There are several a dangers for all those strongly involved in politics.\u00a0\u00a0 In the heat of a campaign it is common to resort to exaggerations, distortions, \u00a0or even untruths in order to win. This \u201cpolitical rhetoric,\u201d while hard to defend, is usually written off as simply the result of \u201cgetting caught up in \u00a0the campaign.\u201d Once the election is over, politics goes back to \u201cnormal\u201d until the next campaign season.<\/p>\n
But one of the \u201cinnovations\u201d\u00a0 introduced by the Clintons was the never-ending campaign.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now, politicians are in \u2018campaign mode\u201d all the time.\u00a0\u00a0 As a result, what would normally be simply \u201cpolitical rhetoric in the heat of a\u00a0 campaign\u201d becomes the norm. Worse still,\u00a0 as it is repeated over and over and over, those who say it become so accustom to it that they forget that it is political rhetoric and actually begin to believe it!\u00a0<\/p>\n
Take for example the lefts claim that Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq. As it became clear that we were not going to find WMDs in Iraq,\u00a0 the initial reaction was the correct one, that Bush had been mistaken. Sure, the kooks immediately concluded that Bush lied, but the more sober minded understood the absurdity of such a claim.\u00a0 More importantly the leading Democrats who had had access to the same intelligence as Bush had reach the same conclusion as Bush. \u00a0Then there were all foreign governments , leaders and intelligence services that had also reached the same conclusion.<\/p>\n
But\u00a0 political rhetoric being what it is, \u2018mistakenly concluded\u2019, soon became \u2018exaggerated the intelligence\u2019, which then morphed into \u2018Bush lied.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 More importantly the inflation of political rhetoric moved up the political hierarchy,\u00a0 far past just \u00a0the kooks, until it began to appear even among democratic leaders, and then eventually became the norm for the party as a whole.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the liberal dominance of the major media normally servers the democrats very well, here it actually becomes a hindrance.\u00a0\u00a0 Republican rhetoric is\u00a0 constantly checked by the liberal media.\u00a0 For example,\u00a0 the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth basically charged that four of the claims made by John Kerry about\u00a0 his service in Vietnam were untrue.\u00a0\u00a0 The Swift Boat Veterans were clearly correct on two of these points and on the other two, it was pretty much up to whose account you believed. \u00a0\u00a0Given the fact that Kerry had clearly lied on the first two, \u00a0Kerry\u2019s history of lies about Vietnam, such as his testimony to Congress about alleged atrocities, and\u00a0 the number of Swift boat Veterans challenging\u00a0 Kerry\u2019s account,\u00a0 normally the benefit of the doubt would have gone to \u00a0the Swift Boat Veterans.<\/p>\n
But Kerry was a liberal, and so none of this mattered.\u00a0 The major media ignored the two points where Kerry was clearly wrong,\u00a0 and focused on the other two where there was some question. \u00a0Kerry\u2019s account was supported by \u00a0the official record,\u00a0 and thus probably for the first time ever, the media claimed that the official account could not be questioned. \u00a0But in any event, the media\u2019s defense of Kerry,\u00a0 checked the Republican rhetoric before it could become too exaggerated. No such check exists for liberals. In fact, as a result of their unchecked rhetoric,\u00a0 Liberals today see the Swift-Boat charges as completely fabricated lies made up solely for political reason. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Worse, as their unchecked political rhetoric become their reality,\u00a0 it becomes a basis for further and even wilder claims.\u00a0 The claim that Bush lied about WMDs, morphed in to Bush Lied about the War,\u00a0\u00a0 and finally everything Bush says about war is a lie.\u00a0 For growing number this even includes that Bush knew about or even planned 9\/11.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This distorted view of reality recently combined with another inflated stream of rhetoric that went back to the swift-boat controversy.\u00a0 The liberal political rhetoric\u00a0 that the swift-boat veteran lied about Kerry\u2019s military service, quickly became \u00a0\u2018Bush lied about Kerry\u2019s military service.\u2019\u00a0 When that fact that Bush never questioned Kerry\u2019s service was pointed out, it was dismissed with the assumption that the Swift boat veterans were acting at the behest of Bush.<\/p>\n
The real danger of all this political rhetoric is that it cuts one off from reality, and becomes a barrier which shields the holder from things like facts.\u00a0 This all came to a head last week.\u00a0 As even some critics of the war have pointed out, the situation in Iraq has improved, and we seem to finally be making some progress. There are still some serious problems that remain, but the surge has had positive effect on the situation.<\/p>\n
But many of the Democrats are immune to such good news. Viewed through the lens of their political rhetoric, victory is not an option, and thus any positive news from Iraq must be just another lie from the Bush administration. Since General Petraeus is the one delivering the news, in their eyes he is little more than just another swift-boat veteran.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thus the Moveon.org\u2019 New York Times ad, \u201cGeneral Petraeus or Betray-Us,\u201d\u00a0 was in one sense just the next logical step in the left\u2019s confusion of political rhetoric for reality.\u00a0\u00a0 After all, as I heard some defending Moveon.org say, \u00a0the Swift-Boat veterans attacked Kerry, so what is the difference between that and Moveon.org attacking Petraeus? \u00a0Some differences might be that Kerry was a politician in the midst of a President al campaign, and he was questioned about his claims by those who served with him, versus General Petraeus is an active military commander in the midst of a war,\u00a0 being question by a partisan political organization.\u00a0 But such distinctions are irrelevant in political rhetoric of the left.<\/p>\n
As despicable as this ad was, it does provide a moment of clarity, that cuts through all the obligatory \u201cWe support the troops\u201d rhetoric and shows where the left really stands.\u00a0 The ad show clearly hollowness of such claims of support.\u00a0 There is also a moment of clarity in the reluctance of the democratic Presidential candidates, Except for Biden \u00a0to condemn MoveOn.org. \u00a0Those who really \u2018support the troops\u2019\u00a0 did not have to wait to be asked about the ad, nor did they need to have time come up with a response.\u00a0 Hopefully the American people were watching and took note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are several a dangers for all those strongly involved in politics.\u00a0\u00a0 In the heat of a campaign it is common to resort to exaggerations, distortions, \u00a0or even untruths in order to win. This \u201cpolitical rhetoric,\u201d while hard to defend, is usually written off as simply the result of \u201cgetting caught up in \u00a0the campaign.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,24,25,28,37],"tags":[171,221,557,692,761,788,888,908,1007,2009,1237,1238,1348,1385],"class_list":["post-249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iraq-war","category-liberal","category-major-media","category-politics","category-terrorism","tag-biden","tag-campaign","tag-general-petraeus","tag-iraq","tag-kerry","tag-liberal-media","tag-moveonorg","tag-never-ending-campaign","tag-political-rhetoric","tag-politics","tag-swift-boat-veterans","tag-swift-boat-controversy","tag-vietnam","tag-wmds"],"yoast_head":"\n