I have read much about the false claims that President Obama isn't using the right words to describe the threats facing our country. I respect the exhaustive (exhausting?) research that has gone into debunking the baseless Republican critique (including the work by Jed Lewison).
Yet, I worry we have allowed ourselves to be misdirected by this claim. For magicians, misdirection is a technique to get the audience to focus on one thing while "the trick" is happening someplace else. The Republicans learned from Rove: trying to get our attention on one thing while they are busy doing mischief elsewhere (or everywhere else). But, because the Republicans don't actually control any part of government now, and because they are the "party of no," nothing is happening anywhere else. That is precisely their current strategy--making sure that everyone is misdirected and nothing happens until they are in control again.
Like the audience watching a talented magician, we could be left at the end startled that what should have happened didn't despite all our rational logic. It doesn't have to end this way. This time, we can take a technique from Obama's playbook to counter Rove's tired misdirections.
One of the things that I admired so much about campaigning Obama was watching his brilliant (even if it became predictable) way of dealing with criticism. I came to break it down this way: 1. rephrasing his opponents' critiques of him; 2. shrugging it off, often using humor, because the assertion is obviously so wrong; and 3. using his rephrase as a launching point to state, in his own words (is it naive to imagine that they are his own words?), his values and commitments. This technique is one of the things that made him seemingly untouchable. He used this to respond to his opponents and everyone at the end seemed to come to see how petty his opponents were while admiring how "above the fray" he was with his "positive campaigning."
This is what it might look like if we adopted campaigning Obama's technique:
1. Rephrasing: "Cheney (or fill in your preferred Republican liar of the day) says that the President of the United States doesn't talk enough about the threats to our country. He (replace with
'she,' if referring to Michelle Bachmann) thinks President Obama doesn't use the word 'terror' or 'war on terror' enough."
2. Shrugging it off: "Well, we found 27 (or 34 or 270--whatever the current count is) times this last month that the President used those words." (others could probably come up with a witter quick retort that still makes the point without being nasty.)
3. State values and commitments: "But if you really want to talk about the threats to our country, it doesn't just involve talking about 'terror' or the 'war on terror.' It also means talking about the people who are going to die this week in our country because they don't have affordable healthcare. It means talking about our children falling behind children from other countries in education, threatening to deprive us of our next generations of brilliant American innovators. It means talking about one in three (I think that is the statistic?) children in our country who suffer from hunger or malnutrition. It means talking about the threats to our founding values when we allow our fears to overtake our liberties. It means talking about addressing the violence which plagues our neighborhoods and cities.... etc. etc.
"We are able to overcome the threats to our country, and I agree with the Republicans that it is important to name them when we talk about them. That is why you hear me use the words 'terror' and 'war on terror.' It also why you hear President Obama and his progressive Democratic colleagues use the words 'inadequate healthcare,' 'failing education,' 'unemployment,' and 'eroding civil liberties.' I am glad that the Republicans acknowledge that there are threats facing our country that need to be named. Now is the time for them to join us in overcoming all of those threats described by these words."
That is just an idea. From what I can tell, the polls aren't saying that "terror" or the "war on terror" are the first concerns for most Americans. Yet, that is what the Republicans want the country to refocus upon because they claim to be the national defense party. We can repudiate that, and then pivot to the platform of the Democratic party (at least the progressive part of the party). Because the platform coincides with the concerns and hopes of many Americans now, highlighting the platform illuminates how out of touch and obstructionist the "party of no" is.
So let's not just talk about if the President uses the word "terror" enough. After showing that he does (thanks to the research of Jed Lewison, some of the evening hosts on MSNBC, and others), we don't need to wrestle in the mud with the Republicans. We can pivot to show how out of touch they are and reiterate how the progressives are leading the country in the right direction. Otherwise, we get caught up in their misdirection, arguing about something that I don't think most Americans care about, while the term clock ticks on.