Goodbye Political Lies
Allow me to start by acknowledging the obvious irony: My first post on The Moderate Voice is anything but moderate.
But sometimes, to reach a moderate or centrist conclusion, we must all start with an extreme suggestion, so we can work our way back to the viable middle. And that is precisely my intent here.
I know we’ll never stop political lies … any more than we’ll stop the little white lies told in our respective families and social circles. Still, I think we can limit the deceptive damage done in politics, if we muster the national will to kill or minimize political advertising.
Why raise this issue now? Because regardless of how we graded the mid-term results, many of us still smell the lingering stench of the ads preceding those elections, from both sides of the political spectrum, and we refuse to believe that the ends justify the means. Furthermore, if we don’t act now, we’ll have more of the same in less than two years, and then again two years after that, and so on.
I realize there are a range of reasons to oppose an outright ban on political ads, although I don’t think even the most legitimate of those reasons is convincing enough to shy away from at least discussing this idea.
At Central Sanity, I summarize what I think are the primary arguments in the “for” and “against” columns.
If you’re inclined to read those summaries, I hope you’ll also take a moment to chime in with your point of view. What am I missing? Exactly how naïve am I?
Be forewarned: If you comment, I may quote you in a longer essay on this topic that I’m considering. Only the bold should apply.
21 Responses to “Goodbye Political Lies”
What we really need to do it short-circuit the abomination of a supreme court ruling that said a corporation has the same rights as an individual.
No they don’t, and thats been the root of our problems since then.
Government is the only thing that can stand up to the corporate privateers. Idiots who want to hobble this ability are 100% of the problem. Fortunately they are on their way out.
I think the Supreme Court has ruled that these ads are free speech, any change in how this speech is defined would have to be done with a constitutional amendment. That, to say the least, is a daunting task. Snark is right on about corporations being defined as “citizens� , that is a reform that could be addressed and should have widespread support.
To keep things more centered I think the best option is a better definition of the number of vectors allowed in drawing up a district, or better yet district drawn up by bipartisan panels rather than the legislature.
I’m assuming by ‘lies’, you’re referring to negative ads. based on this, in no particular order:
your proposal is akin to throwing out the baby with the bath water: you don’t like negative advertising so you’re proposing to ban all political advertising? seems a bit overkill, but perhaps consistent with liberal (which is what most so-called moderates really are) doctrine that since some people abuse guns, or some people can’t/won’t control their bad habits, society ought to clamp down on everyone.
you overestimate the number of people who think the ‘ends don’t justify the means’. you moderates are in the minority, there are a whole lot more people who believe in something more than just finding compromise, and seriously enough that, for them, anything goes. take the abortion issue: those on both sides believe so strongly in their position that just about anything is justified. and as such, your proposal is a non-starter.
negative advertising is not the cause of the hostility, it is merely a symptom of it. you really think that you can ban ‘negative’ ads (leaving aside the issue of how exactly to define negative) and the country is going to come together, that Dems and Republicans and liberals and conservatives are going to start holding hands and singing around the campfire as they move towards what you delusionally call the ‘viable middle’? ban negative ads and the hate will simply manifest itself in some other fashion.
since candidates and their supporters run negative ads because they work, one is safe in concluding that a not insignificant number of voters decide how to vote on the basis of these negative ads. as such, your proposal to ban negative ads smacks of elitism: you don’t like the way voters decide to vote so you want to change the system so that they have to decide their vote in a way you like.
‘lies’ in political advertising is in the eye of the beholder. I doubt many of those running these ads would ever admit they are out-and-out lies. they may lack full context and may present a bit of a misleading picture, but so does the news coverage you seem to be so fond of.
with a large percentage of people thinking that Congress and Bush are doing a bad job, doesn’t it make sense that those running against them would use negative ads? removing the ability of a challenger to say bad things about an incumbent makes as much sense as telling a supervisor trying to replace a poor performer that they can’t cite examples of the poor performance during the performance review.
and as much as snarkyshark might like to delude him/herself, the problem is not corporate advertising (nor, for that matter, are corporations the root of all of our country’s problems). in fact, judging from the ads I’ve seen, corporate sponsored ads are relatively tame; they tend to be specific issue focused and it’s rare that a corporation comes out and runs a no-doubt-about-it negative ad aimed at a candidate. unions, supposedly independent committees and the candidates themselves run far more negative advertising than corporations.
other than all that, I’m sure it’s a good idea.
The compromise I favor is a requirement that you can say anything you want in an ad about your opponenent or his party as long as you allow equal time and space in your ad for a rebuttal. That way the ads become more useful and probably a lot less frequent.
BTW Corporations do get into the nasty ad business. That is what Tom Delay got busted for in TX: converting corporate donations into local campaign donations that were used for negative ads.
money, like water, finds all cracks. No matter what system we devise people with motivation will find a way.
steve sturm covered most of the highlights despite the tone. I’d also add that we have scummy ads because we have scummy candidates. A few reasons we have terrible candidates are because of our primary system where only a small number of each “base” participates and I’d argue because of our voting counting system. I’d love to see a move towards preferential voting so the influence of alternative candidates can really be known.
Negative ads work best towards people that don’t care for either candidate, or like South Park put it: when your choices are between “Douche Bag” and “Turd Sandwich.” I agree it’s more productive to talk about the underlying reasons for this.
Pete said: “Still, I think we can limit the deceptive damage done in politics…”
I don’t think this is likely, given that the Democrats scored on deception, and the GOP will be wanting revenge.
Speaking of political lies, pop over to TalkLeft and see the defense of Rahm Emmanuel who is accused of lying about not knowing anything regarding the Foley emails.
At the time, I commented here at TMV that circumstances suggested Foley was a political hit by the Democrats via CREW and the media. Lots of folks criticized this.
Now, of course, the official report shows senior Democrats knew about it, and were flogging it to the media.
And Emmanuel…when asked by Stephanopolous…denied all knowledge.
But this wasn’t a political lie in the view of Talkleft: “In every meaningful sense of the word, Emanuel ducked the question in order to not lie…. Any reasonable person would have come away thinking Emanuel was told about the e-mails but never saw them.”
Of course, the Democrats and the left at the time denounced as outrageous any implication that they knew in advance about Foley.
Political lies work. The Democrats used Foley to blunt a GOP resurgence, but lied to make sure their fingers stayed “clean” in the public eye.
Bottom line: Unless folks are critical of both Democrats and GOP, lies will always succeed.
Marlowecan, if I’m not mistaken (I just read Greenwald’s post about Emmanuel) a democrat leaked the emails to the press in the fall of 05 when he got them while a Republican staffer leaked the (much more damning) IM messages that started the fire storm. Is this not correct? In either case of course Emmanuel lied, but I didn’t think the report said it was a Democratic hit job.
I would suggest that shaming might work better than a ban.
Sounds Puritanical…but look at Allen’s accusations that Webb hated women because of fictional passages in his books.
These accusations carried no weight, and even rebounded against Allen given their absurdity.
Serious political wonks might recall a famous ad in Canada in the 92 election, when the Conservatives – seeing the end of long dominance – released a national television ad mocking the facial features of Chretien, the Liberal leader: “Do you want this man to represent Canada” (Chretien had a disease in childhood that froze part of his face, I think). This was a notorious backfire.
Public standards…reinforced by bipartisan criticism…might work better than laws. Laws can be gotten around and evaded (527 anyone?).
Mikkel…”In either case of course Emmanuel lied, but I didn’t think the report said it was a Democratic hit job.”
Yes, you are right. The Democrats tried before, and failed. Who was behind the leaks at that point in time, though? The report doesn’t say.
Given the timing, the damage to the GOP, I would argue there was a political motive.
Now, of course, the FBI have concluded (say ABC)that criminal charges will not be coming. Given Emanuel’s exposure on this one, I don’t think we will be hearing any more from the Democrats about Foley.
Political lies work.
When we defend the political lies of those on “our” side(see “TalkLeft” on Emanuel), and only note the lies of other then the culture will perpetuate itself.
I could cite, of course, Bush’s justification for the Iraq war.
We also do this in regard to the media…note, for example, the remarkable lack of comment from the Left when AP/Reuters et al were shown to use stringers who faked images etc. in support of Hezbollah in the Lebanon war this summer past.
“It’s just a few photoshopped pictures…what’s your problem?”
Marlowecan, I can’t believe you’re defending Mark Foley. OMG! I don’t think even half of the 27%ers who still believe in Bush will stand with you in that fight.
But to the point. Snarkyshark is exactly right, the legal fiction of corporate personhood and the resulting corruption of the political process is one of our two biggest problems. The only way out of the multiple messes we’re in is to have leaders who manage the public resources for the public good, not for private gain.
I would like for that to be the guiding principle of either party, but it will not likely be the GOP.
Can citizens do it? Probably. Here’s how:
Citizen’s referendum to amend the state constitution
“For all purposes under __[state}__ law, ‘person’ shall be defined as a living human being (a natural person)”
Of course, such an amendment to the US Constitution would be quicker, if ever we had the political will to do so. But there is no national process for citizens to amend the Constitution.
Agreed there is a partisan blindness to the lies and misdirection when conducted by “our” side. I try to keep myself from doing it and I don’t always succeed. At least hear at TMV it’s usually noted when it occurs.
I do have to disagree with you as I did see plenty of condemnation of the Photoshop Pictures on lefty blogs.
One thing abouy Americans, they are good at forming interest groups that make their opinions known. If those that are offended by this type of politicking formed an internet movement, and then communicated their disgust and intent to vote for the candidate with a cleaner, more honest campaign, these ads would disappear.
Kim: dream on, it ain’t going to happen. those who play on the internet have a lot less influence than they’d (we’d?) like to think.
Marlowecan: just a quibble, but allen hit webb over webb’s comments about women at the naval academyt, not in his books. the brouhaha over webb’s books were whether certain passages showed webb had a dirty mind.
Greendreams: go ahead and delude yourself that corporations are the root of all evil. notwithstanding that corporations don’t have personalities of their own but merely reflect the interests of their workers and owners, how can you ignore the effect on political discourse from labor PACS, environmental groups, liberal interest lobbies and so on? or do you simply ignore them as they’re on your side of the issues?
First, the Supreme Court held that corporations were “people” years ago. (As in Marbury v. Madison times.) However, the corporation campaign finance cases don’t depend on that. They say that people have a right to hear all sides of a debate, and you don’t get to shut out corporations. (Especially since such shutting out normally occurs because you don’t like what corporations have to say.)
Next, you have to be clear what it is you are proposing. You say you are going to kill all political advertising.
- What will you do when NOW runs an ad supporting a new bill against domestic violence?
- OK, now assume that the bill is a big issue and divides two current candidates for office
- OK, now assume that one candidate just got busted for beating his wife.
- OK, now assume the ad specifically mentions high profile cases of wife beating, including the opponent.
- OK, now assume the ad is overtly political and says not to vote for X because he beats his wife.
Which of these ads would you ban? Does it worry you that the line between them is extremely fuzzy and subject to manipulation?
You said on the other site that this could prevent corruption and back scratching. The amount of money that can be spent by people, parties, corporations, and unions on these ads is limited by law. Bribery is already against the law. Do you really want to tell people that they can only speak a certain amount because doing more than that might be corruptive?
(Right now, 527 groups are exempt from the limits, which is a huge loophole.)
Finally, these limits have been killing non-incumbents.
That 100% thing hit kinda close to home did it?
I don’t think corporations are the root of all evil, I think that idiots who think corporations left unregulated and free to run our public polices(see Cheny energy task force) are the root of all evil.
The fun part is you guys are so discredited that that whole claiming to be mainstream thing ya’ll do is getting ever so pathetic.
Corporations exist at the peoples discretion. Taxes pay for the environment necessary for corporations to exist. Corporations must play by the rules that the people define.
Corporations are always subservient to the individual no matter how badly you want to pledge allegiance to the corporate fascist state.
Just remember, now you are the radical extremist.
One can easily tell by your “I hate dirty hippies” phrasing.
Like there is such a thing outside Rush’s fertile drug induced imagination.
…speaking of drug induced imagination…
steve sturm- the internet has a lot more influence on voters than it did 6 years ago-look at the growth of blogs alone. What was that name of that site that debunked campaign ads?
Kim Ritter,
I don’t know if this is the site you’re thinking about, but Fact Check.org is one that I rely on quite a bit.
Very informative and usually objective.
Yes, that was it Pete Abel, and that’s along the lines of what I was thinking of- only extending it to public petitions of voters who agree they will not vote for candidates that willingly use false advertising.
And as more more scary thought, what if campaign finance laws are working?
The idea behind campaign finance is to force the politicians to convince the “people” so that they aren’t “beholden to special interests”.
What if it’s working, and the highly negative campaigns are the best way to convince the people?
The founders were suspicious of the people. They thought the people were subject to passions.
With special interests, a candidate might have to convince them his position has merit. With the people, he needs to convince them that he loves God more than his opponent.
[...] are generally frowned upon, as I quickly learned late last year when I made just such a proposal to TMV and Central Sanity readers. I’m now revisiting that topic (and more) in this extended essay, [...]