Langford column: Truth or parody?
Guest Column
BY WENDELL RAMAGE
Published:
Wednesday, December 10, 2014 6:05 PM CST
Marilyn Langford’s column last week was
about a Republican congressional committee which found President Obama
and his staff “guiltless” in the Benghazi incident. I considered the
column to be intriguing. Perhaps, because I have spent my adult life
dealing with literary analysis, I saw in it all the characteristics of a
specific genre. It was a parody, a kind of writing that pokes fun at
what, on the surface, it seems to support.
A PARODY
uses unnecessary repetition to achieve an undeserved emphasis. Langford
begins her column by repeating the word “Benghazi” three consecutive
times. She makes each repetition so emphatic that the single word is a
sentence in itself. This emphasis is exaggeration, another trait of a
parody. For an intelligent reader, one Benghazi would have been
sufficient to relay Langford’s message. Three Benghazis, each as a
sentence, was over-kill. It was like killing an ant with a hydrogen
bomb. Why did she emphasize her point so thunderously? A psychological
principle indicates that the more uncertain one is of his view, the
louder he screams it.
LANGFORD DELVED into farce
when she concluded readers were sick of hearing about Benghazi. Then,
she plowed forward with a whole column on the very subject she said was
making readers sick. Why would she want to make county readers sick? She
talked about conspiracies being rift in the country. Was this a
conspiracy? I couldn’t tell.
THERE WAS something
classic about the way Langford presented readers the findings of the
congressional committee. The committee determined President Obama and
his staff were “guiltless” in the Benghazi tragedy. Langford seemed to
believe that being guiltless was a major victory for truth and
integrity. All it showed is that the president and administration had
not to have perpetrated actionable crimes.
THE PRESIDENT maintained unawareness and lack
of involvement in the events of that night in Libya. Isn’t that a crime
in itself? It was Democratic President Harry Truman who kept the sign
on his White House desk: “The buck stops here.” In short, the president
is ultimately responsible. Claiming ignorance or denying involvement
does not absolve responsibility. With President Obama, the buck never
gets to his desk. It goes to some remote, shadowy desk, to an unknown
and without the president’s knowledge. In the Benghazi situation, the
buck is said to have landed on the desk of a group of nameless
intelligence analysts. The president is unaware, a stranger to
personnel, isolated, uninformed and so politically inactive, I feel
sorry for him. No wonder he spends time on the golf course. He doesn’t
have anything else to do.
CONSIDER THE multitude
of scandals that define his presidency: The veterans’ care scandal, the
IRS scandal, the Affordable Care scandal, the domestic and foreign
spying scandal, Benghazi, etc. The president was ignorant of every
aspect of these troubling situations. Not only was he uninvolved, he
didn’t know what had happened or who had done what. If the president Is
telling the truth, why didn’t he know? Why wasn’t he involved? One must
wonder who our leader is, who is running the Ship of State and who is in
charge. For the record, using a small reason to justify something when
there is a larger reason that invalidates the small reason is another
kind of fallacy.
MY FAVORITE part of Langford’s
“parody” was her comment about people who watch Fox News. Triumphantly,
she proclaimed that people who watch Fox News are less informed than
others and there are studies to prove it. “Less informed” is the
politically correct way of saying “more ignorant”. Langford must have
spent considerable time working on that part of the column because never
have so many fallacies of reason occupied so small a space. When I was
a young boy, my daddy made me understand that one must not clump a
whole group into one mold. In short, it is inherently wrong to assume
that all Fox viewers are alike. Some Fox fans may be members of MENSA
while others may be ignorant, but the group will be as diverse as any
other large group. There are numerous studies which prove it. I would
like to know the origins of the studies Langford cited. Are they
harboring a bias, an agenda? What were their qualifications? Surely
Langford knows one can find studies which support every bias and agenda
under the sun. By the way, I watch MSNBC and Fox. I wonder what that
makes me.
LANGFORD’S DICTION demonstrated an
unmistakable disdain for all republicans and for FOX. She used loaded
terms such as “downright lies” and “demonized” in her reference to them.
I admit I don’t know the difference between a lie and a downright lie,
so I don’t know which one the president is guilty of. I do know there is
a substantial number of videos which show the president’s penchant for
telling untruths. Once one is caught lying, all his statements become
suspect. The president took no chance of being misunderstood. He lied
all along.
IT MADE me proud that Langford did
depart from the usual democrat response to every criticism of the
president. She did not introduce the “race card”. She understands that
one can disapprove of a policy, an action or a plan for reasons other
than that the president is half African-American.
I know Ms.
Langford’s column was no parody. She wasn’t making fun of her own views.
She was serious. She was expressing what she believed, and I admire any
one’s courage to do that. There were many accusations, and they were
stated in strong terms. One party seems to wish the other party would
vanish from the earth, and the other party is guilty of the same
feelings. Does anyone think of peaceful co-existence anymore?
I GREW
up in an avidly political family. One of my father’s joys was to be a
part of a fierce political debate. One might think he and his opponent
were about to fight to the death, but they didn’t. When the debate was
over, they shook hands and left still the best of friends. What has
happened to us that we no longer observe even simple rules of courtesy
where people with opposing views are concerned? Have we become such
egomaniacs that we think there is only one way and that is our way?
Until we become respectful of others and their opinions, we are less
than the great republic our ancestors created, regardless of whether we
are Democrats or Republicans.
YES! THIS column is a parody…of sorts.
Wendell Ramage of Forsyth is the former editor of the Reporter and is a retired English teacher.
