The Galli Report

If journalists should take sides at all during this election season, they ought to stand tough in defense of language. That’s especially true when some candidates for “Educator In Chief” dispute the usefulness of language itself, or tell us we should suspect those who use it too well.

Unlike position papers on health care, or the wisdom of military strategy in Iraq, language issues — such as the definition of words, and their proper usage — are well within the journalist’s area of expertise. Major newspapers and other media have style sheets that focus on usage; and most of them have editors who scrutinize the way in which words are used by their reporters. Journalists have no excuse for being hoodwinked about the meaning of words.

During a recent debate, Barack Obama was reminded that Louis Farrakhan had recently endorsed Obama’s candidacy. Tim Russert asked Obama if he “accepted” Farrakhan’s support. Obama immediately replied, “No, I have been very clear in my denunciation of Minister Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic comments; I think that they are unacceptable and reprehensible; I did not solicit this support…I have consistently denounced him.”

Manufacturing a false opportunity, and then seizing it, Hillary Clinton berated Obama for not “rejecting” Farrakhan’s endorsement rather than “denouncing” him. “There’s a difference between denouncing and rejecting,” Clinton lectured him. “ I just think, we’ve got to be even stronger.”

Obama explained why he had not used the word “reject” initially: “I obviously can’t censor him, but it is not support that I sought…There’s no formal offer of help from Minister Farrakhan that would involve me rejecting it.”

Hillary was delightedly unconvinced, so Obama cut short a misdirected discussion by saying “if the word ‘reject’ Senator Clinton feels is stronger than the word ‘denounce,’ then I’m happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce.”

For days thereafter, journalists and pundits appeared to be amazed by Obama’s initial failure to “reject” Farrakhan; and wondered what advantage Hillary had gained by making him use the same word that she insisted was the only right one — the only right one — to use in that circumstance. Journalists wondered aloud how much damage Obama’s “mistake” would cause to his relations with American Jews.

The utterly untested assumption that developed from the debate — and that was generally accepted by journalists — was that Hillary’s “rejection” of Farrakhan was more appropriate and more decisive than Obama’s “denunciation.”

In fact, just the opposite is true.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary online version (is there any other kind?) provides the following definitions:

• Reject: to refuse to accept, consider, submit to, take for some purpose, or use <rejected the suggestion> <reject a manuscript>

• Denounce: to pronounce especially publicly to be blameworthy or evil <they denounced him as a bigot>

Just as Obama told us, you can “reject” only something that is capable of either acceptance or rejection. The Red Sox (or Yankees?) can’t “reject” your desire, expressed or silent, that they win the pennant. Applying correct usage of the language, no candidate can properly “reject” an unsolicited endorsement. Such a “rejection” has no importance because by definition it has no practical meaning.

What you can do is denounce the person whose endorsement you never sought. Not only was Obama’s use of the word “denounce” proper when he applied it to Farrakhan, but denunciation of a bigot is the precise example that appears in the dictionary!

Yet journalists and pundits — none of whom, it seemed, consulted a dictionary — perpetuated for day after day the misconception that Obama appeared soft on anti-Semitism.

Journalists not only got wrong an obvious story line about concerns over anti-Semitism; journalists also missed the part of the story that journalists should have most appreciated.

Right there during a nationally-broadcast debate, Barack Obama was giving us all a lesson on why words are important; and how they ought to be used. At the same time, Hillary Clinton was giving us a lesson on how the abuse of words can be an effective tool — if “word professionals” such as journalists will allow words to be sloppily used.

It has been a long time since we have seen a politician whose candidacy has been so thoroughly linked to his elegant use of our language. Politicians who have to compete with him, and who can’t use the language nearly so well, abuse the language instead, because it’s so easy to do. Polling tells them which words push the right subconscious buttons, so words are fired like bullets and dropped like bombs, regardless of the lack of provocation or the collateral damage they cause. When Hillary dropped the “reject” bomb it was a dud in fact, but journalists treated it like a thermonuclear device.

Journalists should hang their heads in shame. It was their turf that Clinton and Obama were playing on. Journalists had a right, and in this case a duty, to report not that Obama was reluctant to adopt the word “reject” in dealing with Farrakhan’s endorsement, but that Hillary was incorrect — as a matter of simple definition — when she insisted otherwise.

Journalists should have realized that right there on national TV was a remarkable man who under enormous pressure exhibited an unusual respect and appreciation for our language. He patiently gave us all a lesson on why we should care about it. That was a story not to be missed. It was a joy to see, for those of us who noticed.

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Richard Galli is a writer, lawyer and Army veteran who spent six weeks in Iraq as a freelance journalist, embedded with soldiers performing Civil Affairs missions as he did in Vietnam. His dispatches from Iraq were published in The Providence Journal in 2007. He is the author of a novel, Of Rice and Men; and Rescuing Jeffrey, a memoir. His Iraq stories and photos can be found at http://www.gallireport.com