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Monday, we saw the curious approach that a trio of conservative media figures has adopted in addressing the controversy surrounding the use of incendiary rhetoric in political debate--and speculation about a possible link to literal violence. All three vigorously protested against insults and attacks that did not exist, figments of their imagination.
ABC's Jake Tapper quoted Rush Limbaugh's fantasy on talkradio that criticism of violent imagery in rhetoric amounted to a stalking horse for repeal of the First Amendment: "What this is all about is shutting down any and all political opposition and eventually criminalizing it."
NBC's Andrea Mitchell quoted Sarah Palin, the FOX News Channel analyst and reality TV show hostess. Palin falsely accused the "lamestream media" of reporting that she was inciting violence. Using initials, she called such reportage bullshit. It is also imaginary.
NBC's Mitchell also quoted FNC's Glenn Beck criticizing what he called "the media" for "desperately using every opportunity to try to convince you that, somehow or another, Sarah Palin is dangerous." Even if some, sometimes, worry that a potential Palin Presidency would be harmful to the nation, "desperately using every opportunity" is nowhere near the truth.
Now comes Sarah Palin herself in her own eight-minute video statement on Facebook. She implicitly dismissed the idea that Jared Loughner, the accused killer in Tucson, was delusional or deranged, prejudging him as an "evil man." She called the murders an "act of monstrous criminality." ABC's Claire Shipman was impressed. She called the message "carefully crafted, above the fray, almost Presidential."
Then Palin adopted that curious rhetorical tactic once more, arguing against phantoms, setting up straw men.
NBC's Mitchell used a soundbite in which she defended people against charges of murder who have never been accused. Palin argued that "all the citizens of a state…those who listen to talkradio…maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle" were each not guilty of criminal acts. Nobody has said that they were. Mitchell herself stipulated so directly: "There is no connection" between the Tucson murders and Palin's use of gun imagery.
Then Palin offered advice to journalists and pundits who "purport" to condemn hatred and violence (who knows what the "purport" was doing in her injunction, distinguishing such pundits from those who condemn it sincerely). They "should not manufacture a blood libel" since blood libels turn out to incite the very violence that should be condemned.
No argument there. Journalists and pundits should categorically avoid blood libel. And they do. All the time. As NBC's Mitchell and ABC's Shipman and CBS' Chip Reid all patiently explained, a blood libel is the false accusation that the blood of Christian children is used in Jewish religious rituals. Yes, Palin is correct, these libels always have incited violence, being used to stir up anti-Semitic pogroms. Why did this image enter Palin's head? Both NBC's Mitchell and ABC's Shipman suggested that she read it in the headline of an op-ed column in The Wall Street Journal, which defended Palin's rhetorical use of ballistic imagery.
Note that Palin did not literally accuse anyone of committing blood libel against her. She just made the general, unobjectionable point, that blood libels are to be deplored. Nevertheless, there is no escaping her insinuation that "journalists and pundits" had committed such a libel against her personally. All three correspondents noted that such hyperbole was tasteless, to say the least. "Particularly incendiary," was how ABC's Shipman put it. "Offensive," offered NBC's Mitchell, although, mealy-mouthed, she attributed that sentiment to Palin's critics, not to herself. CBS News political analyst Marc Aminder told Reid that Palin "will often make her case in the most explicit, most inflammatory, most attention-getting way that is possible."
But tastelessness aside, there is a question of journalistic ethics that is left unaddressed. When correspondents quote strawman soundbites such as these--soundbites that warn of potential suppression of political dissent…or that accuse pundits of spreading blood libel…or that imply accusations of criminal conduct against listeners to talkradio--soundbites that go beyond hyperbole, that are factually incorrect, that amount to lies…
…when correspondents quote someone implicitly lying by invoking a non-existent straw man, is it not their responsibility to contradict the premise of such a soundbite when they quote it? Surely ABC' Tapper should have contradicted Limbaugh's fantasy that dissent was on the verge of being criminalized (see Jay Rosen at PressThink for similar thoughts on the strawman of impending tyranny)? Surely, Palin's "blood libel" insinuation needed the follow up that no pundit had in fact libeled her in that way? Unless these fictional strawmen are contradicted by journalists when they quote them, they get treated as facts rather than fantasies.
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