Misspeaking

We've been hearing a lot of candidates backpedal over their lies and mistakes this time around by claiming to "misspeak". Hendrik Hertzberg, of the New Yorker, just wrote an article on the new prominence of that word, and how it's being used. He said:

Along with its various derivatives, 'misspeak' has become one of the signature verbal workhorses of this interminable political season, right up there with 'narrative,' 'Day One,' and 'hope.' It carries the suggestion that, while the politician's perfectly functioning brain has dispatched the correct signals, the mouth has somehow received and transmitted them in altered form. 'Misspeak' is a powerful word, a magical word. It is a word that is apparently thought capable, in its contemporary political usage, of isolating a palpable, possibly toxic untruth, sealing it up in an airtight bag, and disposing of it harmlessly.

This campaign season (like all campaign seasons) is an interesting study in language, and particularly in the linguistic tricks that politicians and political parties use to frame issues to their own advantage. Typically, whoever wins the language battle wins the war. Just look at the way that parties have used language to define the following:

-Death Tax versus Estate Tax
-Pro Life versus Pro Choice
-Personal Accounts versus Private Accounts

Traditionally, the conservative movement has been more effective at using language to frame their positions on policy. They've effectively smeared the words "liberal," "environmentalist," and "feminist"...all positive words at their core. George Lakoff is an author and a linguistics expert who's written several books on the relationship between politics and language. He's a fascinating guy. In an interview with UC Berkeley News, Lakoff was asked: Why do conservatives like to use the phrase "liberal elite" as an epithet? His response:

Conservatives have branded liberals, and the liberals let them get away with it: the "liberal elite," the "latte liberals," the "limousine liberals." The funny thing is that conservatives are the elite. The whole idea of conservative doctrine is that some people are better than others, that some people deserve more. To conservatives, if you're poor it's because you deserve it, you're not disciplined enough to get ahead. Conservative doctrine requires that there be an elite: the people who thrive in the free market have more money, and they should. Progressives say, "No, that's not fair. Maybe some should have more money, but no one should live in poverty. Everybody who works deserves to have a reasonable standard of living for their work." These are ideas that are progressive or liberal ideas, and progressives aren't getting them out there enough.

What progressives are promoting is not elite at all. Progressives ought to be talking about the conservative elite. They shouldn't be complaining about "tax cuts for the rich," they should be complaining about "tax cuts for the conservative elite," because that's who's getting them.