I've helped to document the pernicious influence of lefty language guru George Lakoff in All the President's Spin and on this blog. But I never expected the Democrats to be so stupid when they try to use Lakoff's flawed ideas for reframing policy debates. Both Howard Dean and now Phil Angelides have recently engaged in explicit discussion of framing tactics, which focuses attention on strategy rather than policy and (correctly) makes them look manipulative.
As I noted a couple of weeks ago, Howard Dean's appearance on "Meet the Press" featured the admission that "we were outmanipulated by the Republicans" on the issue of abortion -- a tacit acknowledgement that Democrats tried to manipulate voters on abortion, but Republicans were better at it.
Now Mark Schmitt brings word of a similarly strange bit of self-confession from Phil Angelides, the Democratic treasurer of California and a prospective candidate for governor:
So I'm going to do it the way every good politician does: By reframing the issue. I am here to tell you today that we are not going to save the planet by converting one Hummer at a time.
No wonder the party can't win elections!
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