By James Bowman on 11.5.03 @ 12:17AM
Each time a Krugman or a Kinsley finds reason to dislike Mr. Bush
there's new reason to like the president.
Not long ago, the Washington Post headlined an op-ed
piece by Michael Kinsley: "One Reason not to Like Bush." I had the
same reaction that I did to the New York Review of Books
screamer promising "Paul Krugman on Bush's Lies" or some such. Did
the headline writer suppose that this was the first time Krugman
was going public with a charge of lying against the President. If
you're interested in "Paul Krugman on Bush's Lies" -- as I'm sure
lots of people are -- you only have to turn to the op-ed page of
the New York Times Tuesdays and Fridays (for other
columnists on Bush's lies, see the other days). In the same way,
there are probably lots of reasons not to like Bush, and if there
are any I don't already know of I am sure they are known to Michael
Kinsley. But why promise just one when every other week you've got
at least two or three? Who reads such a column but Bush haters
eager to think there may be a reason he hasn't thought of yet?
Wouldn't there be more news value in a column, by Kinsley, headed
"One Reason to Like Bush"? It is the outrage of expectation that
makes for news, but expectation in American journalism has been
taking a long nap and, I fear, may never wake up again.
As it happens, I am not surprised to find that Kinsley's reason
not to like Bush is a reason for me to like Bush -- though it might
make you dislike Kinsley. It is that Bush has not approved wider
experimentation on embryonic stem cells so that medical science can
race the more quickly to cure one M. Kinsley of his Parkinson's
disease. In his eagerness for the cure, Kinsley jumps to the
conclusion that "the factual basis" on which Bush made the decision
he made about stem cells has turned out to be "faulty." But of
course there was no "factual basis" -- you cannot derive an "ought"
from an "is" -- but only a number of factual circumstances and
consequences, among which are the fact that the existing "lines" of
stem cells aren't getting to Michael's cure fast enough.
Anyway, he says, "Bush's moral anguish was suspect from the
beginning," since he "cannot possibly believe that embryos are full
human beings, or he would surely oppose modern fertility procedures
that create and destroy many embryos for each baby they bring into
the world." But there is nothing logically inconsistent in
supporting fertility clinics and opposing a process that would
inevitably lead to the creation of some human lives solely in order
that their tissue could be harvested for the benefit of other human
lives. The moral case depends not on any "factual basis" of which
stem cells are more efficacious in creating medicines but the good
Kantian principle that people must not be treated as means to some
end outside themselves.
But here's another reason not to like Kinsley. When Jay
Lefkowitz of the White House Domestic Policy Council wrote in the
Post criticizing some of the "factual basis" of Kinsley's
column, the latter fired back with his (and Krugman's) all-purpose
taunt against Bush: "Dishonesty."
Indeed, he actually gets a nice columnar generalization out of
it. Lefkowitz's dishonesty is typical of a whole line of dishonesty
that Kinsley, like a stem-cell researcher himself, has
discovered:
The distinguishing feature of modern Washington
dishonesty is that it is almost transparent, barely intended to
deceive. It uses true-ish factoids to construct an implied
assertion about reality that is not just false but preposterous.
Modern Washington dishonesty is more like a kabuki ritual than a
realistic, Western-style performance. The goal is not to persuade
but merely to create an impression that there are two sides to the
question without actually having to supply one of
them.
Hm, very interesting, no doubt, but when it comes to the pinning
down of the actual dishonesty, the one Lefkowitz is
alleged to have committed, it comes down to a lot of
hair-splitting, a repetition of the insinuation that no one could
possibly believe what Bush and Lefkowitz say they believe, and a
triumphant assertion that the latter has not answered the argument
mentioned above which Kinsley apparently regards as so
self-evidently true that even the claim of believing otherwise is
"preposterous."
But of course that is a definition of "dishonesty" guaranteed to
fill the demand among Kinsley's (and Krugman's) readers, no doubt a
great one, for ever more examples of presidential "lies."
topics:
Books
