It's Not Too Late

If Tony Coehlo, campaign manager for Vice President Al Gore '69, were trying to map the mind of a typical attentive voter as decision-time approaches, that voter might suggest that he keep Gore away from a dishonesty of syntax. What? That's right, syntax. Policy positions and leadership ability are obviously crucial to our voting decisions, but how a candidate answers a question or avoids it, the words he uses when he backs away from a former position or assumes a new one, can and should be in our minds when we go to the ballot box.

Ralph Schoenstein, the author of "You Can't Be Serious--Writing and Living American History" wrote a clever piece for The Boston Globe highlighting some of the better quotes from the newly-released tape recordings of former president Richard M. Nixon during Watergate and reminding us how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Quoting one of Nixon's exchanges with White House counsel John Dean, Schoenstein points out the Clintonian ring to the president's speech. "They'll hang us," Dean says. "It depends what you mean by hang," Nixon replies.

Nixon in private conversation is making a distinction between the kinds of metaphoric punishment he and his advisors would face at the conclusion of the investigation. In context, Nixon imagined something less than the complete loss of political life he was to suffer. Though my disappointment in Bill Clinton had settled in long before his famous comment that it all depends on what you mean by "is," the linguistic side-step was an added blow. Its technical precision was so obviously a device to hide the half-truth behind it that Clinton insulted our intelligence while protecting his own interests. His intent was, as Texas Gov. George W. Bush might say, to "obsfucate [sic]."

Though I think it is a mistake to allow Clinton's difficulties to color my impressions of Gore, who was put in the terrible position of having to stand by his boss while also maintaining political distance, I have lately found it more difficult to see the two men as separate when Gore uses a Clintonian expression in a jam.

Last month, Gore answered in a New Hampshire debate a question about gays in the military by saying he would have a litmus test on the issue for any potential nominee to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When the answer that had served well enough in the immediate context of the debate was perceived to be untenable for the prospective national campaign, Gore backed off from the response.

But instead of acknowledging that he had gone too far, Gore resorted to Clinton's view that the meaning of words is created after their expression by the speaker and that the explicit dictionary meaning is to be viewed as the untrustworthy, subjective response of the listeners. He said he "did not mean to imply that there should ever be any kind of inquiry into the personal political opinions of the officers. That is not what I meant to convey--that's what you heard." Whatever happened to, "I spoke too quickly in debate. After sober reflection, I see that the answer is otherwise"?

Politics is a tough business, and when everyone is listening to what you say, you're bound to make more than one mistake during the course of the campaign. The Gore campaign shouldn't compound those mistakes by trying to solve them with tortured phrasing that reminds us of the worst of Clinton, not the best of the Clinton/Gore administration. I won't even address the linguistic tap-dance Bush has been performing for the last several months because it is so constant as to be almost mesmerizing.

I write about Gore because I am concerned that he not lose support by evading difficulties with legalese ("no controlling legal authority") or semantic gymnastics. One of the reasons so many New Hampshire voters chose Sen. John S. McCain (R-Ariz.) last week was that they like his "straight talk," that he answers questions in direct, often earthily vivid words linked in declarative sentences. Whether he means what he says and will do what he promises is a separate issue from the simple point of sounding as though he means what he says and will do what he promises. You can go a long way in a campaign if your audience doesn't flinch when you speak.

At any level of politics, whether on campus, locally or nationally--the words our elected officials and candidates choose to use and the ways they choose to use them can reveal their natures, including the raw instinct for survival or their commitment to honest discourse. Elections are often about the energy displayed by the candidates, a sense of experience with decisions made under pressure and a perceived quality of inherent honesty. The vice president, whom I have often admired, knows this very well. It is not too late for him to embellish less, qualify less and declare more.

Susannah B. Tobin '00 is a classics concentrator in Lowell House. Her column appears on alternate Thursdays.