Daily News, as radio host Hugh Hewitt pointed out in an article on the Weekly Standard's website.

On the conservative side, Rush Limbaugh has been prolific, drawing extended analogies between Democrats and both Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf and Syrian government officials. And online pundit Rich Galen used the same disreputable tactics in his April 4 Mullings column, which offered an absurd analogy between Saddam's "Elite Republican Guard" and the "Elite Democratic Guard" in the US.

Whatever one's objections to political rivals at home, there is no comparison between them and despots and murderers abroad.

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4/22/2003 07:04:48 AM EST |

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