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.

——————————————

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