The Importance of Self-Editing

This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on June 11, 2009.

The Importance of Self-Editing

When you're writing for yourself, as in a diary, there's little need to be careful about how you write or even what you write. You can make up facts, twist reality, leave out inconvenient truths.

When you read your diary back to yourself, you do not edit it. In fact, if you edit your diary, correcting for misstatements, you might lose something valuable -- how you were feeling at the moment you put those thoughts down.

Similarly, fiction is, by definition, one big, long lie. I recently wrote a short story that is based on a trip I recently took to Hershey, Pennsylvania. Aside from the fact of the trip itself, however, none of the events in the story actually happened to me.

When you read back a piece of fiction, you will notice inconsistencies that need to be corrected, lest you jar your reader with them. But you generally don't correct misstatements, because the entire thing is a misstatement.

When you're writing "the news," though, you have an entirely different set of rules to live by. The writer is responsible for telling a compelling story, but more than that, the story must be true, it must be accurate.

If you write, you might find, as I do, that you fall in love with your words, that you come to see them as little children. You don't want to cut any of them -- you lose your objectivity.

When I was a reporter back in college, I developed quite a love/hate relationship with my editors. They would take my stories and rearrange, reword, cut. I hated each revision, dreaded seeing the edited copy. But, invariably, my story was better because of the editing.

Later in my college career, I became the editor, and my hope was that when I rearranged, reworded, and cut, I was doing my writers a favor, making the stories tighter, more readable. But even then, when I wrote hard news, I insisted that someone, anyone, edit my stories. The story, the integrity of the words, was more important than the writer.

Had I not been in love with my words, I would have been able to self-edit. But with my objectivity gone, it took a disinterested third party to keep me, and my words, honest. It is this love of ones own words that seems to be dampening the self-editing skills of the famous right-of-center commentators.

Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, touted by both the left and right (and by himself) as the de facto leader of the Republican Party, has repeatedly, unabashedly, and unashamedly spread half-truths, innuendo, and outright falsehoods. Senator-elect Al Franken went so far as to write a book, with Limbaugh as a prime example, called "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them".

Fox News Commentator Bill O'Reilly repeatedly called Dr. George Tiller a "baby killer" and equated him with Hitler, Mao, and Stalin. After Tiller was gunned down in his Kansas church, several right-wing websites repeated O'Reilly's rhetoric as they applauded and justified Tiller's death. O'Reilly half-heartedly decried the killing, but we are not fooled.

Most recently, the right's attack machine has been twisting a comment by Associate Justice-designate Sonia Sotomayor about the ability of a female Hispanic to render neutral judgement. They all came to the intellectually dishonest conclusion that she is a "racist." The futile attack was levelled by Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Charles Krauthammer, Ann Coulter, Tucker Carlson, and, of course, Rush Limbaugh.

Some of these personalities, after taking a step back, decided the rhetoric was over the top. Gingrich, for example, apologized for using the term. Republican Senator Jeff Sessions called for an end to the name-calling.

I understand how hard it is to self-edit -- it's even harder when your words are spoken than when they are written. I also understand that for these commentators, it is a part of their job to be loud, brash, and controversial. But with their wide following, self-editing is a skill they would do well to hone.

Legislating our way to prosperity?

This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on February 5, 2009.

Legislating our way to prosperity?

Just two weeks into the job, President Barack Obama is hitting something of a stride, despite the best efforts of some.

The mouthpiece of the Republican opposition, Rush Limbaugh, has already indicated that "I want him to fail," the "him" being Obama. His "damn the torpedoes" philosophy would rather see the economy in ruin than see Obama succeed.

Not every Republican finds kinship with Limbaugh's divisive opinions. One notable challenger is Republican stalwart Bill Bennett, who said that Limbaugh's "locution" was not what the nation needed.

However, challenging Limbaugh seems to be for brave-of-heart only. Republican Representative Phil Gingrey of Georgia made a public apology to Limbaugh after saying that he should "back off" the rhetoric.

As Bennett notes, such obstructionism is not helpful, especially as Obama and his team face the train wreck that is the American and global economies.

I definitely do not want Obama to fail. I want to keep my job and want to see my friends, family, and neighbors keep their jobs. The real question is, will the administration's current plans succeed in doing just that.

Of course, the President does not make law - he can only make coherent and thoughtful suggestions, and then sit back and watch the Congress mangle the plan into a chaotic mess, with bits of pork, poison pills, and totally unrelated measures added here and there.

The first version crafted by House Democrats was put before the full House and with the input of House Republicans, pared down in places and expanded in others. Of course, that input into the process didn't convince a single House Republican to vote for the $819 billion package. But with a sizable Democratic majority, the bill could stand to have no Republican support, and even a handful of Democratic detractors, and still pass.

The House's plan is now in front of the Senate, where it will get a much closer look. In the Senate, the Republicans have a considerable measure of power. This is good for the nation, because as I've written before, it does none of us any good to have bad bills railroaded through, even if there is majority agreement with them.

The sober second look the Senate will take (and, indeed, was designed to take) will end up being something Democrats and Republicans equally like and hate, a sure sign it is a good bill.

The end result must stimulate the economy. It must spend money on things to put people to work, now and in the future; on things that will entice or force banks to begin lending again; on things that will make a real difference.

As of this writing, the bill has a higher price tag than the original House version: $900 billion. The bill is divided into two parts: spending increases and tax cuts.

Welcome to the wonderfully confusing and seemingly paradoxical world of macroeconomics: while spending more, we need to take in less.

The strategy of tax cuts is to give consumers and businesses more money in their pockets, and then hope neither group sits on the new-found funds. If people are out there buying things, orders for new things will increase. If businesses have more orders, they will increase inventory, inventory that will have to produced by people. Hiring more people will lead to more people working, with more money to spend, and so on.

The strategy of increased spending is more direct - the government funds projects that require businesses and employees to complete, and more projects means more productive workers. Of course, more workers means more income tax, hopefully enough to balance out the tax cuts and some of that extra spending.

Case in point: the Census Bureau's plans to open shop in Williston, a possible boon for many of our recently-laid off.

It's the adage "You've got to spend money to make money" writ large.

The outlay of $900 billion scares me in its scope, but the consequences of doing nothing scare me even more. If the president has his way, the bill will be finalized and passed within a couple of weeks. The Congress has time to craft a final bill worthy of passage, worthy of signature. I hope that their sense of what's right, and not a Limbaugh-esque sense of spite, takes over and we get a bill that will help us claw our way out of this crisis.