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Lame Brain

Some of you may recall my criticisms of Emory University psychologist Drew Westen and his new instruction book for Democrats, THE POLITICAL BRAIN: THE ROLE OF EMOTION IN DECIDING THE FATE OF THE NATION. (See here, here, and here.) If you don?t, the gist (actually, the entire substance) of his argument is nicely conveyed in this passage from an unintentionally hilarious article about the book in the Los Angeles Times, which I quoted in the first ?here? above:

... [Westen] lays out his argument that Democrats must connect emotionally with the American electorate ? and that he can teach them how.
....
Westen writes that it doesn?t make sense to argue an issue using facts and figures and to count on voters ? particularly the swing voters who decide national elections ? to make choices based on sophisticated understandings of policy differences or procedures. He says Democratic candidates must learn to do what Republicans have understood for many years ? they must appeal to emotions....

If the Democrats weren?t taking this argument so seriously Westen wouldn?t be worth the attention I?ve already given him, but since even normally sensible liberals such as the editors of The New Republic continue to treat this would-be emperor of Democratic campaign rhetoric as though he were actually clothed with a sensible argument it is, alas, necessary to point to his most recent lame exposition on the political brain.

I recently criticized Obama for playing the race and bigot cards by ridiculously attempting to portray any criticism of his scant record as the politics of ?fear? and pre-emptively denouncing Republicans calling attention to his race, which they haven?t done, by calling attention to his race. Now comes clothesless emperor Westen, in another unintentionally hilarious article, this one in the usually somber New Republic, who attempts to provide some academic cover for Obama?s preemptive demonizing of Republican criticism. Apparently what Westen means by urging emphasis on ?emotions? rather than facts is nothing more than old-fashioned vituperative mud-slinging.

Luckily, the quality of the argument here can be easily conveyed with once brief excerpt, which will spare you the pain I endured by reading the whole thing.

Over the last several weeks, McCain has been running ?The American President,? an ad with all the trappings of positivity, but that actually sets the stage for all future attacks. The attacks will not come from McCain. They will come from the momentarity dormant 527s behind them, giving McCain plausible deniability while they make the presidential contest about Barack Obama?s differentness and activate unconscious racial sentiments that Republicans have preyed upon for four decades.

The name of McCain?s ad itself suggests both its positive message and its more insidious subtext: What other kind of President is there? An un-American President, someone who is not really ?one of us?? An anti-American President? Or perhaps just an African-American President....

So what is the message of ?The American President?? The announcer asks, ?What must a president believe about us?? This seems innocuous enough, until you realize that it implicitly sets Obama up as ?not one of us? and lays the ground for the RNC and the 527s to remind Americans of Obama?s ?elitist? comments about average Americans, which McCain is already riffing on in stump speeches, and Michelle Obama?s gaffe about being really proud of her country ?for the first time,? to which Cindy McCain responded that she has always been proud of her country. (Apparently her country?s refusal to let black people vote for a century after the Civil War, including during her lifetime, never touched her sense of national pride.)

The announcer goes on, ?And what must we believe about that president? What does he think? Where has he been? Has he walked the walk?? Again, innocuous enough, but it plays on the question of what Obama must have been thinking in the (did I say black?) pews all those years while listening to Reverend Wright, or what he must have learned in the Muslim schools he allegedly attended in Indonesia. The ad ends, ?John McCain: The American President Americans have been waiting for.? Syntactically, that?s an oddly redundant conclusion. Why not, ?John McCain: The President Americans have been waiting for?? Because, of course, that second rendering would not imply that his opponent is not American.

So, McCain is a racist for daring to use the adjective ?American,? for calling attention to Obama?s passive acceptance of Rev. Wright?s rantings, for Michelle?s lack of pride, until recently, in ?downright mean? America.

I almost hope the Democrats keep this up, but I remain surprised that The New Republic would take this tripe seriously. Actually, even calling it tripe is an insult to cows and pigs, whose cooked stomach linings are much tastier than Westen?s partisan stew.

Full post as published by Discriminations on June 23, 2008 (boomark / email).