I’ve gotten a chance to look more closely at today’s Kerryism of the Day in Slate, and I’m just flabbergasted. Here’s what Kerry said:
I believe that the president of the United States should not use the Constitution of the United States for election purposes during an election year. It’s a document that we haven’t touched, certainly with respect to the Bill of Rights, in years, and I don’t think it should be used for the purpose of driving a political wedge through America. I think it’s wrong. Now, that said, I personally have taken the position I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. That’s my position, and I think that’s the way you respect both traditional values. But you can allow civil unions, which protects the rights of people in America not to be discriminated against. And I think you can balance that, and I think it’s appropriate to. But I do think that it ought to be left to the states.
Here’s Slate‘s version, “translated into plain English,” according to the item:
I believe that the president should not use the Constitution for election purposes. It’s a document that we haven’t touched in years, and I don’t think it should be used for the purpose of driving a political wedge through America. I think it’s wrong.
Now I’m certainly not wild about the way Kerry put things (though, as I always say, one has to make allowances for oral presentation, which will rarely be as polished as the written). But Slate tried to fix the problems chiefly by completely deleting a key part of Kerry’s point.
Kerry isn’t just trying to say that he’s against a constitutional ban on gay marriages. He’s also trying to say (somewhat inartfully, I acknowledge) what he’s for — for marriage being opposite-sex only, but for leaving the matter to the states, and for providing for civil unions at the state level. These are important parts of his point, both as a matter of rhetoric (say what you support and not just what you oppose) and as a matter of substance (make clear to listeners that you oppose a constitutional amendment but still share the majority’s preference for recognizing only male-female marriages).
Again, these aren’t just “pointless embellishments,” or “ornate phrase[s]” instead of which “a normal person would have substituted” what Slate suggests. And to the extent that they are caveats, they are politically necessary caveats. Removing them isn’t “translat[ing] into plain English” — it’s changing the substance and tone of what Kerry is saying.
As I’ve said before, I don’t find this quibbling about people’s spoken words to be terribly helpful, given the weaknesses that nearly all of us have in our oral presentations. That’s true as to Bush and as to Kerry. But if you’re going to quibble about other people supposedly getting something wrong (even if just stylistically wrong), you should at least get your quibbles right.
So far, both installments of Slate‘s Kerryism have made more serious errors than they’ve accused Kerry of making (see here for my criticism of Kerryism #1). Let’s hope that future Kerryisms are a bit more accurate in their criticism. Or, better yet, that both the Kerryisms and Bushisms columns are set aside altogether.
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