This Joke Isn’t Kosher

Quote:  “You don’t make a hog fatter by weighing it.”  Presidential candidate John Edwards, replying to a voter’s question about educational testing, in the Washington Post.

Figure of Speech:  analogy (an-AL-o-gy), the figure of parallel cases.  From the Greek, meaning “proportion.”

Edwards, a millionaire former litigator, appeals to the rural vote with folksy farmisms to show he’s a man of the land.  Linking the No Child Left Behind law to hog fattening makes an excellent analogy, a figure that reasons from comparable cases.  An analogy achieves the greatest rhetorical effect when it makes a huge semantic leap.  It’s a form of reductio ad absurdum — a fallacy in formal logic but extremely apropos in the political pigpen.

Actually, farmers do weigh hogs for much the same reason tests weigh students’ knowledge:  to tell whether the swill they’re fed has any effect.  Still, Edwards’ analogy appeals to voters who think testing has become the end-all and be-all of education.

Beware of using analogies that fail to match your ethos.  While Edwards is no more a pig farmer than Senator Clinton is, Figaro cringes at the thought of Hillary making a hog joke.  Only Edwards has the southern accent to pull it off. 

He reminds us of the Texan expression, “All hat and no cattle.”  But in politics, it’s all about the hat.

Snappy Answer:  “A drawl makes great manure.”

Penalty for Early Withdrawal

Quote:  “When we begin to draw down troops from Iraq, it will be from a position of strength and success, not from a position of fear and failure.” President Bush, quoted in the New York Times.

Figure of Speech:  syncrisis (SIN-crih-sis), the not- that- but- this figure. From the Greek, meaning “to compare.”

You might call the syncrisis the figure of black and white, which is why this bichromatic president uses it more than any other.  Include a pair of balanced phrases and throw in a dash of alliteration — “strength and success” versus “fear and failure” — and you got yourself a first-class issue definer.

Snappy Answer:  “This isn’t a plan for strength and success. It’s a plan for death and taxes.”

Hear Why John Quincy Adams Is So Darn Sexy!

You might want to know that Figaro’s interview with Doug Fabrizio on Radio West has been nationally syndicated and is being re-broadcast September 3.  You can hear it now by clicking here; or tune to XM Radio channel 133 on the 3rd.  This excrutiatingly thoughtful hourlong program sure beats going to the beach or spending time with your family!

 Figaro is booking orations around the country, and may be coming to a forum near you.  Stay tuned for a schedule.

Iraq-Nam

You’ll want to read this exchange from Ask Figaro:

Hey Figaro.  Bush pulled a very bold piece of rhetorical jujitsu in saying that the comparison of Iraq to Vietnam bolsters his own party’s line.  While I think the comparison is bogus (as our continued presence in Iraq creates more terrorists than it kills), and I doubt that any number of decades of war waged in Vietnam would’ve led to some kind of ‘success’, the speech was interesting and will have historical repercussions.

I’m very interested to hear your take on Bush’s move and the speech as a whole, and I’m a little disturbed to see that you haven’t written about this maneuver since the speech was made, but you have written about something unrelated. I hope you don’t sit this one out; there are a lot of people who will assimilate this speech into their talking points, and it may even change some minds. As one of the most widely read analysts of rhetoric today, your thoughts on this speech should be heard.

[signed] The Rude Gesture

Dear R.G., Boy, now I feel guilty.   Here I’ve been lecturing Mrs. O’Speech about Bush’s marvelous Iraq-Vietnam rhetoric while ignoring those masses of Figarists eager for my widely read analysis.  My only excuse is that I assumed both of them were on vacation.

I suspect that one of Figaro’s rhetorical heroes, Karl Rove, is behind the Iraq-Nam gambit. It was Rove, after all, who devised the brilliant strategy of running on one’s weaknesses.  If, say, your military record is dubious and your opponent won a medal in Vietnam, then you accuse your opponent of cowardice.  If your policy platform refuses to coddle the weak and the victimized, then you run as a “compassionate conservative.”  (Note to Senator Edwards:  Make fun of Hillary’s haircuts!)

Now put yourself in Karl Rove’s lame-duck shoes.  Citizens are beginning to call the war a “quagmire.”  So what do you do?  Point out the many obvious differences between the two wars?  No!  You campaign on your weakness.  The liberals lost Vietnam.  They forced our country to turn tail, which made Osama bin Laden think we were weak, which was why Al Qaeda attacked us!

Patently absurd as this logic is, it can work even if no one falls for it entirely.  In these undeliberative times, you don’t have to win the debate to win the election.  You need only to sow doubt in your own weaknesses, and in your opponent’s strengths.  Look what happened with the Swift Boat campaign; accusations of cowardice raised a small doubt about John Kerry even in the minds of voters who didn’t believe the ads. 

As the Creationists say, preach the controversy.  In a divided, argument-averse country, a small doubt can make all the difference. 

Yrs,
Fig. 

Roswell, We Have a Problem

Quote:   “Entertaining, thrilling, completely addictive, and a little scary.” Barzolff814 in the Los Angeles Times.

 

Figure of Speech:  synonymia (sin-o-NIM-ia), the word pile-on.  From the Greek, meaning “similar name.”

Barzolff814 is the pseudonym of a 35-year-old French animator who made two videos showing UFOs hovering over Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He posted them onYouTube, resulting in millions of hits and a gratifying amount of hysteria. 

The hoax was a bit of research for a feature film about a couple guys who do a fake UFO video that gets out of control.  Barzoff created his videos entirely by computer, using a suite of software that Figaro sorely wants for his birthday.  But now many people don’t believe him when he says his work is fake. 

Barzolff reacts to the brouhaha with a solid synonymia, a figure of speech that describes a single concept or state with a string of similar words.  It’s a form of amplification — a way of turning up the rhetorical volume.  The level of suckerdom out there in videoland isn’t just amazing.  It’s entertaining, thrilling, addictive (for some reason), and scary (for obvious reasons).

You can understand why the man used a pseudonym.

Snappy Answer:   “Whoa, did you see that? Made you look!”

For more on amplification, see page 5 of Figaro’s book.

And Hillary Is the Covetous Dragon

Quote:  “I’m a myth.  I’m Beowulf, I’m Grendel.”  Karl Rove

Figure of Speech: antonomasia (an-to-no-MAY-sia), the namer.  From the Greek, meaning “name swap.”

Hey, wait a minute.  Didn’t we devote our last entry to that witty cetacean of a man? And wasn’t the antonomasia the last entry’s figure?

Yes and yes, but we couldn’t resist.  After years spent labeling political opponents, the unemployed Mr. Rove now spends his time labeling himself.  Could we ask for more literate self-deprecation than comparisons to old heroes and monsters?

Figarists take note.  Rove is using more than funny figures; he’s employing a clever ethical strategy.  (That’s ethical as in “rhetorical ethos” for you neofigs.  It’s the image you present to your audience.)  Got a lousy image?  Are people calling you an evil genius out to destroy our republic?  Don’t just dismiss the hyperbole; set a backfire with hyperbole of your own.  And don’t just call yourself a Beowulf.  Poke fun at yourself — especially if, like Turd Blossom, you happen to look like you belong in Where the Wild Things Are.

With monsters like that, who needs politicians?

Snappy Answer:  “And we’re a pitchfork-carrying mob.”

For more on labeling, see page 110 of Figaro’s book. 

Got a comment? Click here.