Frank Luntz, the lecherous Dale Carnegie of right-wing dystopianism, has once again slithered onto WaPo's op-ed pages, hissing venomous pedantry and spewing neolithic platitudes as seductive insight. This time his come-hither, Humbert Humbert routine is called "Why Republicans should watch their language," but having already lost their virtue so many times to the creepy likes of Luntz, they should watch for the exits instead.
I'll make this quick, especially because Luntz doesn't.
He drools for four dreadful pages over the infinite simplicity of "candidates and political parties [being] about reputation, trust and ideas.... [W]hat you say in defense of those ideas matters, and what people hear matters even more." If that thundering tautology fails to rattle your brain loose, then you're ready to grasp to Luntz's essential, sequential jokes:
Republicans on Capitol Hill have great thinkers and communicators with serious ideas and specific answers, from Reps. Paul Ryan and Dave Camp to Sens. Marco Rubio and Pat Toomey. The party should unleash them--now. But they need a new language to communicate their ideas effectively.
It's the DeMint gambit: Precisely because the ugliness of the nihilistic pseudoconservatism that we hold dear is deeply incompatible with the transcendent truths of traditional conservatism that we must stress presentation and language--and heaven forfend not the ugly ideas themselves.
The sequence: Hustle vague, feel-good terminology, such as, "Instead of entitlement reform or controlling the growth of Medicare and Social Security, talk about how to save and strengthen these programs."
In other words, lie.
Still, I'll give the devilish Luntz his due. He knows his market. He knows (or I'm assuming he knows) that the straight, uncorrupted path to selling conservatism is to simply preach conservatism, and not the insidious, collective humbug of fundamentalist Christianism, Randian libertarianism and adventurous militarism--all that which stiffens the Nabokovian resolve of modern Republican debauchery.
Let me see, great Republican political thinkers and communicators with serious ideas and specific answers need help in constructing intelligible and effective phrases, sentences and paragraphs about politics.
I guess I am not clear on the concept.
Posted by: Robert Lipscomb | January 12, 2013 at 10:24 AM
He should know his market. He is a first rate marketer and that is the limit of my admiration for Mr Luntz. Parenthetically Hitler was an excellent orator if you were fond of maniacal bombast.
Posted by: Peter G | January 12, 2013 at 11:02 AM
Clearly, there is absolutely no limit to the number of times Paul f'ing Ryan can lie, dissemble and have his so-called "ideas" proven by dispassionate observers to be the worst form of empty flimflam that will rid us of the notion that he is a big thinker.
Not to mention that his ideology is unspeakably cruel and unworkable in the context of a civilized society.
Bring on the meteor.
Posted by: Turgidson | January 12, 2013 at 03:22 PM
Well, I wish we had one of our own. Going on as we do like Kerry and even Obama about ideas might sound great and reasoned, but to only a few. Majority of the voters are hustling to make the rent. They want the message nice and simple and gut punching. When we act too cool for the selling job, we lose the low-info guy.
Posted by: JayJay | January 13, 2013 at 06:06 AM
Just add another layer of Orwellian Newspeak, and you're good to go.
Posted by: shsavage | January 13, 2013 at 07:49 AM
"When we act too cool for the selling job, we lose the low-info guy."
Probably why Obama did so poorly in November.
Posted by: Beauzeaux | January 13, 2013 at 04:45 PM