William Safire on Politics and Language

Columnist and former Nixon speechwriter William Safire, whose political dictionary is being rereleased April 30 with hundreds of new terms, was online Wednesday, April 23 at 10 a.m. ET to discuss the language of politics and some of the changes brought to it in the past 15 years.

The transcript follows.

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Washington: I don't recall the specific circumstances that led you to call Hillary Clinton a "congenital liar." Could you please remind us? If possible, could you compare and contrast her untruths of the '90s with her more recent fibs (her death-defying trip to Bosnia, her childhood letter to NASA, her profound bond with Sir Edmund Hillary, her crack rifle skills...)

William Safire: That question was asked so often that the New York Times published my 1996 column on its Web site yesterday. To reduce the animus after President Clinton reacted with a comment that if he were not president, he'd punch me in the nose, the humorist Mark Russell cooled the contretemps by suggesting that I had written "congenial lawyer" and it was garbled in transmission.

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Rockville, Md.: For years I have had a debate with certain colleagues about the proper use of "or not" in conjunction with "whether" -- specifically, is the "or not" extra verbiage? For example: "I do not know whether it is raining outside." One side of the debate says that, in the absence of other specific possibilities, the "not" is the only possible implication; the other says that it leaves open what the other choices might be, even if other choices (e.g. snowing) are impossible under the circumstances. What do you think?

William Safire: It's a matter of style, not grammar; my style is to drop the "or not."

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Burbank, Calif.: Is it incorrect to refer to the Democratic Party as the Democrat Party? Why is this sometimes intended or taken as an offense?

William Safire: In "Safire's Political Dictionary," you can find the answer under "Democrat." Tom Dewey was probably the first to use it, and it was popularized by Len Hall in 1955. I think the "harsh ending" of "crat" as in "bureaucrat" made it an attack technique, and it is still used because it drives Democratic party members up the wall. Some have retaliated by calling the other party members "Publicans," but that never caught on.

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Colorado: Do you find the term "heartland" and its implications that some Americans are more American than other Americans as offensive as I do?

William Safire: It started as a description of Eastern Europe in 1904, and was popularized in the U.S. by Gen. Eisenhower's 1945 Guildhall speech in London: "I come from the very heartland of America". I don't see it as a putdown of people who live on the coasts. (Well, maybe the "left coast".)

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Princeton, N.J.: As a fat old liberal Democrat, it seems to me that conservatives have been the most guilty of perverting the language of politics. There are many examples, but I will look just at the use of the term "death tax" instead of the correct name, "estate tax." The amount of the tax does not depend on how you die, distinguishing between death by cancer or car accident. It depends on the size of your estate. As for the argument that you pay it when you die, the person who dies does not pay it. He can't; he is dead. It is paid by his heirs. Furthermore, do conservatives call the income tax, the "April 15 Tax"?

I understand that the idea behind this perversion of language is to get people to believe that everyone who dies will have to pay the "death tax," when actually only a fraction of 1 percent of the richest pay any estate tax. This is a clear example of how to lie with language usage, and is analogous to lying with statistics -- which conservatives also excel at, but that's a story for another day.

William Safire: Both sides use the technique. How about when White House aides (whoever is in office) are accused of a "bunker mentality"? That's an evocation of Hitler's bunker.

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Montreal: Mr. Safire, watching coverage of the Pope's Yankee Stadium mass this past weekend, I was particularly struck by an interview by a Fox journalist and a priest that largely dwelt on notions of freedom. What was fascinating was that, while they didn't refer to it, the two parties seemed to have distinct and different assumptions about what the word "freedom" means.

It seems to me that this is a widespread trend in current political language, where the basic meaning of words changes radically when they are used in a political context, so that depending on one's politics or lack thereof, the very key meaning of formerly common and universal concepts is changed. Could you comment on this?

William Safire: I wrote a novel about Lincoln and emancipation and used the title "Freedom." In the 18th century, the more frequently used word was "liberty." Libertarians (of which I'm one) tend to use it to mean "personal freedom"; when George W. Bush uses it in speeches, it has to do with his "freedom agenda," which proposes to extend political freedom around the world.

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Washington: Mr Safire, please answer: Is it correct to say "I'll have three Whopper Juniors" or "I'll have three Whoppers Junior"??

William Safire: You're using the analogy of "attorneys general" and "courts martial," pluralizing the noun and not the adjective. I like to order "Whoppers Junior" because it gets a funny look or a laugh.

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Silver Spring, Md.: McCain, Clinton, Obama -- which candidate's oratory do you like best/worst and why? Do you find yourself missing your regular New York Times column during this campaign? Your fans do!

William Safire: I sometimes get the urge to let loose a blast at some politician but I lie down and let it pass. After 35 years on the op-ed page, I'm happy to comment on the political language in my Sunday Times Magazine column and in my dictionary. But thanks for missing my vituperations.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Don't you think that Republicans are more often referred to in the mainstream press as "right-wing" or "far right" than Democrats are referred to as "left-wing" or "far left"? Isn't this a bias?

William Safire: Right-wingers often call themselves that; lefties hate "left-winger." I guess it's a matter of sensitivity. But both have been overtaken by "moonbat" and "wingnut."

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Boston: When/why did politicians start using the locution "at the end of the day"?

William Safire: After all is said and done, it has begun to disappear.

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Baltimore: Because of the question about "heartland," how do you feel about the post-Sept. 11 description of the U.S. as "the homeland," as in the Department of Homeland Security? Frankly, I think it has Stalinist/Hitlerian overtones.

William Safire: Some people do recall the totalitarian overtone of "homeland" (Heimstaette) but it was used by Zionist Theodore Herzl in 1897. I believe "Homeland Security" was chosen because "Internal Security" and "Domestic Security" have sinister overtones.

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Owings Mills, Md.: Thanks for taking my question, Mr. Safire. When, if ever, can we all stop referring to everything as a "gate" -- "Bittergate" being the most recent example. It seems like flabby journalism to me. Not everything needs a one-word name, and most of these encapsulations are very poor similes to what went on in and around the Watergate hotel during Nixon's time. I doubt most people -- younger newscasters included -- could describe the Watergate scandal accurately.

William Safire: There is no stopping the "gate" construction. My favorite was about an accounting scandal we called "double-billingsgate."

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Palm Bay, Fla.: Mr. Safire, my question is, when did the word "illegal" become "undocumented."

William Safire: The euphemism for "undocumented" is now "guest worker."

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Alexandria, Va.: I have two questions about popular catch-phrases often used in political discourse. One is the use of the term "Dudley Do-Right" for someone of almost unendurable virtue. It was of course the name of a character on the old "The Bullwinkle Show" TV cartoon. But did the term originate with the show, or did it exist prior to that? It was used by John Glenn to describe himself in the movie "The Right Stuff," which was supposed to take place either before the show first appeared on the air or at just about the same time.

The other is the use of the term "mean-spirited" to describe Republicans and conservatives when they object to any new outlays of taxpayer money to various special interest groups. Do you know which liberal spokesperson originated this phrase? Thanks!

William Safire: The Oxford English Dictionary reports that "away with that mean-spirited religion" was used in 1694 by a man named Bragge.

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