2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumPaul Begala on Washington’s Euphemistic Deceptions
Dec 10, 2012 12:00 AM EST
Reform taxes? Fix Medicare? Yeah, right.
Political speech and writing, George Orwell wrote in a biting and brilliant critique, are largely the defense of the indefensible. The most political of writers bemoaned the fact that political languageand with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchistsis designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. Orwell was reacting to the desperate euphemisms employed by members of the British intelligentsia in his day who had taken to defending the indefensible savagery of Stalinism, but there are plenty of examples in todays debate over Americas debt.
I tried to persuade Bill Clinton to mock one of todays more egregious euphemismsthe Republicans use of words like fix to describe what they want to do to Medicareas he prepared his speech to the Democratic National Convention in September. Heres the line I pitched him: Every time I hear Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan say they want to fix Medicare, it reminds me of when that veterinarian said he wanted to fix my old dog Buddy. But it was not a fix. It was a cut, and theres a difference.
Our former president, you may be comforted to know, thought it best not to include in one of the most important speeches of the election a dog-castration joke. But the point I was trying to make remains important: beware of euphemismsthey mask mischief.
Republicans dont want to fix Medicare or reform Medicare. And Lord knows they dont want to modernize it oras the deeply disingenuous Paul Ryan saysprotect and strengthen Medicare. No, they want to end it. Newt Gingrich showed admirable clarity of language in 1996 when he said of the agency that financed Medicare, We believe its going to wither on the vine because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it. When something withers on the vine, it dies.
continue reading:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/12/09/paul-begala-on-washington-s-euphemistic-deceptions.html
JLII
(11 posts)...limited to Republicans as Begala suggests?
Labor Democrats of a certain age remain disgusted with Clinton's enthusiastic endorsement of "modernization" as a euphemism for "screwing the middle class".
Clinton "modernized" trade with NAFTA early on. In the terminal phase of his corporatist regency Clinton seemed positively giddy with enthusiasm signing bills "modernizing" banking (by repealing Glass-Steagall) and "modernizing" commodities futures trading (by removing the possibility of CFTC regulations on derivatives).
Begala seems a day late and a dollar short.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)one breath and then turn around and say we have to cut medicare to "save" in another breath. I told him that I simply didn't believe him and that what he was up to was urging cuts to medicare in the full knowledge that weakening the program will eventually make people think it wasn't worth it. I siad that I knew full well that his endgame was the destruction of medicare and he knew it and was being purposely deceptive.
In other words, I called him a LIAR.