Aggressive Pragmatism

Late last week my girlfriend Cheryl decided to attend an impromptu costume party thrown by her neighbors. It was Friday and she’s met these neighbors before. The guys who live in the apartment are your standard 20-somethings. They play beer pong, they (assumedly) work normal jobs with other average citizens. If nothing else this would prove to be a test run for her Sarah Palin costume. She quickly grabbed her business skirt and blazer and swooped her hair for the occasion.

Upon arriving at the party, Cheryl was high-fived and congratulated on her costume. The Palin getup was a hit. One party-goer came up to Cheryl and exclaimed his approval. In his words, Palin and McCain have to be elected because “we cant have a nigger President.” Another deep-thinker came up to agree, all while sporting a costume consisting of black-face. Apparently the retro trend among the youth is backdated to the 1920′s now.

I share this story to illustrate a simple point. The tone and tenor of this Presidential election season hasn’t awakened some dormant racial divide in this country. It also has not brought out a level of contempt that did not exist in October 2007. This election has only served to illuminate the experiences and feelings of many quiet bigots in this nation.

John McCain and Sarah Palin (among other GOP strategists and surrogates) have accomplished an amazing feat. They have given the prejudiced an outlet and a feeling of freedom to publicly voice what the political correctness movement had pushed into the home. The genius here is in the GOP’s tone. McCain and Palin really have not made any overtly racist statements. Hell, the rhetoric from the GOP can hardly be classified as “racial.” The skillfully crafted coded language and visual messages only serve to stoke fires that have proven to be more hidden than dormant. Madeleine M. Kunin alludes to this in her October 14 post on the Huffington Post. Kunin wrote;

“By making Obama the Other, McCain/Palin are fueling racial paranoia.

It’s downright dangerous. When statements that are politically incorrect suddenly become correct and are cheered into hysteria, no one is safe. Not Obama, and not our democracy.”

Political correctness has become a much maligned concept by those who felt that we had progressed past the need for careful language. The events of this campaign have proven to me that “PC” language may be a necessary component to maintain discourse between the parties that actually informs the public.

Note that I’ve reduced this request to the involved parties. There is a special place for satire, humor and light conversation in politics as well. Some pundits have taken to drawing equivalence between the tenor of a political campaign and the chatter of certain television and print personalities.

On MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” National Review writer David Frum expressed his frustration with how Maddow uses her platform. In response to a question about the tone of John McCain’s campaign, Frum said “And this show, unfortunately, is itself an example of that problem, its heavy sarcasm and smearing and its disregard for a lot of the substantive issues that really are important.”

Frum then went on to assail Maddow’s show and the two engaged in the some good old-fashioned news network crosstalk.

Frum has created false equivalence between an admittedly left-leaning and the man running for the  highest executive position in the nation. To hold our political leaders to the same standard as tv personalities is lowering the bar in ways that I, and many like me are highly uncomfortable with.
Simply put… Man up. One of the responsibilities of elected office is clear leadership. There are standards that must be set in a “top-down” manner. That means conducting a campaign free of duplicitous manipulation. If you want to play by the rules of the pundit, bone up on your elocution and humor and hit the studios.

For future reference, the level of responsibility in discourse is arranged in this order;

Politician > news desk anchor > surrogate > pundit.

Our leaders would be better served to abide by this maxim; raise the bar, spare the audience.