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Sunday, 30 November 2008
The failed hyperbole of the past eight years (column version)
By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
QUICK, WHO said this?
“Americans have watched in horror as President Bush has trampled on the Bill of Rights and the balance of power.”
I’ll give you some hints:
A. Oliver Stone
B. MoveOn.org
C. An overexcited intern at the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee
D. The New York Times
The answer is “D.” Yes, I’m sorry to say that overwrought purple prose was the lead sentence last week in the lead Sunday editorial of the paper I was so recently congratulating for having the good sense to back the Columbia Free Trade Agreement. (And they made so much sense that day.)
Editorial writers — particularly at one of the best papers in the country — are supposed to use words with care and discrimination. Some say I occasionally fail to do that. For instance, some say I was mean, nasty and ugly to Gov. Mark Sanford in my column last week. Go read the letter to the editor from the governor’s press aide that ran in Wednesday’s paper (as always, you will find links to that, and the NYT piece, and any other linkable item mentioned in this column, in the Web version on my blog — and the address for that is below). An excerpt:
This editorial page was once respected as a voice for good government. Now, thanks to Brad’s childish screeds, fewer and fewer people are reading.
And yet... I challenge you go find anything that I said in that column that comes anywhere near the unsupported, gross hyperbole of “watched in horror” or “trampled on the Bill of Rights.”
So does President W. get all excited and whip off a letter to protest to the NYT? I doubt it. Nah, he just spends the week working with Barack Obama as though he were already in office, as though they were co-presidents — which, by the way, is exactly what he should be doing, in this extraordinary economic crisis. (I wonder: If this period of cooperation between the president and president-to-be does not lead to economic miracles, will someone look back on the interregnum in January and denounce “the failed policies of the past eight weeks?”)
Democrats are thrilled that at long last, Bush will no longer be in office. Me, too. He can’t leave soon enough. But I’m even more thrilled that after January, I won’t have to listen to any more semi-deranged yammering about the guy. You know that I never liked him — he’s the guy who did in my guy (remember John McCain?) in the 2000 S.C. primary. But I have never, ever understood why some hate him so much. The Bush haters can’t simply say, “I disagree with Mr. Bush and here’s why.” They have to go way beyond reason in condemning him absolutely in terms that render him utterly illegitimate.
Get a grip, people. It’ll be over soon.
Oh, and for those of you who will say, “But the Times went on to support its statement” — no, it didn’t. Sorry, folks, but his playing fast and loose with federal law regarding wiretapping, to cite one example given, just doesn’t amount to “trampling on the Bill of Rights.” He should have worked from the start to change the law rather than skirting it (as our own Lindsey Graham and others urged), but he did nothing to instill “horror” in a rational person. You “watch in horror” as a gang of thugs rape and murder an old lady — you merely disagree with something so bloodless as monitoring telecommunications without proper authorization.
Not following me? OK, here are some more things one might “watch with horror:” The My Lai massacre. The butchery in Rwanda in the 1990s. Gang-rape and mutilation of women in Darfur. The Hindenburg disaster. The Twin Towers falling on 9/11. The Japanese reducing Pearl Harbor to a smoking ruin. Men, women and children being herded into the Nazi death camps. The Bataan Death March.
Get the idea? To apply those words, “watched with horror” to, for example, “the unnecessary invasions of privacy embedded in the Patriot Act” (you know, a law passed by Congress, which Congress can change at any time) as the Times did is to suck all of the meaning out of those words. Once you use those words to describe imprisoning terrorists (real or imagined) at Guantanamo (the main sin listed in the editorial), they no longer have force. If you watch that “with horror,” what words do you use to describe the fire-bombing of Dresden?
People should not fling words about so carelessly. As a professional flinger of words, I know.
Now I’ll fling a few more for you Democrats who are watching with horror as I “defend” the outgoing president (when what I’m really doing is defending the language): Folks, settle down. I get it; you don’t like the guy. You like Barack Obama. Well, so do I (he was, after all, my second choice for president). I expect that I, too, will prefer an Obama administration to the past eight years. He’s off to a good start.
But before we say goodbye to this era, let’s resolve in the future to do what Sen. Obama does so well — speak with sanity and moderation, and mean what we say.
Read the Times piece and more at thestate.com/bradsblog/ .
Posted by Brad Warthen at 12:01 AM in Feedback, History, Mark Sanford, Marketplace of ideas, Media, Parties, The Nation, Words, Working
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Comments
Unfortunately, the discourse in this state and nation doesn't seem befitting.
But we're all guilty. For the political parties, the candidates, the bloggers, discouse seems to consist of saying bad things about people you disagree with. The State's editorial board is one of the worst cases, in my opinion. I remember I almost fell out of my chair when Cindy Scoppe derisively referred to Sanford supporters as his "fawning groupies."
ALL sides should strive to keep the debate on a higher plane.
Posted by: RM | Nov 30, 2008 11:44:57 AM
"...one of the best papers in the country..." - Brad Warthen speaking of the New York Times.
How does a man get to the point in his thinking that he can believe and say such a thing? As stunning and unbelievable as it is, this kind of myopia and flawed thinking on the part of Editors is to a large extent the reason for the inexorable slide of print journalism into oblivion.
If a newspaper editor in Columbia South Carolina cannot recognize what a sick joke the NYT has become, then he and his own newspaper deserve exactly the same fate that has befallen the NYT.
McClatchys' declining profitability has made the news recently. Wonder when we'll see the sell off of plant and equipment on Shop Road?
David
Posted by: David | Nov 30, 2008 2:32:27 PM
By the way RM, thanks for pointing out yet again the pettiness and vituperation engaged in by the editorial staff of The State in general and Scoppe in particular. These people do this kind of name-calling routinely about anyone that they either disagree with or simply dislike for some reason or other. This schoolyard tactic, worthy of eight year olds and not adult newspaper editors, was used (and still is) incessantly during Jim Rexs' campaign whenever they spoke of the good people who believe in and support school choice in South Carolina.
Typical. Sickening, but typical. Scoppe won't change, but her scummy, low rent tactics should be pointed out every time she resorts to them.
David
Posted by: david | Nov 30, 2008 3:01:48 PM
Ya' know, the real "horror" if you will, is that those of us who considered that the administration was eroding the Bill of Rights, etc. did nothing but yammer amongst ourselves. We did not do the organization necessary to bring this behavior to a screeching stop earlier. The best you can say is that the democratic party got organized enough to effect a large party change in Washington. But I suspect that action, legal, constitutional action could have been taken earlier had people who felt that way been willing to work together to make it happen.
Posted by: Karen McLeod | Nov 30, 2008 3:44:06 PM
I must disagree that eroding the Bill of Rights and unbalancing the balance of powers is not worthy of "horror." The dramatic events, TV newsworthy though they might be, and shocking and sad for those whose see them or whose loved ones are participants in them, are just that: dramatic events. If my loved dies in a car wreck, or of a cerebral hemorrhage, I am just as shocked and horrified as if he dies in a world news event, yet the world goes on in either case, more or less unchanged.
On the other hand, if and when we embark on the slippery slope of erosion of the Bill of Rights that are the bedrock of our democracy, of what makes this country great, we risk following in the history-changing footsteps of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, or so many other totalitarian regimes. That, despite his many many faults, George Bush is such a downright decent guy deep down worked to our benefit and is so much in evidence now as he shows so much grace working with Obama. Had he been a megalomaniac like, perhaps, my party's most recent President, perhaps we might not have had such a sunny outcome.
I wish we pledged allegiance not to the flag, a rectangle of fabric, or to the republic for which it stands, but rather to the Constitution that makes our nation the greatest that ever has been.
Posted by: Kathryn Fenner | Nov 30, 2008 4:29:57 PM
The use of hyperbole is ancient--the point is to get your attention. But I did wAtch in horror as President known as Monkey Boy among My Friends trampled on the Constitution. And with SC's Bush scallywags in control who could I ask to make him stop? So I did the only thing I could. I voted for Obama. Jan 20 should be a world holiday in my opinion.
Posted by: H | Nov 30, 2008 5:28:04 PM
Bush was and is a huge disappointment. That is undeniable.
But the screwin' we got in the last eight years ain't NUTHIN like the screwin' we're about to get. January 20th will mark the inauguration of a man and a regime whose disdain for the constitution and the rule of law will make Jefferson look like an anarchist.
Just sayin. David
Posted by: david | Nov 30, 2008 7:14:08 PM
"Monkey Boy."
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Posted by: p.m. | Nov 30, 2008 7:33:01 PM
Does Attorney Fenner realize that Barack Obama has repeatedly stated his view that our Constitution is irrelevant when it stands in the way of his agenda?
Has she not read his criteria for appointing federal judges?
Socialists like Obama and other internationalists in the Democratic Party care nothing about the Constitution. Just look at their attempts to deny the means of self-defense to honest Americans, and their votes for spending which is not explicitly authorized in the Constitution. Many of them, like Obama, scoff at notion of Constitutional restraint.
Just look at the recent lawsuit over Obama's not being a natural-born citizen. Obama refuses to produce a birth certificate. The State of Hawaii refuses to produce a birth certificate. A federal judge stalls until the eve of the election, before ruling that no one has standing to bring such a lawsuit.
Hillary Clinton is likewise disqualified from being confirmed as Secretary of State, but Obama doesn't care, the Senate scoffs at the law, and phony legal scholars again say no citizen has a right to demand enforcement of the law.
Posted by: Lee Muller | Dec 1, 2008 8:36:59 AM
Is it true that The State has outsourced some of it's departments to the Phillipines? Perhaps we can rename The State to The State of Denial as in they're denying they serve the interests of the people of South Carolina.
Posted by: bud | Dec 1, 2008 8:55:26 AM
How can you watch someone you call "Monkey Boy" with horror? That seems inconsistent.
"Snake Man" I could watch with horror. "Dragon Man" would be another. "Demon Man" would be fully capable of prompting such an emotion. But "Monkey Boy?" I don't think so.
Posted by: Brad Warthen | Dec 1, 2008 11:26:51 AM
The man thought he seemed some sad and solitary changeling child announcing the arrival of a traveling spectacle in shire and village who does not know that behind him the players have all been carried off by wolves.
Posted by: CM | Dec 1, 2008 11:42:25 AM
Hmmm. I didn't quite follow that.
But in answer to bud's question, The State contracts with an Illinois-based company, which employs ad designers in the Philippines, and has done so for about a year. Maybe that's what you've heard about.
Posted by: Brad Warthen | Dec 1, 2008 11:47:30 AM
Brad, your point on NYT hyperbole is well taken. I just read their "Bush has trampled" editorial.
The first two paragraphs betray NYT's theory that "The list of abuses ... is long":
(#1) warrantless eavesdropping on Americans [a few lawyers with Arab clients and enablers of Islamic jihads perhaps, but if more than a handful of regular U.S. citizens or journalists have been much inconvenienced news reporting has been remiss]; (#2) executive orders "undermining powers of Congress" [a patently subjective conclusion regarding the uncontested right to issue executive orders in the first place]; (#3) "unnecessary" invasions of privacy [another subjective conclusion; do we err on the side of caution, or the side of luxury? The latter seems the equivalent of unisex toilets - legal in NYC restaurants when I lived there.]; (#4) F.B.I. investigative guidelines "straight out of J. Edgar Hoover’s playbook" [Hoover seems a bit irrelevant to clear and present dangers threatened by radical Islamist terror leaders]; (#5) a drowning economy [bipartisan issue]; (#6) regulatory sanity [bipartisan issue]; and (#7)"unnecessary" war in Iraq [inconveniently bipartisan issue].
Ninety percent of the editortial, the final 18 paragraphs, concern only one issue (#8) alternative disposition of the prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay. Suggested redresses would employ U.S. courts, judges, prosecutors, and plaintiffs' attorneys [lawyers all] in significantly higher numbers and at egregiously greater rates of pay than afforded by military tribunals, whom, by the way, would still be paid their relatively generous, JAG salaries.
In conclusion, the "long list of abuses" cited by NYT is really short --- 8 items at most. Had not subjective biases and partisan political abandon been availed, the list would be reduced to only two (2) items. One must wonder why Bush-enhanced climate change has been omitted.
To be fair to NYT, their use of disparaging adjectives / adverbs is indeed longer: outlaw, heinous, disastrous, minor, credible, rejected, abusive, unlawful, transparent, guilty, tortured, sensitive, wafer-thin, duly, indefinite, allegedly, ethically, kangaroo, unusable, truly dangerous, incompetent, lawless, (less than) satisfying, to mention the obvious.
Posted by: Dino | Dec 1, 2008 2:27:45 PM
It's official. The second Bush recession is underway. When was the last time a president could boast of two recessions during his time in office. Mr. President, you're doing a heckuva job. This from the USA Today:
Recession is official, economists say
MEASURING THE ECONOMY
By Barbara Hagenbaugh, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — It's official: The USA is in a recession that started in December 2007.
Posted by: bud | Dec 1, 2008 2:28:10 PM
Brad, would it have been better suited if the NYT editorial had read:
“Americans have lived in fear since President Bush trampled on the Bill of Rights and the balance of power.” ?
Other than a slight difference in semantics, “living in fear” and “watching in horror” meaningfully equate the same feeling of intense aversion, to a series of questionable policy decisions taken by President Bush, which in some people runs deeply. Your citing of historical events that were, in their time, tragically horrible, fails to exemplify the subjective meaning the word, horror, implies. Did not people, who had invested their entire life's savings, feel fear, when the stock market dropped recently, and their investments, essentially disappeared? Wouldn't that experience be typified as a horror? In 1929, after The Crash, some investors committed suicide because their financial situation had become too horrifying to live with.
Are changes to the U.S. Constitution (the guarantor of our freedoms), or its outright dismissal (in some instances) any less fearsome to the American people, simply because it doesn't involve loss of life? I would think any U.S. President and Congress whom would cause our rights and liberties to be abrogated under the guise of national security are going to incite some measure of horror in the general populace.
I know I'm just picking, but sometimes, the subject matter is worth less than the effort it takes to write it.
Posted by: GF | Dec 1, 2008 3:17:52 PM
Of course, I was just picking, too -- but I was serious. I hate to see the language demeaned that way. I love words. If I hadn't been a journalist, I might have been a philologist. Or an etymologist. In fact, in fact, if I saw a sign today saying "Wanted: Philologist. No Advanced Degree required," and the pay and bennies were OK, I might jump at it.
But beyond that, the awful thing is that, given the chance to reconsider, the Times would probably do the same thing again, and that's what worries me. I think they really MEANT the reference to "horror," and that speaks less to careless use of a word and more to a failure to think critically -- and it's a failure that manifests itself in a hyperbolic, nondiscriminative political culture. I worry that the editors at the NYT really might not see the difference between the Holocaust at the Bush administration, because they've bought into the whole "if MY party isn't in power, it's the worst thing that ever happened in the history of the world" mentality that has been tearing this nation apart.
Things started getting really bad in late 1992, when Republicans started putting "Don't Blame Me; I Voted for Bush" bumper stickers on their cars, and things devolved to the point at which one of the best papers in the country could say "watched with horror" about the past 8 years and actually mean it.
And it IS one of the best papers in the country, along with the WSJ. It's not just reputation; they do a good job overall, and are sometimes quite impressive. Unfortunately, the editorial boards of those two wonderful, readable papers have become caricatures of themselves in recent years -- with the WSJ speaking for the Mark Sanford wing of the GOP, and the NYT increasingly sounding as though its positions were decided upon at a meeting of the College Democrats. When it comes to editorial, I prefer to look at the Chicago Tribune or the Washington Post -- but I see the two NY papers more often.
Posted by: Brad Warthen | Dec 1, 2008 4:18:29 PM
bud,
There have still not been two consecutive quarters of economic decline, which has been the standard definition of a recession, like the one Clinton left us in 2000.
The NBER changed its definition to declare a recession starting in 2007, when economic growth was still +4.0 percent. Their credibility is slipping.
The NBER, composed right now of mostly Democrats, is trying to help the press in pinning this recession on President Bush, rather than on Obama. But this recession, when it arrives in 2009, is the creation of Bill Clinton and Democrats who created the mortgage frauds, and the Marxist rhetoric of Obama.
Posted by: Lee Muller | Dec 1, 2008 10:47:43 PM
Dear Brad,
In the history of our republic, the "if my party isn't in power. . ." chicken-little mentality goes all the way back to the presidential election of 1800 in which Adams lost to Jefferson in a bitterly contested race. Jefferson came in on a stridently anti-Federalist, agrarian platform in which merchants and financiers were the bogeymen and the yeoman farmers the great heros. Actually, as I told my social studies class today at Ridge View, Jefferson's perspective changed considerably when he took office.
How, he wondered, do we keep all the benefits of the Hamiltonian financial system--which, BTW, laid the basis for the emergence of world capitalism from paternalistic mercantilism to the system based on banking and credit we have today (what we are pleased to call "financial services")--how do we keep these benefits if the Federalist economic edifice were to be changed to favor an agrarian, land-based rural republican Arcadia as Jefferson imagined America should be.
Of course, Jefferson did his work and lived his life prior to the industrial revolution. So he can be excused for not seeing that America would shortly turn in that direction as our own domestic producer goods increasingly began to feed the new factories of the North. Financial capitalism based in sound banking, credit, taxation, and monetary policies would become the vehicle by which the rural South increasingly produced more and more foodstuffs, wood, and king cotton while the North prospered with its river-driven mills.
Jefferson had the foresight not to sacrifice the financial system to the dogmas of his party. Instead, he co-opted the Federalists and under his administration America was doubled in size through the Louisiana Purchase, the opening of the Mississippi and the use of the port at New Orleans.
Jefferson believed that a strong state could protect property, the merchant class, high finance, the farmers and insure the ever-increasing prosperity of all.
His party, the Democratic-Republican Party (loosely ancestral to the Democracy of Jackson and the Democrats today) still retained its emphasis upon the yeoman farmer, independent tradesman, or small business owner as the basis of the economy while protecting the benefits provided by the Hamiltonian financial system--benefits that one can only see if you take the long view of the person who must ultimately occupy the presidency.
The rhetoric, however, has always been shrill; that's by no means recent. Indeed, it was far less civil in the 19th century than it would become in the 20th, or even today. The reality has always been that the framers created a system of checks and balances that effectively prevents even a party occupying the White House and holding majorities in the House and the Senate from exercising hegemonic power.
Obama, I believe, understands this. Yes, his administration will definitely tilt to the left, just as a McCain administration would have tilted to the right. Abortion will remain legal, gays will get greater civil rights, so-called intelligent design will not be taught in schools, and there will be stem-cell research and a reduction in military spending.
But there will be no statues erected in honor of Lenin; Islam will not become the state religion; the government will not confiscate all your property through ruinous taxation, and the Democracy will not abolish the descendants of the Hamiltonian federalists, the current Republican Party.
Would that the Republicans were indeed to recover their intellectual roots and, as I have said many times on this blog, put aside the fundamentalist nonsense preached to the base and become, once again, the party of federalism, Hamiltonian economics, civil liberties, compact government, realpolitik, and free labor.
This isn't going to happen as long as the party is in the thralldom of the likes of Sarah Palin and her no-nothing ilk.
Vigorous debate between the party ideologues is a good thing. But once a government is elected, we should follow Jefferson's example, and hold fast to that which is good, i.e., that which works, in the programs of both parties so that our Democratic Republic might once again recover, prosper once again, and resume its role as the leader of the free world.
Posted by: Rich | Dec 1, 2008 10:58:20 PM
bud, wasn't the first recession under Bush the one he inherited from Clinton? Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't that the reason for the tax cuts that Obama will surely not continue in 2010? I will be one of the first to admit that Bush has been anything but stellar on some issues but to blame him for a recession were in when he took office is streaching it a little don't you think?
And, if you will consider history, any president serving a second term will have a recession tacked on his administration at some point.
This one is different to be sure but it has been coming for a very long time and all of the events converging into a perfect storm couldn't have been timed any better for Obama. Yet, history as always will give credit to Bush since it did occur under his watch.
I watched not with horror but genuine concern for several years at the impending correction in the real estate segment of our economy. The price of housing went up at an inordinate rate when one considered the actual structure after completion and the imbalance in market value vs cost. When the subprime market exploded and people who were making $20K were living in $150K homes, something was clearly wrong. It didn't take a genius to figure it out either.
If you are going to blame Bush, then be fair if you can. He did try to get some regulatory action initiated to control the lending practices and provide oversight for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2003. McCain tried to get something done in 2006 but on both occasions, Democrats stopped it. And don't try to say that Bush had a majority in congress to work with. He didn't have enough support in committee to get it to the floor. When the committee was in session, Democrats demonized any attempt as racism or portrayed any proposed action as not caring about the poor and underpriviliged.
What can we say now? After we come out of this recession, unless the government sets up another give away program, you can bet the banks and lending instituions will go back to the earlier days when you had to have at least 20% for conventional or 10% for FHA, hold a steady job and your house payments not exceed one third of your income.
Posted by: Bart | Dec 1, 2008 11:15:17 PM
Would that the Republicans were indeed to recover their intellectual roots and, as I have said many times on this blog, put aside the fundamentalist nonsense preached to the base . . . .
So the answer is the final solution to the evangelical question (since I imagine from other things that Rich has written, that "fundamentalist" basically refers to evangelical Christians in general)?
Well, I doubt that we will all be lined up in front of a firing squad anytime soon, but it is disconcerting to be named the scapegoat for the nation's ills. Seems like we have come a long way since the Puritans, and other evangelicals founded a large portion of this country--I suppose the restrictions of morality that these folks brought to our society are now strangling its development? I hardly think so. Rather, as Chuck Colson recently pointed out, a major part of our current economic crisis has been caused by greed, which is the direct result of moral relativism--not caused by evangelicals.
A note to Rich (and to his namesake, I suspect, Richard Dawkins): We are not only represented by folks like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson, but also by others like Rick Warren, Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo--to name but a few. And if you study history, you will find that nearly every major philanthropic work in this country, or even abroad, has evangelicals at its roots, whether it is the Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity, or even the YMCA (which in many countries is still solidly evangelical, as it is in Germany--the head of the YMCA, Ulrich Parzany--SPD or socialist party member-- became the evangelist heir to Billy Graham). As Nicolas Kristof discovered when touring Africa, many of those who work consistently for the good of the people, combating AIDS, etc., are evangelicals.
So fear not, Rich. We are still here, and we probably won't be going away for awhile.
Posted by: Herb Brasher | Dec 2, 2008 7:46:41 AM
Modern representative governments are the result of Christian theology put to action.
The history of reactionary movements like socialism is a history of atheistic ignorance and intolerance for any religion, any moral or ethical codes apart from those dictated by secular rulers.
Posted by: Lee Muller | Dec 2, 2008 8:53:05 AM
Here's our President expounding yesterday on his biggest regret:
"I don't know -- the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess. "
Ugh... deflecting all responsibility and not a moment of introspection or remorse about thousands of deaths (many of them innocent) as a direct result of his actions.
I'm reminded of Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now:
Kurtz: [voiceover]
"You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us. The horror... the horror... "
Posted by: Doug Ross | Dec 2, 2008 9:07:02 AM
Isn't it ironic that Rick Warren would give an international peace prize invented by his pompous ministry to President Bush, a man who took us into an elective war in Iraq?
Posted by: Rich | Dec 2, 2008 10:55:18 AM
The US invasion of Iraq made it a much more peaceful country.
* Saddam Hussein had murdered over 250,000 people since 1992.
* Saddam Hussein and the Europeans he was bribing, had starved 2,000,000 Iraqis to death while stealing the UN Oil-for-Food money.
* Saddam Hussein was financing suicide bombers and paying their families.
* Iraq was harboring Al Qaeda and training them at two camps, which had complete trains, busses and airliners for hijacking practice.
* Iraq was developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
* Libya had several nuclear bombs, which they immediately surrendered after the US crushed Iraq.
Posted by: Lee Muller | Dec 2, 2008 11:13:11 AM
