Many have lamented the lack of civil discourse in the world of politics today. It seems the “new tone” has too often fallen on deaf ears. Civility in political debate is frequently missing and if the current controversy over Ann Coulter’s latest book is any indication, it doesn’t appear poised to make a reappearance anytime soon.
What is a greater concern than the lack of civility, however, is the inability of many in the political arena to even agree upon the facts. Worse than the loss of civility, is that of truth.
Dan Rather and Mary Mapes argued the “fake, but accurate” defense when confronted with evidence that their 2004 pre-election story accusing the president of being AWOL 30 years earlier was based on obviously forged documents. Internet citizen journalists at Free Republic (freerepublic.com), Little Green Footballs (littlegreenfootballs.com) and Power Line (powerlineblog.com) quickly deconstructed the documents upon which the 60 Minutes II producers relied.
Even as the cause of truth was served in that case, in some instances the Internet has been an environment in which even the wildest of allegations and assertions can be repeated enough times that they are picked up in other forms of media, later to become accepted as conventional wisdom.
John Leo wrote recently that “assertion” is replacing truth:
“This may not be breaking news, but if an assertion reflects a widely shared emotion, it can make great headway in this culture without any need to prove its truth. We have been through this many times. The 2000 election was allegedly stolen, though no credible investigation backed up the claim, not even the one by the Civil Rights Commission, which was then firmly in Democratic hands.”
He pointed to several other assertions, including claims about Katrina and race, that were later found to be false, but which have endured, nonetheless.
At times, truth seems to be lacking even in the language itself. The very meaning of certain words is now in dispute. We should be able to look them up in dictionaries and come up with common definitions upon which everyone can agree. During the Clinton years, we understood what a lie was, provided we made allowances for the meaning of the word “is,” that is. We even learned, through some creative reporting, that some lies are really good, and that everyone lies, right? At least we could all agree that a lie was a lie then. That is no longer necessarily the case.
When George Bush said we had intelligence that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD, many of those on the left say he was lying. The following statement from President Bush was even one of those listed by John Dean in an article addressing the question of whether such “lies” were an impeachable offense (http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.html, http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.html):
“Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.” — Address to the Nation, March 17, 2003.
The following similar statements were made by prominent Democrats:
“There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein’s regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed.” — Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002
“Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.” — Al Gore, 2002
“I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force — if necessary — to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.” — John F. Kerry, Oct. 2002
Strangely enough, however, as far as I am aware, no one has gone on record describing any of the statements above as lies. As this example might indicate, one of the issues which has been most prone to false assertions, incorrect language and incivility has been the debate over the war in Iraq and the war on terror in general. This is particularly unfortunate considering the prominent role debate over such issues will play in the 2008 presidential election.
When assertion replaces truth, language no longer has definite meaning assigned to it, and civility becomes a thing of nostalgia, the table is set for a dysfunctional debate that not only fails to educate the public, but misleads and misinforms them continually. Just as those in the new media forced those at CBS to confront the truth of their fake documents, those interested in preserving truth in our political debate have many battles to fight in the days to come.
Lorie Byrd is a member of the Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors and blogs at Wizbang Politics and Loriebyrd.com.
