AND NOTHING BUT
How, you may wonder as I do, can otherwise decent men and women allow themselves to skirt the very fringes of dishonesty at times?
It happens more often than we might care to admit and most frequently by equivocation, elision, grafting and parenthetical references.
When a topic is being discussed, such as in the recent presidential campaign debates, the speaker is expected to stay on the subject for the duration of the set time period.
A noticeable trait of so many political speeches is to be found in the fact that so much that is actually voiced represents only a portion of the truth. The speaker, so often, purposely avoids, evades, hedges, skirts, parries, gets around or sidesteps any elements of truth which may make his or her statement seem less authentic. Is such a presentation honest? If one lists only the positive aspects of a plan and makes no reference to potential negative aspects, is it a true picture of the plan being presented? Any speaker who sets forth his idea in this this manner is, in effect, telling “half-truths”, we say, which suggests that the other portion may well be patently false or even a downright lie. In any portion of a speech in which numbers, numerals, percentages, figures, and pie chart graph proportions are mentioned one can expect elements of alteration, color, contortion, deception, dressed-up, embroidered, exaggerated, salted, trumped-up or misquoted - and they, in most cases, will be accepted and heard as intended- dramatically. Is this honest? Or, is it a planned deception, fully intentional and thought to be permissible?
The four men concerned in the 2004 Election Debates were all seasoned veterans of such speaking situations and one did not find elements which do, however, appear in the speeches of less adept speakers. It is certainly dishonest for someone called upon to influence the choice to be made by citizens to falsify, hedged, magnify, misrepresented or diluted. Some will even try to fabricate,cook up, fake, forge or simulate truth, and an amazing number of political speakers at all levels tend to be off balance, confused, irresolute, uncertain, wishy-washy, floundering around and, straddling issues and wearing funny hats and singing silly songs..
On the whole,I would say that this year's debates were successful. I still, however, doubt if they are necessary, except in that they do serve as a sort of wrap-up of all all that has been said, re-said and said again throughout the months of our woefully long election period. Such and summation is needed for large numbers of turned-off voters who have missed much that has been said during the stretched-out “election year”. The debates sum it all up for them - actually some of them learn for then first time who is running for what office. Then - “informed” - they rush to the polls eagerly.
The debates this year of 2004 were competent and capable. The audience conduct was exceptionally good being obscured by dim lighting and few or no microphones. And the planning was commendable and the moderators all proved to be competent. One incident occurred which was said, by some, to have been ”in poor taste.” It will be a hot issue for the next ten days, but it will prove to have been a minor flaw best forgotten by those most concerned.
A.L.M. October 14, 2004 [c563wds]
