I see a lot of political writing that reads smoothly, has rhythm, but ultimately makes no sense. Last month I discussed an example from David Remnick in the New Yorker. And the other day I saw something in the New York Times that ticked me off, an opinion piece called “The End of California,” by Timothy Egan. The article had enough on-one-hand, on-the-other-hand to make anyone dizzy.
He starts out okay, giving stories about California’s famous drought. But then:
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s was human-caused, after the grasslands of the Great Plains were ripped up, and the land thrown to the wind. It never fully recovered. The California drought of today is mostly nature’s hand, diminishing an Eden created by man.
Huh? “Mostly nature’s hand”??? Who do you think diverted all the rivers and pumped out all the aquifers, if not humans?
The funny thing is, Egan himself recognizes this later on in his article. I just think he wrote the above sentences because they sounded good. I’m not saying he was trying to lie or mislead, it was more that he adapted his words to fit the music. It was time in his article for a little opposition or paradox, and this is what came out. And it sounded good, so it stayed in.
And here’s another wacky one:
It’s outlandish, urban critics note, for big farm units to be growing alfalfa — which consumes about 20 percent of the state’s irrigation water . . . Still, casting California farmers — who produce about half of the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables — as crony capitalist water gluttons may not be entirely fair. Yes, the water is subsidized, through taxpayer-funded dams, canals and pumping systems. But that water, in some cases, ends up as habitat for birds and wildlife. As it drains away, it can recharge badly depleted underground aquifers.
First off, a phrase like “corny capitalist water gluttons” is just a cheap rhetorical trick: You don’t have to be a “crony capitalist” to take things that are given to you for free. The argument is about the policy, not about individual farmers as bad guys (except to the extent that they are working to manipulate the rules). And, to say that taking water from aquifers is a plus because the runoff recharges depleted aquifers . . . that’s just silly.
Egan’s article hardly represents the worst of political reporting, or anything close. But I do think it is representative of a certain style of journalism on autopilot, where the flow of the writing is more important than the arguments actually making sense.