Thankfully There Remain Some Gentlepersons in our Media

Note: Please accept my apologies for failing to publish last week's post. 

Our national news media have not distinguished themselves as tribunes of decency of late, chasing after the cowardly and boorish betrayal of private confidence now known as the "47 Percent" video like so many poorly trained hounds after a rabbit.

Thankfully, some of our journalists have seen fit to explore other issues, and in so doing have provided redemptive models of circumspect and civil discourse on political affairs. 

Take the Times's Ashley Parker. Tasked with covering the political response to the Romney video, Parker refused to accept the idea that the former Governor was indifferent to the interests or even hostile to the very existence of the lower classes, based as it was on the flimsy evidence of words spoken in private by the candidate himself to his closest allies and peers:

But the ad came nine days after the video surfaced, a period in which Democrats have bashed Mr. Romney over the remarks, leaving him on the defensive in swing states like Ohio. The ad reflected a belief among his aides that in addition to trying to move past his “47 percent” comments, Mr. Romney can appeal to voters in an intimate, personal way, bonding over their economic worries.

For those of you lacking the subtle gifts of intellect that characterize elite political discourse, read on and learn something. Parker takes the essential first step of balancing the scales of moral culpability; while some media hooligans have chosen to focus on Romney's remarks, it's important to remember that the Democrats are equally guilty of rudeness--they called attention to unflattering things said by their political opponent--they BASHED him! Poor Romney is indeed on the defensive, and from that vulnerable position--faced with losing his bid for the most powerful office in the universe, he would be left with the petty consolations of his immense wealth--there is little doubt that his empathy is genuine. Some more ignorant members of the punditry might ridicule the very notion of Romney bonding with Ohio steel workers like these (Photo Justin Sullivan/Getty).

But Parker has shown us the error of that churlish interpretation. This young lady is going places. After all, she has worked as a researcher for Maureen Dowd, whose reputation for rigor and thoroughness are unparalleled. My heart is gladdened at the thought that, despite being shy of thirty (and I'd never say exactly how far shy), Ms. Parker might just represent a new generation of polite journalists.

Hall of Uncouth: Joe Biden

The most recent enshrinee in my hall of infamy should surprise no one. Last night's performance was truly disgraceful. Have decades of public life not taught the Vice President the fundamental rules of political civility? The honor system demands that one's opponent's ideas be accepted as true and praised as thoughtful, reasonable, and guided by good faith. It is decidedly uncouth to offer rebuttals, which present the public with the unpleasant dilemma of evaluating evidence and reaching informed conclusions. Far better that we be allowed to decide on the basis of manners; the most gentlemanly candidate is certainly the one most suited to govern us. On that score, the Vice President came short of the mark. To wit:


I can scarcely remember such a show of utter disregard for the seriousness and honesty of one's opponent. Thankfully, it appears that our esteemed news media are rallying to the defense of the honor system. With the exception of fellows like Krugman, who may be angling for his own spot in the Hall of Uncouth, a critical mass of our scribes appear to be abandoning the distractions of verifying claims and evaluating policy proposals in favor of contrasting styles. As Brooks tells us,

What do independents want most? They want people who will practice a more respectful brand of politics, who will behave the way most Americans try to behave in their dealings: respectfully, maybe even pausing to listen for a second. To them, Biden will seem like an off-putting caricature of the worst of old-style politics.
This is not just an issue of manners. It is: How are we going to practice the kind of politics that will help us avert the so-called fiscal cliff? How are we going to balance the crosscutting challenges, like increasing growth while reducing long-term debt?
A lot of people will look at Biden’s performance and see a style of politics that makes complex trade-offs impossible.

It doesn't matter if the policy positions staked out by one campaign are incompatible with those staked out by the other, if, for example, one campaign views a social program as essential and another views its abolition as a top priority. It doesn't even matter if compromise is a logical impossibility. Good manners, as this blog has always contended, make for good government. Always, everywhere, and without fail. When journalists focus on style and manners, the public has the best opportunity to choose the best, most gentlemanly candidate. We're all better off for it.

If anything redeems Joe Biden, it's that he did teach a lesson about respect for one's elders.

No one who upholds that timeless virtue can be all bad. Though I am told that I am using the wrong ring-sport for metaphorical purposes. If I were one of the uncouth sort who watches professional wrestling I could better judge the accuracy of this claim.

I'm Compelled to Offer Comment....

on the recent unpleasantness surrounding the Romney campaign.



I've been so shocked by the breach of decorum that I've been unable to properly assemble my thoughts on the matter, and have hesitated to comment in order to avoid any intemperate remarks made in anger. But the time has come for clear-eyed analysis and dispassionate blame-fixing. This incident has truly marked a low point in our nation's political discourse, and the parties responsible must be held accountable.

And those parties are James Carter IV and the anonymous recorder of the notorious video. Violating the confidence of gentlemen like Mitt Romney and his financial backers by videotaping and publicizing the conversations they hold as part of a combined effort to win the most powerful public office in the world is absolutely unconscionable. If the private confidences of these men continue to be betrayed, then the wellsprings of gratitude and devotion from the masses that inspire both public service and capitalist enterprise will surely dry up. And what horrors would await us then?

Thankfully, it is not too late for Governor Romney to repair the damage done to his reputation and public image by this nefarious conspiracy of ruffians, who employed the most underhanded tactic of using a candidate's own words and deeds against him. This Colbert gentleman has an excellent suggestion:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Mitt Romney's Secret Video
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Mocking a Candidate's Sincerity after a Tragedy...

even when using pictures of the candidate's own face is uncouth. For all we know Mitt Romney's Temple Garments were riding up on him and causing his uncomfortable grin, though it would also be impolite to express that speculation out loud.

Divisiveness is Rude

It's generally impolite and uncivil to demand attention for oneself, and particularly to do so at the expense of including other people in the limelight. Which is why well-mannered people find celebratory holidays troublesome. If, for example, a holiday is designated to honor the legacy of organized labor's struggles on behalf of American workers, who will honor the feelings of management? Who will recognize their contributions to the body politic and society, contributions which are in no way recognized monetarily?

Eric Cantor will! This True Gentleman insists that on the one day of the year set aside to honor the working man, no one is allowed to forget the superior contributions of business owners.

Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.

Cantor's right. After all, there's no risk like borrowing a bank's money for a leveraged buyout, transferring the debt to the acquired company's balance sheet, and paying oneself millions in fees to help that company manage its suddenly backbreaking debt. It's risk worth celebrating to the hilt. 

The risks of other occupations pale in comparison, which is why the market, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that private equity traders are worth more than coal miners. Because of the risk they face in earning their daily bread by the sweat of their brows.

Cantor and some of his brave compatriots have taken this stand for inclusion in the face of fierce mockery from the likes of Roy Edroso and Doghouse Reilly, the latter of whom truly distinguishes himself as a ruffian. Read their posts only for examples of how not to behave.

Cantor joins a proud lineage of heroes who have ensured that holidays are used to unite, and never to divide, the public.

True Gentlemen: Ross Douthat

Although the New York Times has discredited itself by hosting the intemperate Paul Krugman on its opinion pages, the editors truly redeem their paper by the inclusion of Ross Douthat. He alone is willing to stand up for the principle that has made this country great: the rule of The Better Sort.

And The Better Sort, in this election, is Mitt Romney.

We did not need a speech to tell us this, of course. Almost every facet of Romney’s biography and personality fits the stereotypes of the old Main Line/Saint Grottlesex world. There’s the combination of great wealth and private frugality, the ruthless business acumen paired with the quiet works of charity, the personal probity joined to the clear discomfort with ideological fervor. And then there are the verbal tics – his description of Paul Ryan’s budget as “marvelous,” say, or his reference to athletes as being “in sport” – that suggest that Romney would be entirely at home in the works of John P. Marquand or Louis Auchincloss.

Did any of those references make sense to you? Congratulations. Though you are no doubt possessed of a Yankee modesty that would keep you from boasting about your breeding and erudition, you are fit to rule. If not, I suggest that you retreat to Saint Grottlesex for a prep year.

But remember, it's not for himself alone that Romney's doing this. Take his wife's word for it. Douthat does!

But when she pivoted, took ownership of her husband’s throwback qualities and used them to plead his case, her address felt impressive, credible and true. The opening was populist in the style of almost every American political speech today, but the second half was more unusual: It acknowledged her husband’s good fortune, emphasized how hard he would work on behalf of average Americans rather than what he has in common with them, and portrayed the Republican nominee for president, ultimately, as a man forrather than of the people. Her best line evoked generations of reticent, public-spirited Brahmins: “Mitt does not like to talk about how he has helped others because he sees it as a privilege, not a political talking point.”

In the final analysis, it doesn't matter if the particular utterances Romney makes are true. Only a churl would insist on verifying the truthfulness of a campaign's rhetorical pillars when the far more reliable (and polite) recourse to pedigree is available.

You don’t have to love him, the more effective parts of her speech implied, or relate to him, or even always necessarily agree with him. But you can trust him with the presidency, because he’s suited to public service, and he was born and raised and trained to do this job.

This Douthat is going places. I've but one complaint: while he clearly possesses the kind of sexual repression required of a true gentleman, but he should really stop commenting on a lady's weight, even if she behaves like a brazen hussy.

Rules of Civility: Evenhandedness

There is nothing less polite than a one-sided political discussion. Civility demands that more than one perspective be included in any discussion. Of course, there's also nothing less polite than an anarchic free-for-all of ideas. Civility thus also demands that no more than two perspectives be included in any discussion. And finally, there is nothing less polite than an unbalanced discussion, where one perspective is judged lacking based on detachment from evidence or rationality. Therefore, it is imperative that both sides be accorded equal deference.

In the society of learned gentlemen who nobly lead us, the task of expressing political ideas is carried by the parties, and, it is our collective good fortune that they are two in number. No more and no less. This provides a simple way to tell, without fail, if a political discussion is balanced. Does it include the opinions of members of each party without favor or scrutiny.

Paul Krugman is a man of intelligence, and summarizes the rules of political discourse quite aptly:

What he’s doing – and what the whole Beltway media crowd has done – is to slot Ryan into a role someone is supposed to be playing in their political play, that of the thoughtful, serious conservative wonk.

 So far, so good. Elsewhere, however, he crudely mocks our most noble gentlemen of learning, "professional centrists,"as

people whose whole pose is one of standing between the extremes of both parties, and calling for a bipartisan solution.

This kind of thinking leads to solutions where everyone wins and, more importantly, no one has to feel bad about themselves. Of course, Krugman also views this kind of gentlemanly discourse as a problem, which reflects the fact that, despite his intellect and erudition, he is deeply uncouth.

I mention Krugman not to reward his insolence with attention, but to alert readers to his breaches of decorum, particularly with regard to Congressman Paul Ryan, whose policy proposals could, I suppose, be evaluated in terms of their substantive content and likely consequences, but are far more politely discussed as positions equally meritorious to all others (all others, of course, being of necessity a category of one).

Krugman is leading the pack with his impolite scrutiny of the Path to Prosperity, having the gall to suggest that Ryan is being deliberately deceptive and that some number of persons, including people who have never interviewed Paul Ryan, might suffer.

I could do this in detail, but you can learn everything you need to know by understanding two numbers: $4.6 trillion and 14 million.
Of these, $4.6 trillion is the size of the mystery meat in the budget. Ryan proposes tax cuts that would cost $4.6 trillion over the next decade relative to current policy — that is, relative even to making the Bush tax cuts permanent — but claims that his plan is revenue neutral, because he would make up the revenue loss by closing loopholes. For example, he would … well, actually, he refuses to name a single example of a loophole he wants to close.
So the budget is a fraud. No, it’s not “imperfect”, it’s not a bit shaky on the numbers; it’s completely based on almost $5 trillion dollars of alleged revenue that are pure fabrication.
On the other side, 14 million is the minimum number of people who would lose health insurance due to Medicaid cuts — the Urban Institute, working off the very similar plan Ryan unveiled last year, puts it at between 14 and 27 million people losing Medicaid.
That’s a lot of people — and a lot of suffering. And again, bear in mind that none of this would be done to reduce the deficit — it would be done to make room for those $4.6 trillion in tax cuts, and in particular a tax cut of $240,000 a year to the average member of the one percent..
But Obama is very rude for pointing any of this out.

I can state my unequivocal agreement with that last sentence Krugman wrote, so there may be hope for him yet. Unfortunately, his incivil example is encouraging others.

Charlie Pierce:

Once in Congress, however, he has been transformed into an intellectual giant despite the fact that, every time he comes up with another "budget," actual economists get a look at it and determine, yet again, that between "What We Should Do" and "Great Things That Will Happen When We Do" is a wilderness of dreamy nonsense, wishful thinking, and an asterisk the size of Lake Huron

For shame, Charles. I shudder to think we both hail from Worcester County!

Gin and Tacos:

Yet the most alarming aspect of Mitt Romney's "bold" decision to cave to the big GOP money and shackle himself to the anchor that is Paul Ryan is the repeated references to his new partner's considerable intellectual gifts. Given that we now live in a world in which shows about Honey Boo Boo and married couples with 19 children are on something with the gall to call itself "The Learning Channel", it makes sense that Paul Ryan would qualify as an "intellectual". But it is a Book of Revelations-level warning sign of the misguided Moderation Worship among the bobbleheads of the Beltway media that in their desperation to say something good about the cargo cult of nihilists that is the modern GOP, they have decided that Paul Ryan is a deeply intellectual man of ideas and principles – a leading thinker of his day.

I do not know this "Honey Boo Boo," but I know I don't like where this is going:

Whatever the psychology, there is not enough alarm at the fact that our media have decided that the quiet, weasely, dead-eyed weirdo who likes to write manifestos (!!!) of his Darwinist view of the world must be, by virtue of his lack of car salesman / televangelist bluster, a genuine, bona fide Intellectual. If he's not politician handsome or articulate, surely he must be brilliant; to conclude otherwise would be to admit that his ancestors' money got him elected. Somewhere in Janesville, Wisconsin an equivalent man without wealth and means looks at Ryan on the TV during his night shift at Shoney's and laments, "That could have been me."

If this keeps up, we may not only forfeit the wonders of our wonderfully organized system of political discourse, but we may find that young gentlemen of learning abandon the noble pursuit of political journalism, leaving the rest of us to figure things out for ourselves.

Fortunately, Mark Halperin knows the value of polite discourse.  When Mitt Romney makes jokes that pander to a subset of low-information voters who believe that Barack Obama is not an American citizen, it is precisely the same thing as Barack Obama making a joke that ridicules those low-information voters. Thank goodness Halperin isn't afraid to say so, without fear of vicious mockery.  Sometimes politeness needs courageous defenders.