The Republican assault on "political hate speech"

Spinsanity.org brings to light another Republican strategy to 
suppress dissent. I received one of these messages out of the blue as 
a reply to an amusing letter expressing ironies in the GOP mind-set - 
"Being a good Republican means believing that:...." It was 
interesting to see the way the reply was contrived to address remarks 
I never made while stereotyping me as a Democrat and using the "h" 
word three times in four sentences to convince me to "shape up."
(excerpt)
"I wonder though, since you find it offensive or inappropriate when 
all Democrats are portrayed as cowardly, family-hating socialists by 
conservative demagogues, why is it acceptable to apply grossly 
oversimplified, and equally false, labels to Republicans?"
"Please tell me that there is more to being a "good" Democrat than 
simply hating and demeaning everyone who disagrees with the official 
party line.  Otherwise, the average American will become even more 
disenchanted with politics and politicians and we will witness the 
continuing collapse of Roosevelt's party.  In other words, if 
Democrats don't shape up now we will soon live in a political system 
that is thoroughly dominated by a single political party--the one 
that you obviously hate."

I guess it means that a "good" Democrat should be like a "good" Indian.

It's amazing how this tactic has spread to stifle expressions of 
dissent in the most obscure venues.
The RNC propaganda machine is very well oiled, continually organizing 
new assaults on dissent
with their intellectual night sticks.

<>
See also:
New GOP ad misconstrues criticism (11/21)
By Brendan Nyhan
In addition to its efforts to silence President Bush's critics by
claiming they are engaging in "political hate speech," the
Republican National Committee is now suggesting that they oppose
fighting terrorism.
http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2003_11_16_archive.html#1069447313373186
[alternative short URL: http://tinyurl.com/x7or ]
<>

I've found that "Spinsanity" calls spades spades no matter who's deck 
the cards are in.

Tim Jones

The Republican assault on "political hate speech"
By Brendan Nyhan
November 13, 2003
http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20031113.html
Over the last two months, the Republican Party has begun a systematic 
effort to label attacks on President Bush by Democratic presidential 
candidates as "political hate speech," a new piece of political 
jargon intended to delegitimize criticism of Bush. It appears this 
strategy will (be) expanded in the coming months -- a recent memo 
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/observer/2003/10/28/news/7120151.htm from 
Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie urged 
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/articles/2003/11/12/gop_will_trumpet_preemption_doctrine/ 
party officials to adopt the term in their rhetoric.

Like "Enronomics" and "Daschlenomics", "political hate speech" is a 
carefully crafted term designed to create a hazy, non-logical 
association between two concepts. In this case, the phrase associates 
criticism of the president with "hate speech," which generally refers 
to speech that attacks others on the basis of their race, religion, 
ethnicity or sexual orientation. Of course, some rhetoric directed 
toward President Bush could fairly be described as hateful (just like 
any politician), but Republicans have used the term sweepingly to try 
to delegitimize nearly all criticism of Bush, regardless of its 
substance. This is a key tactic of political jargon, which often 
seeks to undermine the legitimacy of criticism by invoking hazy but 
powerful emotional symbols.

In addition, the phrase reverses the term "hate speech" by directing 
it back at liberals (another classic jargon tactic), who are 
associated with the term due to speech codes proscribing "hate 
speech" at certain colleges and universities. The use of the term 
"political hate speech" against Democrats thereby imparts an 
implicit, largely non-rational accusation of hypocrisy, even though 
no evidence is provided that the candidates in question support 
prohibitions on hate speech.

Attacks on liberals for "hate speech" have occurred before, most 
prominently in Bernard Goldberg's book Bias, which lists twelve 
alleged instances of "liberal hate speech" documented by the Media 
Research Center, many of which would not meet any fair-minded 
definition of the term. However, the RNC has recently made the term 
"political hate speech" central to its attacks on Democratic 
presidential candidates, repeating it over and over in statements, 
interviews and press releases. Gillespie's memo to RNC members and 
party officials, as quoted by ABC's newsletter The Note, instructs 
Republicans to "Highlight the party of political hate speech ... The 
presidential candidates have now called President Bush a 'miserable 
failure,' a 'liar,' compared him to a 'gang leader' and to Saddam 
Hussein himself. Americans instinctively know that anyone who's 
willing to demean the presidency in order to gain it is not worthy of 
having it entrusted to him."

Gillespie originally debuted the term during an appearance with 
Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe on NBC's "Meet 
the Press" on Sept. 7:

The kind of rhetoric you hear from [Democratic presidential 
candidates] ... on either side of the aisle, Ronald Reagan never said 
Jimmy Carter couldn't find countries in his own hemisphere. Walter 
Mondale never said that President Reagan was a miserable failure. 
When Bill Clinton ran against President Bush, he didn't compare him 
to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban. And when Bob Dole ran against 
President Clinton, he didn't say that he was an absolute phony or a 
liar. The kind of words we're hearing now from the Democratic 
candidates go beyond political debate. This is political hate speech.


Gillespie was very explicit in attacking the legitimacy of the 
Democrats' statements when he said "The kind of words we're hearing 
now from the Democratic candidates go beyond political debate." Yet 
he was intentionally vague about what attacks he is condemning. 
Implicit comparisons to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban are 
inappropriate and unfair - though far from unprecedented in the 
post-Sept. 11 political environment - but the other statements are 
aggressive in the usual manner of partisan politics. (Needless to 
say, Republicans certainly did not pull their punches during 
President Clinton's term either.)

After the Democratic debate on Sept. 9, Gillespie was again quoted 
accusing the Democrats of "political hate speech" and asserted that 
"These kinds of harsh, bitter personal attacks are unprecedented in 
the history of presidential politics," an absurd claim given the 
vitriol of American political history, particularly in the 19th 
century. (He repeated the "political hate speech" label and the claim 
that the attacks were unprecedented during a Sept. 22 breakfast with 
the editors of the Christian Science Monitor.) The RNC press release 
on the Sept. 9 debate also invoked the phrase, but merely listed a 
number of statements from the candidates rather than offering an 
argument about why any of them constitutes "political hate speech."

In an interview with the New York Times on Sept. 10 that was part of 
the offensive, Gillespie implicitly suggested that Democratic attacks 
on the president hurt the war on terrorism, again trying to 
delegitimize their actions. "There is a contrast here," he said. 
"[W]hile President Bush is attacking the terrorists, the Democrats 
are attacking President Bush." (Gillespie also used the term on Sept. 
16 on Fox News Channel's "The Big Story with John Gibson.")

On October 1, a RNC deputy press secretary, David James, turned the 
term against former Vermont governor Howard Dean, the frontrunner in 
the Democratic primary race, saying Dean "has demonstrated he's one 
of the masters of political hate speech." Like Gillespie, James also 
claimed the Democratic rhetoric was unprecedented and non-rationally 
contrasted it with the war on terrorism to try to undermine its 
legitimacy:

"Howard Dean also said in the Democratic primary debate in New York, 
'George Bush is the enemy,'" James said. "The last time I checked, 
Osama bin Laden was the enemy. I don't think we've heard that sort of 
rhetoric coming out, at least not on the presidential level."


Three days later, Gillespie was quoted using the term in the 
Washington Post. On October 8, he then repeated it in on CNBC 
"Capitol Report" in sweeping form, claiming that "The Democratic 
field has engaged in political hate speech for the past six months."

By this point, the term was making its way into official RNC 
documents, including October 8 fact sheets on the California recall 
and an RNC gala, which both evidently proved that Americans are 
rejecting "attack politics and political hate speech."

In a Washington Times op-ed published on October 9, Gillespie was 
quoted trying to frame "political hate speech" as an attack on the 
institution of the presidency itself: "The attacks have moved beyond 
political rhetoric and into the realm of political hate speech. No 
one has ever won the White House by demeaning the presidency." Over 
the next month, Gillespie used the term frequently to attack 
Democratic candidates before, during and after debates, beginning 
with an October 9 press release prior to a debate. On October 24, he 
even demonstrated his psychic abilities before another debate, 
predicting that the Democratic candidates "will continue a pattern of 
political hate speech."

Other uses includes an October 12 Q&A with the Dallas Morning News; 
an October 21 RNC press release which used the term to attack 
Democratic opposition to one of Bush's judicial nominees; an October 
23 speech by Gillespie in which he again suggested that Democrats are 
"willing to demean the presidency in order to gain it"; an October 27 
briefing of reporters; a second appearance on CNBC "Capitol Report" 
on October 30; a November 3 RNC press release; and a November 5 news 
conference featuring Gillespie.

Finally, the most recent use of the term came in a November 10 
article in the Des Moines Register, which highlights the way experts 
can use such jargon. Note the repetition of the phrase twice in three 
sentences:

"The Democrats are spending more and more on their political hate 
speech and pessimism and reaching fewer and fewer people," [RNC 
deputy press secretary David] James said. "It's the constant attacks 
on President Bush. It's the political hate speech that people are 
turning off. The president has a positive agenda, and that message is 
clearly resonating with Americans."

When Democratic presidential candidates cross the line in their 
rhetoric, they should be held accountable for their statements. But 
the blanket application of "political hate speech" is being used to 
undermine the legitimacy of criticism and dissent in principle -- a 
tactic which disturbingly echoes Bush's "changing the tone" rhetoric 
from Bush's campaign and early months of his presidency, which 
implicitly defined a changed tone as the absence of opposition to the 
President's policies. It is also a direct descendant to the many 
vitriolic attacks unleashed by Republicans and conservative pundits 
on those who have questioned Bush or the war on terrorism, including 
former RNC chair Marc Racicot's attempt to preclude any discussion of 
replacing Bush earlier this year. When John Kerry, a Democratic 
senator from Massachusetts and presidential contender, 
inappropriately compared regime change in Iraq to the 2004 election 
while the war was still ongoing, Racicot went even further, saying 
Kerry "crossed a grave line when he dared to suggest the replacement 
of America's commander-in-chief at a time when America is at war." 
The term "political hate speech" represents a continuation of these 
tactics by other means.

--
<http://www.groundtruthinvestigations.com/>