Talking points | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    Every time something even remotely contentious rear it's ugly head, we hear politicians, both pro and con, spinning the facts to ensure that anyone who hears whatever it is, gets the "true" story. "True", as they would have you believe. Frequently, "true" has nothing to do with facts or what is being spoken. It's not surprising that they strive mightily to discredit the opponent. This is the case regardless of which party it is doing the talking, but I must admit that the Dems seem to be better at it than the Reps; especially when the two Davids (Plouffe and Axelrod) take up the cudgel. What is a bit eerie is that it seems as though the results of individual thought processes always seem to take all the folks of a particular political persuasion to virtually the exact same rhetorical points. All the Dems say the same thing. All the Reps say the same thing. So what's going on?? Clearly, not what we thought was going on.. We thought we were getting each individual's honest opinion.

    Welcome to the world of "Talking Points". We hear folks talking about "talking point" memos. It turns out that, according to Wikipedia:

   A talking point in debate or discourse is a succinct statement designed to persuasively support one side taken on an issue.[1][2][3][4] Such statements can either be free standing or created as retorts to the opposition's talking points and are frequently used in public relations, particularly in areas heavy in debate such as politics and marketing.

    A political think tank will strategize the most effective informational attack on a target topic and launch talking points from media personalities to saturate discourse in order to frame a debate in their favor, standardizing the responses of sympathizers to their unique cause.[citation needed]

    When used politically in this way, the typical purpose of a talking point is to propagandize, specifically using the technique of argumentum ad nauseam, i.e. continuous repetition within media outlets until accepted as fact.[citation needed]

    It must be an effective way to keep everyone on the same page telling the same story, but at what cost?? Politicians are spared the trouble of thinking, which in many cases is very likely their salvation.. (In case you were wondering, that is a "left handed" way of saying that the thought processes of many of our elected officials frequently leave something to be desired.) As it is, all they have to do is repeat the talking points provided by their party leaders'staff. The "leaders don't do it, the staff does. It seems a safe postulation that the talking points are provided by the staff because frequently it is painfully clear that even the party leaders are sight reading their talking points as they talk to the TV cameras. What is even more clear is that folks like Ms. Schumer's boy, Charlie and Ms. Reid's boy Harry are not very good "sight" readers. They frequently have trouble reading what the staffs have written for them to say. One would think they would read the talking points prepared by the staff before jumping in front of a TV cameras. But, alas...

    By having the staff doing all the thinking, there is no need for individual politicians to give any particular proposal much thought. Welcome to the wonderful world of 21st century politics. Unfortunately Jon Stewart the comedian is probably right in his criticism that talking points are no more than a superficial treatment of what normally should be considered an important issue and merit careful scrutiny.

    Do you suppose the party elite believe that the so called rank and file "need help" (i.e. aren't smart enough to understand what they have heard so they must be "instructed" as to what they are to believe)?? It would certainly seem so. Unfortunately, the party elite may be right. Why else would an elected representative of the folks be willing to have someone else do their thinking??

    It's almost enough to make one wonder who it is that really runs the government. Could it possibly be the congressional staffs??

    D'ya think??