The 2012 campaign seems to be in full swing and, when looking for examples of the abuse of facts, politicians are such low-hanging fruit.
A while ago, I told you that this blog was going to stay away from national politics--except where it applied to retired teachers. That's still my intent. I'm not going to advocate for any political party or candidate. I know some of you are more conservative, and I respect that.
Having said that, I intend to use some of the current Republican presidential candidates as examples of fact abuse. Why? Because they're in the news, and you may recognize the statements they made and your reaction to these statements. You may find yourself saying, "Hey, I fell right into that trap."
Don't Democrats ever abuse the facts? Of course they do! I'm sure you could find President Obama using each of the techniques I'll point out. The current crop of Republicans, however, are relative "newbies"--with a couple of exceptions-- and don't do nearly as well at hiding their abuse of facts as old hands on the national stage.
Still, if you feel the need, please feel free to point out instances in which Democrats apply the same technique. Send it as a comment, and it will be posted.
Let's begin with a claim the governor of Texas made before he even got into the race. Here's what Kurt Anderson had to say in a recent NY Times column:
"Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. Perry is even entitled to his opinion that states such as Texas might want to secede, as he threatened at a Tea Party rally two years ago. But he’s not entitled to his own facts. “When we came into the nation in 1845,” he’d earlier told some bloggers visiting his office, “we were a republic. We were a stand-alone nation. And one of the deals was, we can leave anytime we want. So we’re kind of thinking about that again.” That special opt-out provision is entirely fiction, a Texas myth the governor of Texas apparently thinks is real."
See the trap here? Perry is talking about Texas. He's not just any Texan, he's the governor of Texas. When he says something about Texas, you assume he knows what he's talking about! Did you fall into the trap? I did, until I took the time to check it out on my own.
Still, let's give the man the late Texas political humorist Mollie Ivins called "Gov. Goodhair" a pass on this one. Apparently lots of Texans believe this myth.
Here's a more recent example, as covered by Jonathan Weisman of the "Washington Wire" blog of the Wall Street Journal:
“If you’re a tractor driver, if you drive your tractor across a public road, you’re gonna have to have a commercial driver’s license. Now how idiotic is that?” he thundered to the fair crowd in Des Moines, with the rejoinder, “What were they thinkin’?”
"But there is no such regulation" [Emphasis mine.]
Oops. There goes that trap again. His audience assumed he knew what he was talking about.
There had been rumors of such a regulation spreading through the farm community--as there were rumors that the government was about to confiscate guns and ammunition soon after the Obama victory.
Even though the government had issued a statement saying "The common sense exemptions that allow farmers, their employers, and their families to accomplish their day-to-day work and transport their products to market” should remain in place. We have no intention of instituting onerous regulations on the hardworking families who feed our country and fuel our economy," Perry went for it anyway.
And why not. Even though his opponents would be filtering every word looking for ways to trip him up, it was a good line for the farmers, who probably wouldn't see him get caught by the Wall Street Journal anyway.
Up next: Leading the reader/listener to a false conclusion by saying something absolutely true..
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