Kerry's English

Kerryism of the Day - The senator's caveats and curlicues. By William�Saletan

In an effort to be fair and balanced, Slate has taken to citing "Kerryisms," doing so after several years of noting "Bushisms." Any attempt to be fair and balanced in the U.S. today is laudable, especially if it happens to be genuine, although the whole concept of "fair and balanced" has become more of a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" excuse to hare off onto some pretty unfair and unbalanced activities on both ends of the political spectrum these days.

Neither the fairness nor the balance is my concern here. What bugs me is the oversimplification of issues.

Kerry was asked a question:

Question: What is your position on Bush's fight to ban gay marriages?

This was his response:

Kerry: I believe that the president of the United States should not use the Constitution of the United States for election purposes during an election year. It's a document that we haven't touched, certainly with respect to the Bill of Rights, in years, and I don't think it should be used for the purpose of driving a political wedge through America. I think it's wrong. Now, that said, I personally have taken the position I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. That's my position, and I think that's the way you respect both traditional values. But you can allow civil unions, which protects the rights of people in America not to be discriminated against. And I think you can balance that, and I think it's appropriate to. But I do think that it ought to be left to the states.

This is how Saletan thinks he should have answered the question.

Kerry: I believe that the president should not use the Constitution for election purposes. It's a document that we haven't touched in years, and I don't think it should be used for the purpose of driving a political wedge through America. I think it's wrong. (footnote numbers deleted)

The criticism of Kerry's statement is based on the notion that it is not in "plain English." It is, Saletan says "full of caveats and pointless embellishments."

Let's start at the top. There are no words in Kerry's statement that an eighth grader couldn't understand. Eighth grade reading level is the recommended level for most writing for the general public these days, and Kerry pretty much hit that. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand what he's saying.

There are no words in Kerry's statement that have been garbled or misused. He didn't toss out any malapropisms; he didn't create any neologisms. These are pretty much well-used words you could find in any dictionary.

So what's the deal with plain English? Could it be that Kerry didn't give a good sound bite? Could it be that Kerry actually answered the question in two parts: (1) this is what I think about the proposed strategy for dealing with the issue and (2) this is how I think the issue should be handled? They don't teach complex sentences in J-School these days? Well, not to worry. Kerry used plenty of simple sentences in his statement. He just wanted to get across a complex answer to a complex problem.

The thing about political speech--or most any other speech--is that we often rely on fixed phrases and formulas to enhance what we are saying. Sometimes those formulas come out as cliches. Sometimes they become bridges to help us move from one element of thought to another--and we are so used to them that we don't even notice that they are there. Nonetheless, they do pad our sentences a bit.

Political speech--and much other speech--also relies on assorted rhetorical flourishes to make it striking and memorable. Kerry made fair use of repetition, not only in repeating phrases but also in repeating the idea in other words. (Good teachers do that, too.) He contrasted complex sentences with simple declarative sentences for emphasis.

I'll grant that this response is not the Gettysburg Address. It was apparently an unscripted response to a question. Give Kerry another plus mark for lack of sentence fragments. (Listen to yourself on a tape someday and count how many times you forget to speak in complete sentences.)

My point here is not to contrast Kerry's patterns of speech to Bush's patterns of speech, although that might be fun--or even like shooting fish in a barrel. It's rather that Saletan and, by extension, journalists as a whole-bleeping-lot (admitting sweeping generalization) seem to want the simplest black-and-white statement in response to the most complex of questions. When they can't get it, they look for the simplest, most black-and-white part of a statement to stand for the whole.

In truth, Saletan's version of Kerry's statement reads well. It just doesn't give the whole response, and that unfairly shortchanges Kerry's ability to communicate his full position on the issue. Whether you agree with Kerry's position or not, you are entitled to know what it is. And yes, while you do have to have something more than the attention span of a gnat to hear it, this ain't football folks. It's an election.

[Edited to correct mortifying spelling error--cp]