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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted on TAPPED
SOMEBODY BUY THE BUSH RESEARCH DEPARTMENT THAT LYNNE TRUSS BOOK. The latest missive from Bush-Cheney '04 attacking John Kerry's plans to combat terrorism is so patently contradicted by the examples of Kerry's writing it cites that it makes you wonder if the research department staffer who came up with this stuff is really this dense -- or if the campaign is just completely desperate to land a blow on an issue they used to own but are increasingly losing control of. Whatever the case, what's clear is that someone needs to send some copies of national best-seller Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation across the river, pronto.

The Bush-Cheney campaign says (all punctuation and formatting as per the original):

• In Book, Kerry Called Yasser Arafat "Statesman" And "Role Model." "Terrorist organizations with specific political agendas may be encouraged and emboldened by Yasser Arafat's transformation from outlaw to statesman, while those whose only object is to disrupt society require no such 'role models.'" (Sen. John Kerry, The New War, 1997, pp. 112-113)

As you can see, though, Kerry never called Yasser Arafat a role model; he wrote that some see him as a "role model." Those scare quotes are key. They completely change the meaning of the words they surround. The scare quotes mean that Kerry is saying that some terrorist groups look up to Arafat, but that the author, Kerry, specifically contests this definition.

That is the standard meaning of the use of scare quotes as punctuation. To wit: "Scare quotes are quotation marks placed around a word or phrase from which you, the writer, wish to distance yourself because you consider that word or phrase to be odd or inappropriate for some reason." To quote Kerry correctly, the Bush campaign would have to have said that Kerry called Arafat a " 'role model' ." Except that level of accuracy would have made it clear that Kerry wasn't claiming the belief as his own.

As for calling Arafat a "statesman," it's clear from context -- like calling him an "outlaw" only two words before -- that Kerry isn't calling Arafat a wise and great diplomatic leader, but is using the other standard definition of the word, to refer to someone who is "actively engaged in conducting the business of a government or in shaping its policies," as my 2001 Merriam-Webster's defines it.

It's one thing to attack someone on their politics. It's quite another to deny the standard meanings of English words and punctuation practices in an effort to impute beliefs to someone that he clearly does not have.

--Garance Franke-Ruta
Posted at 03:55 PM