By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
If the continued existence of mathematics depended on the
ability of the Republicans to defend the proposition that two plus two equals
four, that would probably mean the end of mathematics and of all the things
that require mathematics.
Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John
Boehner, epitomized what has been wrong with the Republicans for decades when
he emerged from a White House meeting last Wednesday, went over to the
assembled microphones, briefly expressed his disgust with the Democrats'
intransigence and walked on away.
We are in the midst of a national crisis, immediately
affecting millions of Americans and potentially affecting the kind of country
this will become if ObamaCare goes into effect -- and yet, with multiple
television network cameras focused on Speaker Boehner as he emerged from the
White House, he couldn't be bothered to prepare a statement that would help
clarify a confused situation, full of fallacies and lies.
Boehner was not unique in having a blind spot when it
comes to recognizing the importance of articulation and the need to put some
serious time and effort into presenting your case in a way that people outside
the Beltway would understand. On the contrary, he has been all too typical of
Republican leaders in recent decades.
When the government was shut down during the Clinton
administration, Republican leaders who went on television to tell their side of
the story talked about "OMB numbers" versus "CBO numbers"
-- as if most people beyond the Beltway knew what these abbreviations meant or
why the statistics in question were relevant to the shutdown. Why talk to them
in Beltway-speak?
When Speaker Boehner today goes around talking about the
"CR," that is just more of the same thinking -- or lack of thinking.
Policy wonks inside the Beltway know that he is talking about the
"continuing resolution" that authorizes the existing level of
government spending to continue, pending a new budget agreement.
But, believe it or not, there are lots of citizens and
voters outside the Beltway. And what is believed by those people whom too many
Republicans are talking past can decide not only the outcome of this crisis but
the fate of the nation for generations to come.
You might think that the stakes are high enough for
Republicans to put in some serious time trying to clarify their message. As the
great economist Alfred Marshall once said, facts do not speak for themselves.
If we are waiting for the Republicans to do the speaking, the country is in big
trouble.
Democrats, by contrast, are all talk. They could sell
refrigerators to Eskimos before Republicans could sell them blankets.
Indeed, Democrats sold Barack Obama to the American
public, which is an even more amazing feat, considering his complete lack of
relevant experience and questionable (at best) loyalty to the values and
institutions of this country.
The Democrats have obviously given a lot of attention to
articulation, including coordinated articulation among their members. Some
years ago, Senator Chuck Schumer was recorded, apparently without his
knowledge, telling fellow Democrats to keep using the word
"extremist" when discussing Republicans.
Even earlier, when George W. Bush first ran for
President, the word that suddenly began appearing everywhere was
"gravitas" -- as in the endlessly repeated charge that Bush lacked
"gravitas." People who had never used that word before suddenly began
using it all the time.
Today, the Democrats' buzzword is "clean" -- as
in the endlessly repeated statement that Republicans in the House of
Representatives should send a "clean" bill to the Senate. Anything
less than a blank check is not considered a "clean" bill.
The Constitution gives the House of Representatives the
responsibility to originate all spending bills, based on what they think should
and should not be funded. But the word "clean" is now apparently
supposed to override the Constitution.
If Republicans want to show some seriousness about
articulating their case, they might start by deleting the abbreviation
"CR" from their vocabulary. As has been said, "The journey of a
thousand miles begins with a single step." That journey is long overdue.
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