Language and politics

Last weekend, for example, my TV screen was flooded with tight, close-up images of a pleasant and matronly blonde woman who identified herself as Susan Corbett. “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” the first lady of Pennsylvania confessed. “My husband is a terrible politician.” Because he’s not a politician but a “leader,” she explained, he refuses to make political deals for the sake of expediency.

And you thought Tom Corbett’s little secret was genital herpes?

Vulture’s mother

If Orwell had his way, I suppose, Susan Corbett would have said something like, “I’ll let you in on the world’s worst-kept secret: My husband’s reelection campaign seems to be tanking because people perceive him as stiff and distant. That’s why they dragged me in front of the camera — to try to humanize him. And, yes, I can readily attest that he’s softer and warmer than a piece of cardboard — but I’m his wife, for goodness’ sake. Doesn’t every politician have a spouse who could say the same?

“And why should a politician be ashamed to admit he’s a politician? If my doctor told me, ‘I’ll let you in on a little secret: I’m a terrible doctor,’ would I go to him for a hip replacement?”

In the campaign just concluded, Susan Corbett played much the same role as the mother of the perennial candidate Festus Garvey in The Last Hurrah, Edwin O’Connor’s 1956 novel about Boston politics. At each mayoral debate, Garvey opens his allotted time by introducing the audience to his old Irish mother, who declares, “Festus, me boy, ye’re a fine Irish lad, you are.” Then the incumbent, Frank Skeffington — modeled after James Curley, Boston’s longtime political boss — rises and responds, “I’m glad to see that Mr. Garvey has a mother who loves him. But let me remind you that everyone has a mother. Every animal has a mother. The snake has a mother. The rat has a mother. The vulture has a mother.”

Dancing around democracy

But of course the political abuse of language is hardly restricted to English, as I’m constantly reminded by China’s rhetorical doubletalk about “rule of law with Chinese characteristics” or by China’s insistence that Hong Kong’s governance system is democratic.

In a recent New York Times op-ed column defending China’s election procedures for Hong Kong, Shiu Sin-Por, head of Hong Kong’s Central Policy Unit, argues that Hong Kong’s Basic Law establishes an orderly process toward “universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.” (Click here.) He proceeds to assert that China’s proposed procedures comply with the Basic Law because the nominating committee will be formed in accordance with Hong Kong’s Election Committee, “which is broadly representative of Hong Kong’s society.” But without free and open elections, how can Shiu Sin-Por presume to know whether any committee is “broadly representative of Hong Kong’s society”?

Mr. Shiu concludes his essay by insisting, “Most of the people of Hong Kong, including those demonstrating in the streets at this moment, accept Chinese sovereignty.” Again, without free elections, by what authority can he claim to know what “most of the people of Hong Kong” think?

Grant at Appomattox

Has there never been a public figure who tells it like it is? Politicians who paint themselves as “no-nonsense” straight shooters — Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, and Philadelphia’s late mayor Frank Rizzo come to mind — usually turn out upon close examination to be 98% nonsense. If you’re searching for a model of direct, concise use of the English language, you may must go all the way back to Ulysses S. Grant.

At the siege of Fort Donelson in 1862, when the Confederate commander suggested an armistice in order to discuss surrender terms, Grant replied tersely, “No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.” During the Cold Harbor campaign in the spring of 1864, a government attaché who was returning to Washington asked Grant if he had any message for President Lincoln or the Secretary of Defense; Grant provided a single sentence: “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." In recalling Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in 1865, Grant extolled the courage and sincerity of his Confederate enemies, “who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause.” Then he added: “Though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.” With that single, incisive half-sentence, Grant punctured all the sentimental Southern slop that clutters Americans’ Civil War consciousness to this day.

Clearly, here was one American public figure who was blessed with an uncluttered mind and a clear grasp of language. Need I add that Grant is generally (and correctly) considered one of the worst presidents in U.S. history?