thedrifter
12-02-06, 07:08 PM
Tim Rutten:
Regarding Media
Politics, semantics and a civil debate
December 2, 2006
DOES the strange and contentious debate over whether to call the debacle in Iraq a civil war really matter?
Surely not to any of the as-yet-undetermined number of Sunni Iraqis dragged off, tortured and murdered by one of the Shia Iraqis' militias. Surely not to any of the ever growing number of Shias who have died in bombings rigged by one or another of the Sunni insurgent factions. Surely, this semantic struggle cannot matter to them any more than it mattered to any of our nearly 3,000 dead soldiers, Marines and airmen, whether they were killed by an "insurgent" or one of soon-to-be-former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "dead-enders."
But if this debate doesn't really count in Baghdad, where does it matter?
The answer, of course, is here. This whole argument is purely for domestic consumption — and that tells us some instructive things about both the rigid nature of the United States' political divisions and about the way in which people on either side of that divide would like to bend the news to their advantage.
The White House and those who still support the war in Iraq are desperate to prevent the conflict from being described as a civil war because they understand that certain conclusions are likely to follow from that classification. Perhaps foremost among them is a belief that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his tyranny set in motion a chain of events that have made things worse for the Iraqi people and their country's situation more dangerous for everybody else in the world — including the United States. On the other side of the divide are those whose opposition to the war is rooted in a reflexive hostility toward George W. Bush. To them, the term "civil war" is useful not because it accurately describes the tragedy in Iraq, but because — in their view — it brings the president one step closer to complete humiliation.
Both sides demand that U.S. news organizations adopt their political nomenclature, no matter what the reporters on the ground and their editors acting in good faith believe they are witnessing.
In Washington this week, there was a perfect example of the corrosive absurdity this kind of political Manichaeism creates. Massachusetts and a number of other states argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that the Environmental Protection Agency ought to be compelled to regulate so-called greenhouse gases that most scientists believe are contributing to global warming. This is a matter of law and of physical science, yet the commentators discussing the case simply accepted as a matter of course that the court would divide over the question along ideological lines. There was a uniform assumption that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas would reject the states' claims and the other, more liberal justices uphold them — leaving Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote.
What, precisely, is Justice Kennedy supposed to swing over? The last time anybody checked, carbon dioxide molecules conform themselves to the laws of physics and not election results. Climatology is indifferent to public opinion polls and the mean global temperature will not stay on anybody's message, no matter how cleverly conceived.
Still, the unexamined presumption was that this question, like every other, should be treated neither scientifically nor even legally, but ideologically.
THIS week a significant number of American news organizations — including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Miami Herald and NBC — said they would decide whether and when to use the words "civil war" to describe events in Iraq as the facts warranted. The decision was immediately attacked by right-wing press critics as political. That was — as this week's absurdity in the Supreme Court suggests — inevitable. But the fact of the matter is that if the editors involved really were looking for an opening to score ideological points against the Bush administration, as the critics reflexively insist they are, then they're running way behind the curve. For more than two months, national polls conducted by the Wall Street Journal, the broadcast networks and others have shown that more than 6 out of every 10 Americans already believe that the fighting in Iraq is part of a civil war.
In fact, in this matter the American people have been moving beyond the rigidities that still hold large segments of the country's political and commenting classes in thrall. For months now — and not just in the recent midterm elections — Americans have been expressing a kind of collective agreement with retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who commanded troops in the first Gulf War and this week told the Washington Post, "If they can't characterize what's going on in Iraq in an honest fashion, we can't begin to address the problem."
David Gergen, who has advised four presidents from both parties and now teaches at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, told the Christian Science Monitor this week that the entire controversy over use of the term "civil war" is "a political debate, not a semantic or a theoretical debate. In politics, the conventional wisdom has held for some time that if the public concludes our soldiers were in the middle of a civil war, they would think it hopeless and want to withdraw quickly."
Certainly, that's what White House Press Secretary Tony Snow must have had in mind this week, when he argued that there is no civil war in Iraq, because "you have not yet had a situation … where you have two clearly defined and opposing groups vying not only for power but for territory."
Really.
Global warming will increase regardless of the ideological predilections on the bench of our highest court. Iraq's bloody torment will proceed whatever the parsing from the pressroom podium. The American people have given every indication that they want to move the debate on Iraq beyond the squalid divisions between red and blue commentators and politicians. They give every indication that they want their news media to tell them the truth about Iraq as best it can be described, and in turn, to tell that truth to power.
It is an expression of great good sense and it ought to be respected.
timothy.rutten@latimes.com
Ellie
Regarding Media
Politics, semantics and a civil debate
December 2, 2006
DOES the strange and contentious debate over whether to call the debacle in Iraq a civil war really matter?
Surely not to any of the as-yet-undetermined number of Sunni Iraqis dragged off, tortured and murdered by one of the Shia Iraqis' militias. Surely not to any of the ever growing number of Shias who have died in bombings rigged by one or another of the Sunni insurgent factions. Surely, this semantic struggle cannot matter to them any more than it mattered to any of our nearly 3,000 dead soldiers, Marines and airmen, whether they were killed by an "insurgent" or one of soon-to-be-former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "dead-enders."
But if this debate doesn't really count in Baghdad, where does it matter?
The answer, of course, is here. This whole argument is purely for domestic consumption — and that tells us some instructive things about both the rigid nature of the United States' political divisions and about the way in which people on either side of that divide would like to bend the news to their advantage.
The White House and those who still support the war in Iraq are desperate to prevent the conflict from being described as a civil war because they understand that certain conclusions are likely to follow from that classification. Perhaps foremost among them is a belief that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his tyranny set in motion a chain of events that have made things worse for the Iraqi people and their country's situation more dangerous for everybody else in the world — including the United States. On the other side of the divide are those whose opposition to the war is rooted in a reflexive hostility toward George W. Bush. To them, the term "civil war" is useful not because it accurately describes the tragedy in Iraq, but because — in their view — it brings the president one step closer to complete humiliation.
Both sides demand that U.S. news organizations adopt their political nomenclature, no matter what the reporters on the ground and their editors acting in good faith believe they are witnessing.
In Washington this week, there was a perfect example of the corrosive absurdity this kind of political Manichaeism creates. Massachusetts and a number of other states argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that the Environmental Protection Agency ought to be compelled to regulate so-called greenhouse gases that most scientists believe are contributing to global warming. This is a matter of law and of physical science, yet the commentators discussing the case simply accepted as a matter of course that the court would divide over the question along ideological lines. There was a uniform assumption that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas would reject the states' claims and the other, more liberal justices uphold them — leaving Anthony Kennedy as the swing vote.
What, precisely, is Justice Kennedy supposed to swing over? The last time anybody checked, carbon dioxide molecules conform themselves to the laws of physics and not election results. Climatology is indifferent to public opinion polls and the mean global temperature will not stay on anybody's message, no matter how cleverly conceived.
Still, the unexamined presumption was that this question, like every other, should be treated neither scientifically nor even legally, but ideologically.
THIS week a significant number of American news organizations — including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Miami Herald and NBC — said they would decide whether and when to use the words "civil war" to describe events in Iraq as the facts warranted. The decision was immediately attacked by right-wing press critics as political. That was — as this week's absurdity in the Supreme Court suggests — inevitable. But the fact of the matter is that if the editors involved really were looking for an opening to score ideological points against the Bush administration, as the critics reflexively insist they are, then they're running way behind the curve. For more than two months, national polls conducted by the Wall Street Journal, the broadcast networks and others have shown that more than 6 out of every 10 Americans already believe that the fighting in Iraq is part of a civil war.
In fact, in this matter the American people have been moving beyond the rigidities that still hold large segments of the country's political and commenting classes in thrall. For months now — and not just in the recent midterm elections — Americans have been expressing a kind of collective agreement with retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who commanded troops in the first Gulf War and this week told the Washington Post, "If they can't characterize what's going on in Iraq in an honest fashion, we can't begin to address the problem."
David Gergen, who has advised four presidents from both parties and now teaches at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, told the Christian Science Monitor this week that the entire controversy over use of the term "civil war" is "a political debate, not a semantic or a theoretical debate. In politics, the conventional wisdom has held for some time that if the public concludes our soldiers were in the middle of a civil war, they would think it hopeless and want to withdraw quickly."
Certainly, that's what White House Press Secretary Tony Snow must have had in mind this week, when he argued that there is no civil war in Iraq, because "you have not yet had a situation … where you have two clearly defined and opposing groups vying not only for power but for territory."
Really.
Global warming will increase regardless of the ideological predilections on the bench of our highest court. Iraq's bloody torment will proceed whatever the parsing from the pressroom podium. The American people have given every indication that they want to move the debate on Iraq beyond the squalid divisions between red and blue commentators and politicians. They give every indication that they want their news media to tell them the truth about Iraq as best it can be described, and in turn, to tell that truth to power.
It is an expression of great good sense and it ought to be respected.
timothy.rutten@latimes.com
Ellie