Covering what’s really important…
I just want to publicly thank the hard-working journalists at the Boston Globe for clearing up the burning issue of Sen. John Kerry’s ancestry. We the people can now rest assured that our republic is safe because enterprising reporters are on the job keeping a proper check on power. Just think of the danger to our freedoms that could have been caused if (horrors!) Kerry were to be elected and we didn’t know the truth about his long-dead relatives. (via PoliticalWire)
UPDATE (10:38 a.m.): Bruce Rheinstein’s cogent comment on this post (see also my reply) demonstrates that I need to explain how the question of a candidate’s honesty could/should be covered by the press. That’s a big topic that I’m sure I’ll cover many times over the course of the presidential campaign. For now:
First, I think it’s a matter of degree. I think journalists should consider the content of an assertion in the context of policy first and leadership second.
Second, if the assertion involves a matter of spin more than a matter of policy, I think it should be reported as spin. In other words, I’d like to see journalists report spin points in the context of modern, electronically mediated campaigns, in which political success may be considered a function of image building. In this case, Kerry’s assertion (however made) that he is Irish can and should be reported as a matter of spin, not honesty. I think the Globe errs by degree (by, among other things, giving this article so much space and page-1 play).
Finally, a personal note to Bruce: In my reply to your comment, I do not mean the term “rationalization” pejoratively.
I don’t think the “burning issue” is his ancestry, but his opportunistic adoption of an ersatz Irish identity with which to garner votes from the ethnic Irish community.
This smacks of when he pretended to throw his own medals back at the Capitol in protest of the Vietnam war — except they weren’t his medals, they were someone elses. Now that it suits his purposes, he displays his.
If Kerry’s willing to lie to the voters about this sort of thing, where he is likely to be found out, then what else won’t he lie about — especially when it is unlikely people will discover the truth?
Having married a wealthy widow, he has the money to be a serious contender for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency.
What level of honesty should we expect from our Presidents? Do we look to Honest Abe or Slick Willy as role models for the most powerful position in the world?
Yes…that’s the rationalization. I don’t buy it in this case, or any similar case, because the issue is so trivial, IMO. Name the politician, of any party, who hasn’t “lied” in this way to create an image. I’ll limit that last remark to the period following 1952 when television began encroaching into the political process.
It’s nearly all spin.
BTW, on PCR2000, almost four years ago. I took the press to task for treating Bush this way on a number of spin points involving his personal character and past actions. I’m not a Kerry champion here. I’m wanting the press to do a better job of covering what really matters: policy.
(Then again, can I really assert that policy matters in the television age? Am I simply kidding myself? There is much evidence to support the contention that Americans now choose presidents based on image alone. I am probably guilty of being an idealistic dinosaur.)
I agree that we should hold politicians to a high standard of honesty. Should that standard include such “issues” as this case? Well, apparently the reporters at the Globe think so. I beg to differ.
It is my contention that the press could/should be spending more time explicating Kerry’s (or any candidate’s) positions on issues and the implications for policy. When it comes time to vote, I’ll care less about how he might have used his ancestry to gain political favor than I will his position on important issues.
Now, was my post this morning snarky?
Yes, it was. And I usually try to avoid that tone. But the first two items of the day just set me off. 
If a politician will lie about who his ancestors are in order to get elected, then why should we believe him when he tells us where he stands on the issues.
He became Irish in Boston because that’s what he perceived the voter’s wanted to hear. Isn’t he likely to be as unpricipled when it comes to his positions on the issues?
And since when isn’t honesty an issue?
The curious thing is that this appears to be coming out now because the Senator wants it to, rather than later when it might do significantly more damage. The Globe has published erronious profiles of their hometown Senator for well over a decade, now. Who can blame them for being outraged at being made to look the fool?
Are all lies equal?
I would suggest that TV’s influence on campaign politics has created a situation in which politicians (of any party) make poor choices in order to create or protect an image. I think we should certainly consider their honesty…but in some kind of perspective.
There is a difference between spin and lies. Spin is “a special point of view, emphasis, or interpretation” (Merriam-Webster)
A lie is “something that misleads or deceives.” If Kerry says he’s Irish, that’s a lie. If Hillary Clinton conveniently discovers a long-lost, almost-relative, that’s spin. (Although when she states that she was named for Sir Edmund Hillary, that’s a lie – he was an obscure bee-keeper in New Zealand when she was born.)
I expect spin from politicians, but I also believe that people who routinely lie about small things will lie about big one’s, too.
Kerry’s routinely passing himself off as something he is not doesn’t lead me to believe that he is someone I could trust with the Presidency.
While there is certainly a difference between spin and lies, I think that difference exists as a matter of degree along a continuum. For example, we may lie by omission, which I would consider a technique of spin because that would be “a special point of view, emphasis, or interpretation.”
Is Kerry Irish? How much Irish blood would it take to be “Irish”? What does it even mean to be Irish? It seems to me that claims to nationhood outside of America for a natural-born American are nearly always a matter of spin. I can claim to be “German” or “French” or “Irish.” As a natural-born American, I wouldn’t do so unless I had a rhetorical motive.
I confess I have read your comments multiple times and I still don’t get the part where you say”journalists should consider the content of an assertion of the context of policy first and leadership second….if the assertion involves a matter of spin more than a matter of policy…it should be reported as spin”. I get this intellectually, but I don’t get how it would work in practice. Could you maybe provide a hypothetical so I could see how this process works? Maybe I was asleep in class when you went over this—sorry!
Well, you assume that I *know* how to apply what I’m talking about, which isn’t necessarily a good assumption.
I prefer to divide policy and leadership (and image creation, because political experience is largely mediated by TV) as discreet political skills. My idealistic notion here is that reporting on policy should be more important than reporting on the image of leadership.
The Kerry case is an example. I think the press should report it, but not as a stand-alone story on page one. I think it may have a role to play, for example, in an article on how Kerry’s policies concern local or Irish-American interests (whatever those might be). In other words, how does a claim of being Irish help Kerry do something he wants to do (policy)? What is the rhetorical purpose? And in what measure (kairos) has he employed it?
My default position (with any politician) is not to assume that Kerry is merely being cynical.
I’m not sure that cleared anything up