Sitting in the house, I'm loadin' up the pump. I'm loadin' up the Uzi. I got a couple M-16s, a couple 9s. I got a couple joints with some silencers on them. I'm just loading clips, a couple grenades. I got a missile launcher with a couple of missiles. I'm ready for war."
Ahem.
That was NBA star Kevin Garnett, demonstrating the seriousness of his preparation for Game Seven of the Western Conference semifinals, as well as his extensive knowledge of firearms. As you can imagine, Kevin got in trouble: He apologized for his comments the very same day, calling them "totally inappropriate." Incidentally, an unarmed Garnett went on to lead his team to victory with 32 points and 20 rebounds.
"I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."
That was presidential candidate Howard Dean last November, demonstrating his plan to appeal to Southern voters with universal healthcare. Howard also got in trouble: over a week of contrition, his pleas included, "That was a painful reference for a number of people and I regret that and apologize for it." Incidentally, Dean went on to spontaneously combust in Iowa.
I bring these insensitivities to your attention because Garnett and Dean have more in common than an aggressive streak. That is, they both tried to illustrate public statements with metaphors, and they were both punished by critics who took them literally. But as bad as the metaphors were in themselves, the reaction against them has the potential to be much more damaging.
I give Garnett and Dean credit for at least taking the risk of coloring their soundbites--bearing in mind the ease with which they could have said the equivalent of "I'm gonna give 110 percent," that's no small feat. The problem is that the penalty for a bad rhetorical risk has become overinflated.
Consider the instant sanctimony that stared down the barrel of KG's Uzi: "Almost without exception, [men and women in the military] are laughing at Garnett. Laughing at his cluelessness. Laughing at his fatuity. And, in many cases, they are proud that their service has made it possible for genetic-freak millionaires to live in a world where Game Seven of a playoff series can feel like a life or death proposition," wrote Mike Greenberg in an ESPN.com column entitled "Just Shut Up."
Dean's case is more serious because the response he got bears directly on our political climate. He was greeted with the assumption that his use of the Confederate flag as a metaphor constituted an endorsement of it. "It is simply unconscionable for Howard Dean to embrace the most racially divisive symbol in America," said eventual nominee John Kerry. The other Democratic candidates--including John Edwards, Richard Gephardt and Al Sharpton--were quick to pile on.
Granted, they weren't wrong in spirit. But I think a more mature response would have recognized that public figures are called on to speak in public dozens of times a day and that all but the most robotic will put his foot in his mouth on occasion. Rather than call Dean dumb and move on, the Democrats were dragged into a week-long debate over an imaginary controversy. Of course all of the Democrats were opposed to the flag. But if Kerry could derive a political advantage by implying that Dean was a racist--by God, he'd be the first up to the microphone.
So, good for Kerry. But bad for the rest of us. Because when the penalty for a risk gone wrong is so steep, the logical response is to stop taking risks altogether. And the result is unmitigated drudgery.
"Rhetorical courage comes down to a willingness to be interesting. Interesting can be dangerous, so American pols tend to avoid it," writes commentator Michael Kinsley. And that makes sense when the going rate gets you a ten-second clip on the nightly news for a good risk and a whole media cycle of abuse for a bad one.
It's no coincidence that, with the exception of Bill Clinton, we've had a long line of miserable speakers for presidential candidates. We've denied them the tools to be any better.
But rhetorical courage isn't a luxury. If people are disaffected from politics, in large part it's because politicians bore them. And besides that, there's a war on.
We ought to expect something, oh, I don't know... inspiring from the Commander-in-Chief--but we've gotten nothing. Blogger Andrew Sullivan puts the problem in perspective: "The answer cannot be the president's crude and simple rhetorical tropes. What Bush doesn't seem to understand is that in any war, people need to be reminded constantly of what is going on, what is at stake, what our immediate, medium-term and ultimate objectives are.... All the president says is a broad and crude reiteration of valid but superfluous boilerplate. This is not war-leadership; it's the abdication of war-leadership."
But Bush will likely continue with the stock lines on democracy and the enemies of freedom--not just out of ideological conviction, and not just because Bush is inarticulate to begin with but because risk-aversion sells. And if you're sitting in front of the TV sometime between now and November wondering why you should give a damn, you won't be alone.
That's why Garnett and Dean matter beyond their own insulated cycles of offense-outrage-apology: hypersensitivity and great public language have trouble coexisting. Every time somebody pays the penalty, the rhetorical atmosphere gets a little chillier, and the possibility for words even vaguely insightful, stirring, cogent gets a little more remote. A wonderful speech can stop your heart and temporarily turn the world upside-down. But I haven't heard one in my lifetime, and I'm not expecting one anytime soon.
So in conclusion: If you take away KG's Uzi, the terrorists will win.
Rob Goodman is a Trinity senior.
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