Weekly Shredder 34:
Frank Luntz Defends Himself
by James Norton

Money may feed it — and guns may preserve it — but it's language that creates and defines political power. Crisp, emotionally powerful rhetoric — when it's clear, precise and accurate — can drive the best kind of political and social change. President Lincoln was a master of clear, honest rhetoric. Winston Churchill was a master. President Kennedy was a master.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz is a master, too, but his labels don't clarify — they mislead. He's the kind of guy who can write a brilliant, sublime, technically exquisite manual of lying — and then write an article full of bullshit in the Los Angeles Times to defend it.

He starts out straight-faced. Stone cold. Bald and awesome.

I've been a pollster and wordsmith for senators and CEOs for more than a decade, and I have a particular interest in language. What words do people understand? What's the clear, common-sense way to say what you mean? And how can politicians best educate and express their ideas?

That's why I wrote a "A New American Lexicon" for my business and political clients. But it soon made its way to the Internet, where it raised a storm among Democrats in Washington and in the blogosphere, who accused me of the worst kind of spin.

For archives, audio, and background about the column, click here.

But that's not why he wrote "A New American Lexicon." Luntz wrote "A New American Lexicon" to help Republicans win. He wrote it to help them win on the issues where the facts aren't always on their side. He wrote it to help them win on issues that are squarely debatable. And he wrote it to help them win on issues — like Social Security privatization — where public opinion and every academic and nonpartisan expert would say that the GOP is in the wrong.

They say I'm manipulating the debate in an attempt to obscure the true effect of the policies I advocate. Yet this lexicon genuinely seeks to establish a common language for a pro-business, pro-freedom agenda.

He's doing it right here. He's doing it here! Look at him! Look at him doing it... in an op-ed about how he's not doing it. The implicit message of this elegant little paragraph: Democrats are anti-business and anti-freedom.

Is this kind of balls-out misdirection while denying any attempt to misdirect self-mockery? It's hard to tell. Is Luntz having fun with the few people paying attention while simultaneously bamboozling those half-awake readers skimming through the article while sucking down their Special K and calcium-enhanced orange juice?

Yes, there are instances in which language can be used to cloud judgment and obfuscate the facts, but its beauty is that it can also be used to enlighten. I seek to use words to brighten a debate that has been darkened by those who nuance over what the meaning of "is" is, and whether you have smoked marijuana if you didn't inhale.

Here Luntz takes a cheap shot. Clinton, it's true, wasn't married to the truth. He misled the nation over a sexual escapade, and, despite presiding over eight years of economic growth and a mixed bag of social progress, he will always be remembered for the Ken Starr/Bob Barr/Newt Gingrich witchhunt that brought his presidency to the brink.

Compare this to Luntz's lexicon, where he suggests:

The Swift Boat smear campaign against John Kerry was a major part of the GOP campaign of "hope."

The best way to make the Republicans the party of bipartisanship is to constantly attack the Democrats for being partisan.

We shouldn't say "drilling for oil," we should say "exploring for energy."

Even if drills are penetrating the Earth in search of petroleum products.

That brings me to Social Security. Critics of the president's plan say it is "privatizing" the American retirement system. This is simply not accurate. Even under the most innovative reform proposals, the vast majority of your Social Security contribution (12.4 percent of your income up to the first $90,000, just in case you had forgotten) would remain completely unchanged and untouched, so Washington can continue to spend your retirement savings on other programs and you can continue to collect that great 1.6 percent return on your Social Security "investment."

Brilliant. Here are the points that lie bured inside this paragraph:

1) Privatization is innovative, and more lucrative than the existing system, which is only barely "investment."

2) But we shouldn't call the plan "privatization" because it doesn't contain enough privatization, even though its intent is to increase the amount of privatization in Social Security.

3) Evil "Washington" is fighting privatization because it wants to spend your money on "other programs."

This is how Luntz — in an article defending his manual of mislabeling and misleading — mislabels and misleads us about one of the most important domestic issues of our day and age.

My goal is to make honest political rhetoric that achieves worthy goals, to level the linguistic playing field and to inform Americans of the true nature of our policy debates.

We'll just let that one lie where it is.

E-mail James Norton at jrnorton@flakmag.com.

— graphic by Derek Evernden (derek@ocellus.net)