PRESTOPUNDIT -- "It's a team sport, baby!"

I've always felt there must be a special place in hell for the ostensibly genial spinner E. J. Dionne Jr. There is something so smoothly dishonest about his kind of spin that it gives me a chill -- the kind of chalkboard chill that slightly stiff velvet can give you. Indeed, you might call Dionne the master of the velvet covered lie. Here is an example:

Kerry's speech underscores that the core divide in American politics now is not between liberals and conservatives, or between capitalists and socialists. It is between libertarians and communitarians. Libertarians believe that tax cuts are always better than government programs, that private striving and self-improvement are the central acts of American citizenship, and that where the government and the market are concerned, the government should almost always get out of the way. Communitarians also see the market as useful and private striving as essential. But they insist that preserving the individual freedom that makes both possible is a cooperative endeavor. Self-rule in a democracy demands not just private creativity but also public commitment. Government needs to assert itself when private markets fail, and when markets fail to serve the common good.

In philosophy, we call this stacking the deck, a combining of strawmen within a poverty of alternatives. This is arsenic passed off in sticky berry sirup, the kind which is meant to entice children. Only someone with a deeply splenetic soul would perpetrate such a thing. I know there are folks who will vouch that Dionne is a good, religious man, etc. But there is something mean in the spirit of someone who would go to such trouble to slip through a deep lie about his opponents, all served up in halloween candy for the kiddies.

Posted by Greg Ransom