Columnist Jon Ralston: Ideas languish in the chatter

Friday, June 24, 2005 | 4:16 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at ralston@vegas.com.

WEEKEND EDITION

June 25 - 26, 2005

Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin essentially compares the treatment of prisoners incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay to those who suffered at Auschwitz.

Presidential counselor Karl Rove portrays the Democratic Party as conciliation-firsters cum terrorist-sympathizers. And Mayor Oscar Goodman treats the homeless as sub-humans and lacerates those who try to help them.

The devolution of political discourse continues apace at all levels, in all parties, in all ways. Words do matter but, in the continued coarsening of the national and local debates, ideas don't. And amid all the plaintive lamentations and Kabuki-like outrage at some of these public statements, the real casualties are philosophical dividing lines and, ultimately, the truth.

There is a real difference between hyperbole used for effect and mindless name-calling, between incendiary verbiage used to provoke a meaningful colloquy and inflammatory statements that incinerate any chance for productive dialogue. And yet the much larger problem in American politics today is that so much is homogenized, pushed through a blender of political consultants and political correctness so that what emerges is rhetorical mush.

Somewhere in the middle is the place where principles fueled by strong words, even if they are offensive to some, replace venomous and empty assaults or hollow and meaningless prepared remarks.

Much more telling -- and depressing -- than what Durbin or Rove said so loudly last week was the response their comments generated.

Senate GOP leaders, in a letter designed mostly to extend the story a few more news cycles, called Durbin's comments "hyperbolic, insensitive and inaccurate." And House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, in a hyperbolic, insensitive and inaccurate outburst, called Durbin's remarks "a premeditated and monstrous attack against America's military."

I am not going to suggest that Durbin, who was forced to apologize, should have used Hitler or Pol Pot or Stalin in his comparison. Guantanamo is not Dachau or the Cambodian killing fields or the Soviet gulag. But his hyperbole obscured a point that should not be lost:

At what point does a civilized society cede the moral high ground if it resorts to the same human degradation used by repressive countries? Or, on the flip side, how much of what goes on behind those walls in Cuba is necessary but unpleasant, and generally kept from public view because, as one fictional Guantanamo commander once put it, "you can't handle the truth."

Instead of having the serious debate about what's happening at Guantanomo, the Republicans are eager to cut it off by making Durbin's comments the issue. But as more facts pour out about what's happening down there, it may be unavoidable.

Rove's remarks about the Democrats provoked the usual disproportionate response, too. Sen. Harry Reid and others called for his resignation. Nevada Democratic Party Chairwoman Adriana Martinez sent out a statement that was dripping with premeditated fury:

"Statements like the ones made by Karl Rove are outrageous, wrong, and a slap in the face of every American," she said. "Political pot shots won't help us win the war on terror, results will." Only in this world could a political pot shot be taken complaining about political pot shots. Fact is that too many Democrats, fearful of looking soft on terrorism or war, supported the war in Iraq and now, with the benefit of hindsight and polling data, are only too eager to pummel the administration. That is they were for the war before they were against it.

Again, the important question is lost: Whether or not the invasion was a mistake, how do we extricate ourselves now, and what effect will a pullout have in Iraq and across the region?

Much more important for Durbin and Rove, for the Democratic and Republican leaders who responded, is to strike a chord with a public that is mostly inured, too often ignorant or, worse, reflexively ready to be angry at someone or something. It happens in Washington and it happens in Carson City, as press releases and spinning substitute for substance.

Just look at the post-Session '05 pronouncements. Democrats pathetically declare "victory" as they surrender full funding of all-day kindergarten to pork projects and a meaningless rebate. Republicans wail about excessive spending but not one of them votes against the largest spending package in state annals. And yet the great debate over how money is spent and where it should be never takes place and is replaced by a silly battle over numbers, an echo of what occurred during The Great Tax Non-Debate of '03.

Even closer to home, Goodman's serially insensitive and hostile comments about the less fortunate will tap into the worst sentiments in the public and are thoroughly unproductive. One homeless advocate told me that some of what Goodman said that day at a regional planning meeting might have been worth discussing but was lost in what Damon Hodge of the Las Vegas Weekly astutely called "the type of spew-first-worry-about-recriminations-later vitriol he's become known for."

Unlike Durbin and Rove, whose harsh words belied an underlying and important point, Goodman's rhetoric generally is pointless and exposes his ignorance. He is the extreme example, where name-calling is always the first resort.

But what politics really is all about -- and has been for too long -- is taking a statement and blowing it out of proportion, trying to make it emblematic of who a person is, what a party stands for.

In the end, whether it is the pointed comments of Rove or Durbin and the mindless outrage they provoke, or the pointless broadsides by Goodman and the thoughtless mindset behind them, people will continue to respond to the provocation.

It's not that the public can't handle the truth. It's that too many people don't want to hear it, or couldn't recognize it anymore. And that's exactly what a political class bent on self-perpetuation is counting on.