http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20031113.htmlThe Republican assault on "political hate speech"
by Brendan Nyhan
Over the last two months, the Republican Party has begun a systematic effort to label attacks on President Bush by Democratic presidential candidates as "political hate speech," a new piece of political jargon intended to delegitimize criticism of Bush. It appears this strategy will expanded in the coming months -- a recent memo from Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie urged party officials to adopt the term in their rhetoric.
Like "Enronomics" and "Daschlenomics", "political hate speech" is a carefully crafted term designed to create a hazy, non-logical association between two concepts. In this case, the phrase associates criticism of the president with "hate speech," which generally refers to speech that attacks others on the basis of their race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Of course, some rhetoric directed toward President Bush could fairly be described as hateful (just like any politician), but Republicans have used the term sweepingly to try to delegitimize nearly all criticism of Bush, regardless of its substance. This is a key tactic of political jargon, which often seeks to undermine the legitimacy of criticism by invoking hazy but powerful emotional symbols.
In addition, the phrase reverses the term "hate speech" by directing it back at liberals (another classic jargon tactic), who are associated with the term due to speech codes proscribing "hate speech" at certain colleges and universities. The use of the term "political hate speech" against Democrats thereby imparts an implicit, largely non-rational accusation of hypocrisy, even though no evidence is provided that the candidates in question support prohibitions on hate speech.
Attacks on liberals for "hate speech" have occurred before, most prominently in Bernard Goldberg's book Bias, which lists twelve alleged instances of "liberal hate speech" documented by the Media Research Center, many of which would not meet any fair-minded definition of the term. However, the RNC has recently made the term "political hate speech" central to its attacks on Democratic presidential candidates, repeating it over and over in statements, interviews and press releases. Gillespie's memo to RNC members and party officials, as quoted by ABC's newsletter The Note, instructs Republicans to "Highlight the party of political hate speech ... The presidential candidates have now called President Bush a 'miserable failure,' a 'liar,' compared him to a 'gang leader' and to Saddam Hussein himself. Americans instinctively know that anyone who's willing to demean the presidency in order to gain it is not worthy of having it entrusted to him."