Anyone who writes for public consumption understands that there are those who might only take small bites, if any, and won't care for the offering. And that's quite allright. If the presentation happens to be one in the polarized political arena, well then right from the start at least half of your consumers won't care for the product. That's a given, and that's allright too.
Disagreement is the natural byproduct of public discourse. It is inevitable. Nevertheless, one should always try to focus on facts and substance.
However, in our present age the political arena often finds itself filled with positions from which one may beat a hasty and later retreat. We see that the debate often encompasses the marriage of a stance needed to satisfy loyal soldiers in the political march, with the concomitant option of plausible deniability. And sometimes plausible is left in the rush while leadership scatters from a point that has become too far removed from recognizable core values.
In our system of public debate, one is continually reminded that the other side also gets to speak. Issue oriented ads get run on television, as do attack ads. Newspapers run stories, and most offer an op-ed page. Editorials are published and letters to the editor find their way to print.
The process begins to lurch when one side or another tries to argue that another's voice should be silenced. Certainly one who would engage in such a plea might be expected to have his or her reasons; perhaps there was an error, perhaps even a falsehood.
ADVERTISEMENT
Nonetheless, difficulties abound down this path. Who gets to decide what may or may not be stated in such a public discussion; what constitutes the critical error that crosses the invisible line? Our Supreme Court has set certain rules, but the media has over time also defined a set of ethics that are touted as irreproachable. Then again, will the same rules and ethics apply if the loyal opposition might influence the gateway through which your message must pass?
One should see that such a systemic degradation could easily lead to the bare pursuit of power in the control of speech. In a time of increasing mistrust, where will we head if Democratic newspapers squelch the Republican voice, or Repub-lican television silences the Democratic message?
This leads us to a column that appeared in this space on February 22nd expressing concern about state DFL leadership referring to a TV ad by the Progress for America Voter Fund as a lie, and encouraging Minnesota stations to refuse to run it. In response, the state DFL party chair sent a letter to this paper first pointing out that he did not label as a lie the beliefs of our soldiers' families' as were stated in that second ad. However, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on February 17th that the same DFL party chair had held a news conference in which he called the ad "un-American, untruthful, and a lie," while fixing the time of these comments at "even as a new [second] ad has begun running."
Apparently there is a compelling distinction to be drawn as to whether one is labeling a soldier's beliefs in the first ad as untruthful, or possibly those of his family in the second. To some, this may be a difference without distinction. More telling was the unapologetic affirmation that indeed local Twin Cities media outlets were solicited to not allow themselves to be used as "tools" by running a message that political leadership felt was "distorted and untruthful."
This then brings us full circle. The first effort was to influence television stations to close down a means of communication.
Even though certain individuals may think the soldiers' comments were untruthful, I'm sure our servicemen spoke the truth as they knew it to be in their hearts. Again, the question is who gets to decide what is or isn't a lie, a mistake, a partial truth, or an entirely genuine exactitude. The argument has been set forth that, in this instance it was correct to issue the demand, as reported by WCCO, that the commercial not be aired. And with that argument goes a little of your freedom.
