Monday, August 18, 2008 Seares: Those spin doctors By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
“THE spin doctor will confuse you now.”
— From the book “Doublespeak: Why No One Knows What Anyone’s Saying Anymore” by William Lutz
WHEN the Supreme Court stopped with a restraining order the memorandum agreement between Government and MILF rebels, spin doctors were all over the scene.
Like those PHD holders in academe, spin doctors don’t have a degree in medicine and can’t heal sickness or injury.
William Lutz says the word is derived from such sports as pool and basketball in which the right spin can make the ball go
where the player wants it to go.
Spin doctors tell us that “what we saw is not what we saw and what we heard is not what we heard.”
Thus, they say the MOA is only an agreement to negotiate. It will still go to the Senate and the people still have to ratify it.
No territory will be carved out into a separate state. Not just the MILF will rule the expanded ARMM land but all Moros and Christians within it. And so forth and so on.
Mix, art
The pitch isn’t entirely untrue. It’s a mix of truth and falsehood. True: there’ll be a Senate review and a people’s plebiscite. False: negotiators didn’t think it was a done deal.
Spinning has become the “blatant art of bending the truth,” useful in politics where “image is everything.”
In the Arroyo government, which hops from one controversy to another, spin doctors do damage control and salvage work.
They justify any dastardly deed and try to win public sympathy.
Lutz says spin doctors insult our intelligence and usurp our right to make up our own minds.
I see it as more destructive when we fail to see the lie.
