Ad Hominem Ad Nauseum

Ad Hominem Ad Nauseam

June 21, 2005

I am not one to spend much time watching television. But, while at a hotel on a recent trip, I had the television on, in the background, as I tended to other matters. The Factor with Bill O’Reilly was on, and he was discussing a new book written about Hillary Clinton.

I gave up on O’Reilly a long time ago, because he always seemed to shout down his guests and rebuff any substantive points that they make with a brilliant, “oh come on” or the even more enlightened, “that’s just ridiculous.” Today he redeemed himself, in my eyes.

The discussion centered around the recent trend of books that attack politicians, rather than discussing ideas. This is a trend that has troubled me for some time. The number of books that serve to personally attack this or that politician or this or that group is disturbing, to say the least. It is truly a case of tabloid trash and People magazine journalism infecting our political institutions and lowering the level of our political discourse. Just as television sinks to a new low everyday with a more outrageous “reality” show and advertisers inject an increasingly sexual overtone to each ad that our children are subjected to, our political discourse also seems to be heading in the direction of seeing who can make the more outrageous claim, the more damaging personal attack and remarks that are intended to be controversial, just for the sake of getting attention. In short, there is a disturbing trend in our society to be “extreme.”

Whether it is extreme sports, extremist ideologies, or extremely outlandish television shows and advertisements, our society seems bored or unsatisfied with anything less than something extreme or controversial. Is this without precedent? Of course not. Circus freakshows and traffic accidents have always attracted a lot of attention. Unfortunately, our political discourse has now succumbed to this and the freaks and rubberneckers are out in force.

With Hollywood celebrities thinking highly enough of themselves to think that they are credible political thinkers, and political operatives embracing them, because they understand the value of celebrity appeal, our political discourse is severely damaged. What on Earth does Barbra Streisand know about anything, other than how she likes her maids to prepare her bed sheets and what hotel she likes to stay in, when abroad?

Then there are the people who actually know what they are talking about, who choose to supply what the masses demand. Shrill attack dogs like Ann Coulter, in my opinion, do very little for the cause of the right wing. A lot of the people on the right side of the aisle find her entertaining, so she has found a niche to make a very successful career for herself. But what has this done to the level of discourse and what does it do to our attempts to draw more people into the Republican or conservative camps? In my opinion, if you are rude and obnoxious (as I regard Coulter to be), then you are not going to make many converts. How successful would Christian missionaries have been in the past if they had chosen to belittle other peoples’ religions, rather than to preach the virtues of their own? Likewise, how does Coulter do anything more than entertain those on the right side of the aisle, rather than help to win converts? Given the choice of reading Coulter’s Slander or Milton Freidman’s Capitalism and Freedom, which book is more likely to help out a fence-sitter?

Of all people, it was refreshing to see someone like O’Reilly, who is usually of the attack dog variety, to finally question this dumbing-down of our political discourse. The frequency with which attack books are published is not just a manifestation of politicians tending to “go negative.” This is a response to a new demand from an increasingly nasty base of voters and political operatives on either side of the aisle.

There are few things more American than to generate a supply to meet a demand. It is what entrepreneurs do. But that does not mean that we should set up a hit-man service to meet the demands of unhappy spouses or set up a fake document service to meet the demands of people who want fake identification cards. Likewise, should credible political thinkers lower themselves to writing books that serve to attack politicians, rather than their ideas, just because there is a market for it? Should political operatives belittle their causes with celebrity endorsements, just because it captures headlines and appeals to the politically ignorant? No. Should this be illegal? Of course not. Should we, as a society, shun this behavior? Absolutely.

The level of political discourse is quickly sinking to the bottom of the gutter. The reason for this is that we allow it to happen. When you see Janeane Garofalo on the television, ranting on about the evils of America, change the channel. When you see an anti-Hillary or anti-Bush book on the shelves at the bookstore, ask why they are not in the tabloid section, and do not buy them. There is an upside to this gutterization of our political discourse, however. We are nearing the bottom of the gutter, and it can only improve from there.

- TJM

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