Spinsanity - Countering rhetoric with reason

As election season heats up, pseudo-psychology and "anti-American" rhetoric bring debate down (1/22)

In the midst of intense campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination, two of the leading candidates are offering nasty insinuations against President Bush.

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean has recently accused the President of going to war in Iraq because of a "psychological" issue with his father, former President George H.W. Bush.

"This president is not interested in being a good president," Dean said in a recent interview with Rolling Stone. "He's interested in some complicated psychological situation that he has with his father. He is obsessed with being re-elected, and his obsession with re-election is hurting the country." Such pseudo-psychological speculation is a too-common feature of contemporary political commentary.

Dean did not specify what the "psychological situation" might be in Rolling Stone. But as the conservative website WorldNetDaily pointed out, he did so later during an interview (Windows Media format) on the "Blute and Scotto" show on Boston talk radio station WRKO.

Dean began by clarifying his position on the President's mental state, saying, "Do I think [Bush is] unbalanced? Of course not." But he then added more speculation about how Bush's relationship with his father may have led to war. "So the question is why did he really [invade Iraq]?" Dean stated. "I don't' know the answer. But I know Saddam Hussein tried to assassinate the President's father. Maybe this was revenge. I don't know the answer."

Suggesting that the President went to war because of a psychological issue related to the fact that Saddam Hussein tried to assassinate his father is not just a cheap shot, but unprovable, since we can never know what President Bush's motives actually are. It's part of a jargon of mental illness in which pundits and politicians suggest their opponents' political views result from a psychological defect. This was recently illustrated in a piece by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer accusing Dean of having "Bush Derangement Syndrome," which he defined as, "the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency -- nay -- the very existence of George W. Bush."

Dean's hedging of the accusation with the statement that "I don't know the answer" is reminiscent of another bit of irresponsible speculation -- Dean's suggestion that President Bush may have had prior warning from Saudi Arabian officials about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which he said on the December 1 edition of NPR's "The Diane Rehm Show" was "the most interesting theory" he had heard, but added, "who knows what the real situation is?" [Real Player audio - 42:50 in clip] When questioned about this claim, including on "Blute and Scotto", Dean has asserted that he didn't believe the theory. Spreading groundless theories that he doesn't even believe is extremely irresponsible behavior for a presidential candidate, however.

Another Democratic candidate, former Army General Wesley Clark, has also been making some nasty emotional attacks on the President. Campaigning in New Hampshire recently, Clark said that Judge Charles Pickering, whom Bush appointed to a seat on a federal appeals court with a recess appointment that bypassed the Senate, was "anti-American," a highly charged accusation that suggests Pickering is an enemy of the United States, rather than simply someone whom Clark believes has a bad record on issues such as civil rights (Democrats' main reason for opposing Pickering's nomination).

Separately, Clark also attempted to associate Bush's policies with the countries that the President has previously identified as three of the greatest threats to the United States. "Two years after President Bush coined the term 'axis of evil,' we've got a new axis of evil, and it's one our president himself created," Clark said in another New Hampshire appearance. "It's an axis of fiscal policy that threatens our future, foreign policy that threatens our security, and domestic policy that puts families dead last."

Of course, Clark has every right to oppose the president's policies as vehemently as he chooses. But by using the "axis of evil" terminology, he's trying to associate the president and his policies with North Korea, Iran and Saddam Hussein's former regime in Iraq. This is a classic tactic of political jargon that manufactures illogical connections between political opponents and much-despised enemies to create emotional associations between them.

Clark's statement is similar to an accusation made by fellow Democratic presidential contender Senator John Kerry, D-MA, who last year called for "regime change" in the United States (the US policy toward Iraq had previously been called "regime change," indicating a desire to remove the dictator Saddam Hussein from power).

Intense, passionate disagreements are to be expected in the midst of a competitive election for the nation's highest office. But all of the Democratic nominees need to avoid these unfounded speculations and emotional associations.

Unfortunately, there are already signs that conservatives are resorting to similar tactics as election season begins. In his Best of the Web Today column on the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com website yesterday, James Taranto referred to Democrats who cheered during the State of the Union address when the President said that "key provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire next year" as "the al Qaeda cheering section." Taranto added, "If Osama bin Laden watched the speech, one imagines him applauding too."

Associating those who disagree with the Patriot Act with Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden is just as low as saying that the President went to war over a psychological issue or calling one of his appointees "anti-American."

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1/22/2004 09:23:08 AM EST |

Kennedy misrepresents Bush on Saddam-Al Qaeda connection (1/18)

By Bryan Keefer

In a speech to the liberal Center for American Progress last week, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) falsely claimed that President Bush had repudiated any link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

In his January 14 speech, Kennedy stated that "After repeatedly linking Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in his justification for war, the President now admits there was no such link." In fact, President Bush has said no such thing. The closest he came was a September 17, 2003 press conference, in which he said, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th." But immediately following that statement, Bush detailed evidence of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda, concluding that "There's no question that Saddam Hussein had Al Qaeda ties." Kennedy's remarks intentionally confuse this important distinction.

The extent of Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda remains a matter of dispute. Though Iraq had sporadic contacts with members of Al Qaeda, available evidence does not prove the existence of a sustained, high-level connection. That, however, is no excuse for misrepresenting the President's words.

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