Tony Snow-job's Rhetoric

Here are two comments attributed to former White House press secretary Tony Snow:

1) “The average Iranian is more Pro-American than virtually any college faculty in this country.”
2) “...the second war in this country, the war on God.”

There are some who would say that you have to treat this kind of comment with patience, compassion, and the type of engagement that would first recognize common ground, then explore how we could move from such inflammatory rhetoric to a constructive engagement. I don't disagree with some of that, mainly that you have to be willing to engage fully that other person. But let us not fool ourselves. We can have compassion for the person uttering these words. We can offer respect and protect their right to say such things. But we must also not be patsies, passive, or saps when it comes to political and communicative power games like the ones Mr. Snow is playing. Mr. Snow's comments deserve to be treated with the contempt they themselves seek to engender. They must be met with very hard assessment, and no quarter ought be given in castigating them for their insidiousness in sowing division.

All too often I encounter people who believe we are still living in days of yore when political debate was a measured exchange by folks whom, holding ideologically divergent views, would hold a battle of wits where the force of the better argument would rule the day. Sorry. That's not the case any more. Our country is sorely lacking in such kind of democratic deliberation. And while I do not cherish the idea of an agonistic culture where there will be only one person standing at the end (or as in Highlander..."there can be only one"), I do value confronting and challenging ideas and comments like these fully, in the harsh light of critical engagement. The power games of today do not benefit those who sit quietly and figure they'd rather not get involved, or they'd rather not get their hands "dirty." Engagement, forceful engagement with these ideas, notions, comments, and misrepresentations is essential for a healthy democratic culture, for honestys' sake, for ethical living.

Mr. Snow's comments are disrespectful, inane, fomenting discord, intentionally misleading, reductive of good sense, insulting to our intelligence, hyperbolic, fallacious, lacking good will, and plain stupid. The first one is a passive aggressive and thinly veiled insult and attack on the patriotism of good Americans (no doubt only to later claim that they never challenged the patriotism of anybody). That Mr. Snow can say anything at all about "the average Iranian" stretches reason, common sense, and any sensible measure of intelligence we may want to grant him. That he can then compare those same fictitious Iranians to American faculty is even worse in its ideological blindness, narrow minded-ness, and surfeit of arrogance and ill will in the association he wants to establish. I am not surprised because this is what passes for Republican debate nowadays. Look deeply at your party leaders my Republican friends. Their communicative strategy is redolent with hyperbole, attacks on patriotism, hucksterism, hyper-theo-political piety, fascistic impulses, defamation, and insidious attacks on others (whether about patriotism or belief, religiosity, etc.). Snow's second comment deserves equal chastisement. There is no "war on God," and such talk only feeds flames of hatred and encourages some out there to pursue that war metaphor to intemperate, and I daresay, evil ends. Mr. Snow's use of such words reveals a desire to use religion to sow discord, water seeds of hatred, and pollute what ought to be a fountain of good will, peace, and love for its believers.

We have to start holding public figures accountable for all the crap they spew. It starts with some rather simple efforts and it requires the courage to call them on what they say. So in the best tradition of Zen Master Lin Chi, Mr. Snow's comments are pure bullshit. He knows it, and he peddles it for cheap political gain over the good of our nation and our communities. He should know better, he is smart enough to do the right thing. That religiosity he is wearing on his sleeve ought to serve him for much better. We need to demand that our elected leaders, our media, and others fully respond to the insidiousness of such destructive rhetoric as that of Mr. Snow.

Comments

[Chris]

I should *hope* US college faculty have a more nuanced position on the US's place in the world (one way or the other) than an average person living under an oppressive and censorrific fundamentalist regime. What kind of system is Snow advocating with this comment?

As for War on God? Interesting idea but I'm afraid it wouldn't work. Even if we could bring down the bastard, they'd just build a new one.