Update on Norquist’s Spanish interview
September 30, 2004
Ken was right to be “suspicious of the Spanish interview”:http://www.thudfactor.com/textpattern/index.php?id=916 — the translation was accurate, but it turns out that the Spanish interviewer was _paraphrasing_, something (to my mind) unacceptable in an interview.
According to Norquist, a commenter claiming to be the interviewer and posting as “Zimba” (but unresponsive to my email) and _El Mundo_ , Norquist did not actually say World War II vets were anti-American. “He said they were "un-American."”:http://slate.msn.com/id/2107473/.
How much of a difference that actually represents, I don’t know.
Posted in So Called Media
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September 30th, 2004 at 9:09 am
How about looking at what Grover Norquist actually said? True, he did use the word “un-American”, but you’re ignoring the context. He appears to correct and clarify what he meant in the phrase immediately after.
From the actual transcript
“This is an age cohort that voted for a draft before the war started, and allowed the draft to continue for 25 years after the war was over. Their idea of the legitimate role of the state is radically different than anything previous generations knew, or subsequent generations. Before that generation, whenever you put a draft in, there were draft riots. After that generation, there were draft riots. This generation? No problem. Why not? Of course the government moves people around like pawns on a chessboard. One side spits off labor law, one side spits off Social Security. We will all work until we’re 65 and have the same pension. You know, some Bismarck, German thing, okay? Very un-American. Very unusual for America. The reaction to Great Depression, World War II, and so on: Centralization—not as much centralization as the rest of the world got, but much more than is usual in America. We’ve spent a lot of time dismantling some of that and moving away from that level of regimentation: getting rid of the draft . . .”
He never said vets were anti-american. He said that the entire generation enacted new deal policies that were more or less unprecedented in U.S. history. He did say “un-American”, but then immediately corrected it by saying “Very unusual for America”.
September 30th, 2004 at 9:23 am
The Slate article cuts off the Norquist quote at “Very un-American” and never quotes “Very unusual for America”. The authors pretend that Grover Norquist accused veterans of being un-American in a McCarthyist sense, then go off on some kind of anti-anticommunist riff, implying all sorts of bad things about Norquist’s motivations and his hatred for all good decent people.
When will journalists learn that you can’t selectively quote now?
September 30th, 2004 at 9:42 am
You do realize that the link you provided is not to the actual transcript? That it is other selective quotes from a larger piece? A transcript does not (apparently) exist online yet.
If you find a transcript, then let me know.
September 30th, 2004 at 9:54 am
Sure, the Weekly Standard article is not a complete transcript of the Norquist interview. But the text it does have comes in large blocks, without Slate or El Mundo selectively quoting, paraphrasing, interpreting, mistranslating, or outright making up things Norquist said.
September 30th, 2004 at 9:56 am
You’re right in that I should have linked it as From the actual transcript
September 30th, 2004 at 11:07 am
Grover Norquist is un-American. No wait, I mean “very unusual for America.” Few Americans, I think, want to shrink the government to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub. Or would compare the morality of the estate tax with the Holocaust.
Verrry “unusual.”
September 30th, 2004 at 11:08 am
Sorry, forgot the link for that last part
September 30th, 2004 at 11:56 am
You’ve convinced me. Grover Norquist is an evil man who sees complete moral equivalence between the callous racist murder of millions and the establishment of an estate tax. I bow to your superior wisdom.
September 30th, 2004 at 12:28 pm
Oh Ken! You cut me to the quick with your rapier-like sarcasm!
Come on, now. Did I say that Grover Norquist was evil? No. Did I say that he sees complete moral equivalence between the estate tax and the Holocaust? No.
But he does see fit to compare the two. Leaving aside the ethics of that, it’s a curious bit of logic. By his reasoning, any act of goverment that discriminates between classes of people—say, a progressive income tax, or a tax break for mortgage holders, or subsidies for the elderly—is an immoral act.
That he chooses to put the estate tax on the same moral yardstick as the Holocaust—even far apart—is just sick.
September 30th, 2004 at 12:33 pm
Wow, Ken! Now that is what I call a straw man! Did it make you feel better?
October 1st, 2004 at 7:58 am
It wasn’t a straw man, it was sarcasm, hyperbole, and a smidgen of humor. If I had couched it in serious terms, with no obvious sarcastic flags, then it would have been a straw man.
Anyway, he wasn’t comparing taxation to genocide. He was talking about something more along the lines of the tyranny of the majority, or more specifically the victimization of small minorities and the difficulty to get the majority to do anything to prevent it. Remeber this poem ?
I will readily admit that it is dumb to talk about the Holocaust and the Estate Tax in the same sentence, and when someone who is politically active can’t keep their foot out of their mouth they should be hesitant to speak extemporaneously in an interview.