Learning from Gerson

For any student of contemporary conservative rhetoric,a recent column [1] by Michael Gerson provides a fine specimen. Bush's chief speech writer until 2006, Gerson now roosts in the Washington Posts' op-ed section. His Wednesday column is a choice piece of revisionism.

There is, according to Gerson, no Republican war on science. In Gersonlandia, the Republican School Board in Kansas never removed evolution from state-wide standards [2]. Republican strategist Frank Luntz never urged the Republicans party [3] to "make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate" on Global Warming. And, of course, the Republican White House never repeatedly [4] doctored [5] EPA reports.

Gerson doesn't deny any of these examples. He just doesn't mention them. Selective amnesia is not the only tactic in the Gersonian playbook. Here are three more.

1. The Strawmen (Old and Forever Effective)
Accusations of a Republican War on Science are, Gerson argues,

a political ploy -- actually an attempt to shut down political debate. Any practical concern about the content of government sex-education curricula is labeled "anti-science." Any ethical question about the destruction of human embryos to harvest their cells is dismissed as "theological" and thus illegitimate.."

Liberals wish to end the conversation, to impose their own 'scientism' upon the mild-mannered opposition. Of course, not even the shrillest liberal is so censorious. And it is the conservatives who actually manage to 'shut down' inquiry [6]. It is a lot easier to deal with an imaginary position than an actual argument.

2.Turn The Tables
Gerson alleges a

"war within liberalism between the idea of unrestricted science in the cause of health and the principle that all men are created equal -- between humanitarianism and egalitarianism."

Sometimes 'humanitarianism' wins out over egalitarianism. That's why some liberals supported eugenics. Today, again, liberals risk sacrificing their commitment to equality. Genetic screening is (somehow) a new form of eugenics. Liberal support of genetic screening and abortion (somehow) constitutes a 'war on equality.

This summary makes it sound like Gerson is actually making an argument, however bad that argument might be (No one is forcing mothers to abort in the name of a strong and healthy society!) This is too charitable. Gerson doesn't make an argument. He conjures a mood, a fog of associations and implications. This is intentional. It's easy to rebut an argument, but hard to see through a fog.

3. The Nazi-Implication
Gerson is smart enough to know that a direct comparison with the Third Reich not fly. He invokes, instead, the Nazism through some sympathetic magic:

"Nazism largely discredited the old eugenics. But a new eugenics -- the eugenics of genetic screening and abortion, the eugenics of genetic selection in the process of in vitro fertilization -- is alive and well"

Nazis used Eugenics. Genetic screening and abortion are a new form of Eugenics. Liberals support genetic screening and abortion. See how close it all is!

Leaving Gerson's dreamworld: there is a real and important crusade against open research and inquiry carried out by GOP and corporate interests. For a detailed account, check out Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science. [7]

P.S: . Gerson is not universally loved on the Right. Ramesh Ponnuru considers [8] Gerson representative of a degraded 'Bushist' faux-consvervativism: statist, idealistic, and bumbling. In a lengthy Atlantic take-down [9], fellow Bush-speechwriter (and lonely conservative vegatarian [10]) Matthew Scully accused Gerson of puffing up his own 'speechwriterly' achievements, and general megalomania.