Po-lie-ticians

As a regular viewer of C-SPAN's Washington Journal program each morning, I have to tell you that the way most guest politicians respond to direct questions gives a whole new meaning to tap-dancing.

I mean a caller to the show or sometimes the C-SPAN moderator will pose a simple question in plain English that can be answered with a simple yes or no. And most of the time from the way the politician responds you'd think no question was even put to them.

This is true whether the guest politician or some policy wonk is a so-called Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, Republican or whatever. Male or female, Black or White, they can all do the tap-dance.

Fred Astaire and Gene Kelley would both spin in their graves if they knew about this 21st century form of tap-dancing.

The most animated tap-dancing seems to come when the usually self-absorbed expert is asked either about how tax-payers' hard-earned money is spent or why their current position on an issue is at odds with their previous public statements or actions.

And lately there has been lots of tap-dancing when the topic has been about the number of unemployed people in this country. Just like Ben Bernanke (chairman of the Federal Reserve) can make trillions of dollars appear out of thin air, these po-lie-ticians can also perform astounding magic tricks right before your eyes.

One of the most amazing displays of supernatural ability is the way the number of unemployed can be made to vary by huge margins depending on how they are counted. If you just count the number of individuals actually receiving unemployment benefits you get one figure. But if you count the total number of people out of work you get a much larger and indeed far more frightening number.

To make a little sense out of this, let's compare the unemployed workers to the passengers of the ill-fated Titanic. All on board this ship are out of work. And for this illustration let's call the lifeboats 'unemployment benefits.'

To start we'll ask the po-lie-tician of the moment a simple question. 'Mr. or Mrs. Merlin, how many Americans are out of work?'

Simple straight-forward question in plain English; or so you would think.

'Well, according to (insert name of government agency that tracks the numbers receiving unemployment benefits) there are about (any figure here will do)."

Notice that the well-paid elected official doesn't even speak directly to the question. The question, for this analogy, was how many are on the Titanic, not how many are in the lifeboats!

Note: Unless interrupted, the magician can go on and on for quite some time and say pretty much nothing.

It's much to my chagrin that the C-SPAN moderators are obviously trained not to debate with the guests on the show so lots of hot air gets generated and in many cases there is no challenge to it.

Back to the magician. With little effort at all, like breathing in and out, the public servant spews 'fact and figures(?)' that they know are at best misleading. We know they do it, but the big question is why do they do it.

In this example there is great potential for the servant to snag him or herself on a nail of incredulity if they're not careful in choosing the right words.

For instance, an honest politician (don't laugh too hard OK) would answer the question by saying "no one really knows how many people are out of work."

But instead most will use statistics (gathered for these moments) to paint a less than truthful, but in most cases, rosier picture.

By citing those receiving benefits, the sophist is able to focus attention on those being helped by the government; those in the lifeboat. The unspoken inference is that the government is in control and is doing good deeds for the people.

This process provides two benefits for the politician. First, it leads many to believe that the number receiving unemployment is the actual number of unemployed. Only this is not a true picture. Remember it's only those in the lifeboats being referred to by the official. The total number of passengers far exceeds those lucky enough to make it to a lifeboat. So the politician's rhetoric leads to the belief that things are not as bad as they are. And as for those who don't get a seat in a lifeboat, well it's like they don't even exist.

The second and more important benefit to the politician by this type of obfuscating is that by focusing on the 'lifeboat' provided by the government, while completely ignoring the doomed passengers and the Titanic itself, no discussion of the 'iceberg' ever occurs.

The iceberg is the metaphorical representation of the totality of business decisions, legislation, trade agreements and off the record backroom deals that led to the current unemployment situation in our country today.

How can you maintain a decent living when all the jobs have been out-sourced?

No politician who wants to be re-elected desires to enter into discussion about the real truth of how the elected representatives in Washington, D.C. are in most cases no more than shills for big business. They all get paid many times more than their constituents and rack up pretty good with campaign donations and other perks that come with their every day quid pro quo activities.

Those of you paying attention know that things are far more serious, and have been for quite some time, than we are being led to believe.

Pray for our country.