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Jewish World Review Dec. 15, 2000/ 18 Kislev, 5761
Marianne M. Jennings
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
JAMES BAKER quoted the dissenting opinion of the Florida Supreme Court's
4-3 decision tossing Florida's election laws to indigenous hurricane winds to
wit, ". . . this counting contest propels this country and this state into an
unprecedented and unnecessary constitutional crisis." The media denounced his
"strong rhetoric." Rep. Tom DeLay called the decision an act of "judicial
aggression." Rep. Dick Gephardt and Sen. Trent Lott both suggested "toning
down the rhetoric."
Let's not bury rhetoric. Pull out all the stops and let it rip:
"Dagnabbit, only hard liquor out of the stills of West Virginia or weed out
of medically-approved-smokin' LA can get the burrs out of the behinds of
these hayseed judges."
Vox populi aside, rhetoric is not evil. Historical ignorance has
perpetuated the urban legend that rhetoric originated with Gingrich
Republicans. One of my favorite forms of hate mail comes from readers who
fret that my opinions are "so strong." Prissies. I've tried milquetoast
opinings; they felt unnatural.
We didn't begin, fight or win the Revolutionary War without strong opinions
clothed in rhetoric: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased
at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty G-d! . . . Give me
liberty or give me death." Network anchors would report, "Patrick Henry
lashed out at Loyalists today!" Pundits would clarify, "Living under a king
who taxes is hardly chains and slavery." Wimps.
Freedom of speech doesn't have a footnote on rhetoric for it is the
motivational capital of opposing views in democracy. Everett Dirksen said
words are a politician's weapons. Rhetoric is a release valve for passionate
disagreement. We conservatives have used words in lieu of Prozac lo these
long Clinton years. Ad hominem, sarcasm, and invective are traditions in our
public dialogue.
The Declaration of Independence accused George III of hiring "foreign
Mercenaries" for "Works of Death, Desolation and Tyranny." Not as cordial as
kings expect. The Gettysburg Address hardly appeased the South with the line
on "increased devotion . . . that these dead shall not have died in vain."
Franklin Roosevelt said of the business community in 1932, "The money
changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization."
Harry "Give 'em hell" Truman had rhetoric aplenty in his 1948 campaign, "When
a bunch of Republican reactionaries are in control of the Congress, then
people get reactionary laws." Harold Ickes resigned from Truman's cabinet
when Truman selected a friend for Navy undersecretary saying, "I am against
government by crony."
"The president has counseled his aides to commit perjury, willfully
disregarded the secrecy of the grand jury, while publicly displaying his
cooperation with the processes of criminal justice," was not Republican
rhetoric during the Clinton administration but Rep. Barbara Jordan's
statement during the Nixon impeachment.
Interestingly, rhetorical tolerance vacillates across ideological lines.
Camille Cosby's op-ed piece for USA Today following her son's senseless
murder along an LA freeway was entitled "America Taught My Son's Killers to
Hate Blacks" and complained of "America's intolerable, stereotypical movies
and television programs about blacks." As in The Cosby Show? She condemned
the racism in pictures of slave owners such as Washington and Jackson on our
currency. Mrs. Cosby's shallow rhetoric was praised despite its lack of
factual grounding. Children in public schools couldn't tell you who Andrew
Jackson was, let alone that he owned slaves. Ten bucks says they couldn't
tell you whose picture is on a twenty.
Paul Begala's analysis of the states Bush won was a rhetorical doozey: Texas,
where James Byrd was killed, Wyoming, where Matthew Shepard was tortured and
left to die, and Oklahoma, where innocents were slaughtered in a bombing.
His MSNBC buddies, shocked at James Baker, had no rhetorical condemnation for
him.
This silly left-wing rhetoric is not troublesome. False or misleading
rhetoric is dangerous only when unleashed upon the ill-informed. Truth in
rhetoric is its passion, its efficacy. False rhetoric falls easily.
"Counting all the votes," (please wince here) means counting ballots of fools
who couldn't work a punch card or who wasted their votes, as many do in
Florida, writing in "Mickey Mouse."
This past week's liberal talking points emphasize the U.S. Supreme Court's
narrow 5-4 vote for entering the Gore litigation bonanza and vote trolling
spree. Some truth: the abortion cases since Roe v. Wade, including last
year's partial birth abortion right, are all 5-4 and held inviolate by those
who now condemn partisan votes.
Remember the rhetoric of the "illegal butterfly ballot" of Palm Beach that
"denied the vote to survivors of the Holocaust"? Even the renegade Florida
Supreme Court held the ballot was legal and the problem was inept voters,
whatever their faith.
Pericles had it right -- the pomp is not in the words, but the truth of
facts. Truth trumps. Let rhetoric ring. In fact, give me rhetoric or give me
12/06/00: The company we keep: Lawyers and elections
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