The power to believe
In an interview on Salon, notorious word-twister Frank Luntz, whose past counsel has been to push for “tax relief” rather than “tax cuts” and who proposed substituting “personalizing” Social Security over “privatizing” it (and whose biggest success was in repositioning estate taxes as “the death tax”) has bold advice for the quote unquote president with regard to the State of the Union: Be believable.
I realize that when it comes to believability I’m old-fashioned. For the most part I like my believability to be linked to facts, particularly ones I can believe. Only occasionally do I fall back on pure belief, belief unsupported by facts, as with my belief in the inherent redemptive nature of art — even though Picasso was a thoroughly unpleasant person, Hitler was a scenic artist who later got up to some very mean business, and Francis Bacon painted grotesqueries like this. Irrespective of this blind spot — and it looks like one I’m filling in — I like belief to be based on facts.
The quote unquote has never needed the facts. His belief has been pure. God talks to him. I wish He told him better — or truer — things, but there it is. I wonder if now Luntz wants the quote unquote to be “believable” in a factual way. If that’s what he’s prescribing, both men would be better saving their breath, except Luntz is no doubt thrilled for this media opportunity. I’m betting the quote unquote, though, will wish he were somewhere else tonight, like under the covers. At least, that’s what I believe.