Misleading, meaningless labels

When Dan Rather was caught red-handed passing off forged and fraudulent documents indicting the president of the United States for supposedly not fulfilling his National Guard obligations, he resorted to the Hillary Clinton defense.

One of his producers was quoted as saying: “All Dan could say was that this was an attack from the right-wing nuts, and that we should have expected this, given the stakes. He was terribly defensive and nervous.”

Have you ever noticed the last refuge of scoundrels is not patriotism, as the old aphorism goes, but labeling – name-calling, reducing intelligent debate to bumper-sticker shouting.

I detest labels. Every time I use one myself, I cringe. It’s not good reporting. It’s not good analysis. It’s not good debate to resort to using them.

Whatever happened to the good old days when reporters reported?

Did those days really exist? Or are they just phantom images of a faulty memory?

I have been mislabeled a conservative so often now in print that it no longer seems to matter what I say – how I characterize myself. What I say about myself and my publication is my “opinion” – relegated to the “letters to the editor” section – while reporters who don’t know me are free to make judgments about me and my work based on purely derivative journalism.

But this isn’t about me.

It’s about truth. It’s about real dialogue. It’s about more than superficial discussion of important, vital, national issues.

You might notice that I restrain myself from using labels in my work. It’s very difficult. But it’s very important to do so. Sometimes I slip. But, even though I detest most of what constitutes the ideology of liberalism, I don’t just hurl that label as an epithet.

Why? Because it is ineffective. It lowers the level of our debate and discussion. It’s overly simplistic.

In news reporting, it is even more important to avoid that kind of political labeling – or stereotyping – of people and ideas. This is especially true if the person being labeled doesn’t agree with the label.

I should know whether I’m a conservative or not. I think I should have the right to decide what my worldview is. It is very offensive to me when others try to pigeonhole me – so I try not to do it to others.

What do these labels we hurl really mean any way? They mean different things to different people. They have meant different things at different times in history. And they mean different things in different places.

For those old enough to remember the old Soviet Union, the hard-line communists were known by some in the media as “conservatives.” At the same time, their arch-nemesis in the world, Ronald Reagan, was known as a conservative.

If dropped into today’s world, Thomas Jefferson would be perceived as a far, right-wing Christian. In his time, he was known as a liberal.

This is another reason labels are so problematic – and I want no part of them, not for me and not by me.

So, understanding all that, how can we continue using these confusing labels so readily, so frequently, so cavalierly?

While I love talk radio, unfortunately, it is falling victim to this kind of bumper-sticker blame game.

I’m sure Dan Rather considers me one of the right-wing nuts who helped expose his journalistic sins.

Have you ever noticed, though, how the use of labels actually says more about those who use them than about those to whom they are directed?

You rarely hear a right-wing nut call someone else a right-wing nut. You rarely hear a left-wing nut call someone else a left-wing nut.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

And that’s what people like Dan Rather have lost.