Clever Rhetorical Tricks

Here's a classic example of one of the great innovations in rhetorical technique perfected by the modern right. It involves taking some nutty thing that someone tangentially related to the Democratic Party or vaguely on the left of the political spectrum said (Michael Moore and Ward Churchill are good candidates, but if need be, you can find some obscure adjunct professor and make him a celebrity to serve this purpose), and then making that nutty thing stand in for other things that you don't want to talk about.

Apparently a few people have begun using the word "impeachment" in relation to Bush. Not a new phenomenon; Congressman John Conyers introduced articles of impeachment several years ago. It's not going to happen. A congressional minority can't move articles of impeachment. Further, as "KagroX" pointed out on The Next Hurrah recently, Bush is "impeachment-proof" because the public was exhausted and repulsed by the spectacle of the Clinton administration, which made it seem a tawdry and partisan tactic. (Which corresponds to my pet theory about why Reagan was the "Teflon President" -- having effectively rejected three presidents in a row -- Nixon, Ford, Carter, and four if you want to count LBJ -- the public had no appetitite to do so again.

Anyway, it seems that Ralph Nader joined this call for impeachment a few days ago. I won't link to his article, which appeared in the Boston Globe, for the simple reasaon that if RALPH NADER wants to lecture anyone that Bush is a criminal president, he's got some major apologizing to do first. (A handwritten personal apology to everyone who voted for him or Gore might get him about halfway there, and then we'll negotiate.) Nader's argument, however, is that the Downing Street memo revealing that Bush intended to go to war in Iraq regardless of compliance with UN resolutions and in plain violation of international law, is sufficient grounds for impeachment. (Which I think it is, of course, and so is the fraud on the costs of the Medicare bill, the deception on Iraq WMD, the misuse of federal funds for self-promotion, and a few other things. But who cares what I think? Go persuade Mr. Sensenbrenner. )

And then a few days ago, John Kerry told an editorial board the following:

"When I go back (to Washington) on Monday, I am going to raise the issue," he said of the [Downing Street] memo, which has not been disputed by either the British or American governments. "I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home. And it's amazing to me the way it escaped major media discussion.

So, over on redstate.org (still the best conservative site), Kerry's call for discussion of the memo gets turned into the idea that Kerry has joined the "moonbat" call for Bush's impeachment. Kerry didn't mention impeachment at all. All he mentioned was a memo that someone else (Nader, and possibly others) had mentioned in the context of impeachment.

But now any mention of the memo makes you automatically a nut calling for impeachment. And instead of discussing the memo, we'll argue about impeachment.

Very clever. But there's a limit to these tricks, and I think it's been reached.