This is my rebuttal/rant at this Saletan
column about Dean. I normally like Saletan, but some of his recent whinges have really rubbed me the wrong way (his need for pedanticly literal meaning in rhetoric about taxes, for instance). Anyway, this column is the straw that broke the camel's back.
Crossposted at the Fray.
I finally can't take it anymore. Saletan's finally brought out a set of gripes that I can't even pretend are sorta kinda maybe reasonable.
A candidate stage manages an appearance? I'm supposed to be worried about this? In an era of wag the dog style politics Saletan is complaining about an actor's endorsement and campaign video that (shockingly!) paints the candidate in the best possible light. Oh, and since he seems to be worried about it, no one thought that was really Bartlet up there Will, really, no one.
After a few paragraphs Hollywood bashing for no more readily apparent reason than the fact that it usually goes over fairly well (Hollywood being one of those groups you can insult with no fear of reprocussions, like New Englanders, or Lawyers), Saletan gets into the serious business of holding Dean to a pedantic standard of truth that would feel tight on George Washington, as if the cherry tree is the true standard by which we should judge presidents.
Saletan must be doing some of his own willful avoidance of reality he thinks that this sort of rhetoric is wildly inappropriate. I would have thought that we all would assume that when a politician described him or herself as "the only", "the best", "the first" etc. they're comparing themselves only to the other people running for the same position, rather than their absolute ranking among the population of time and space.
Then comes Saletan's insistance for the umpteenth time that Dean speak only in the most simplistic literal language about the tax cuts. As if any politician is ever going to win on the "He gave you a tax cut, I'll give you a tax hike" platform. But perhaps as someone who benefitted not at all from the tax cuts, but who is still paying for them, and who will continue paying them for the next 50 odd years of my life, I'm somewhat more open to this type of frame the issue line of reasoning.
And as a final insult to readers of serious journalism everywhere Saletan's adds the obligatory scream speech comment, peddling the media's now largly debunked spin that Dean "vented his emotions with a visceral roar".
Odd that an article who's thesis I agree with (That Dean's campaign has, for months, been mostly about itself.) by a journalist whose arguments I generally respect could be incoherent to me. I suspect this is probably due to the maddening disconnect between thesis and agrument, as if a real thesis got mixed up with Saletan's private gropings for a reason to match his own visceral emotions about Dean (perhaps a good roar would help?). Now, however, this piece is out there in the echo chamber, I'd wonder about what comes back, but I don't think Saletan is listening, especially if the echo isn't accurate.