Back from porn, on to politics

"President Bush on Monday criticized a commercial that accused John Kerry of inflating his own Vietnam War record, more than a week after the ad stopped running, and said broadcast attacks by outside groups have no place in the race for the White House."

That's the lead of an AP article and in spirit many others by various news organizations on Bush's comments. Here's the problem: President Bush didn't criticize the Swift Boat commercials. In fact, he said the exact same thing he's been saying for the past few weeks--I condemn all 527s and I hope my opponent joins me in doing so--but used a trick straight out from Rhetoric 101 to make it seem like he was condemning the ad.

When asked to condemn a specific ad (e.g. "Kerry Will Eat Your Baby") he condemned the class of ads (e.g. "227 Ads--Funded By Out-of-Work 227 Actor Florence Johnston") and made it appear that he was condemning the baby-eating ad by saying, "This baby-eating ad is a 227 ad."

Josh Marshall describes this better than I do, and he has a transcript of Bush's comments so you can read it yourself. It doesn't change the fact that a majority of news organizations are reporting Bush condemned the ad when he didn't.

A few things to, um, add. The reason Bush can get away with misleading people is because of his carefully cultivated image as a plain-spoken guy who's not very good at words. Reporters parsed every word out of Clinton's mouth because they viewed him through the paradigm that he is a brilliant politician, a former lawyer, and assumed he had the ability to chose his words carefully so he could either tell the truth technically but not in spirit, or mislead people through language that allowed people to hear what they wanted to hear, not what he said.

And they were right to do so, because Clinton did do all of these things. The problem is that Bush uses the same tricks but he wears cowboy boots and says folksy aphorisms like "I can't say it any plainer" to masterfully cover his use of them up.

It's perhaps the element that is most responsible for his success. His image that almost everyone has bought into is that he's too dumb to be clever. That he has a lot of political skills, but speaking isn't one of them. A man who uses language so clumsily isn't skilled enough to mention 9-11 and Saddam Hussein right after one another so people would think there is a connection. (Search for "Before September the 11th" in this transcript of his 2003 State of the Union address).

This type of plain-spoken man doesn't have the savvy to hold a press conference and say the same thing but juggle his words in a way that gives a lazy media the wrong impression. He can't. He's stupid. And we'd be too smart to fall for it.

Addendum: I like using the word addendum. It makes me feel smart.
Addendum 2: Props to The Washington Post for getting it right.