Today’s discourse lacks depth, facts, history

Have you heard the one about the Army general who walked into a Washington, D.C., bar?

It’s no joke.

There is no punch line.

It is simply analogous to the guy in the Texas Longhorns T-shirt who walked into an Oklahoma City bar this summer — Sooners territory.

Both came out bloodied, mauled and subjected to an attempted emasculation.

Thus is the state of civil discourse on the eve of the 220th anniversary of the signing of our Constitution by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia — an action that set off a year of profound and exhaustive debate between the pamphleteers of the Federalists and the Antifederalists and in the halls of the state legislatures.

Before Gen. David Petraeus could even sit down for his congressional hearing, MoveOn.org published a full-page ad in The New York Times with the headline: “GENERAL PETRAEUS OR GENERAL BETRAY US? Cooking the Books for the White House.”

The ad basically called the general a liar before he could even open his mouth and did so in a fashion typical of our current level of public debate — sound bites, slogans, chants and sophomoric rhyming puns. No sign of a recitation of facts or construction of linear arguments leading to a logical conclusion.

The ad even repeated the bogus claim that casualty counts were skewed — because deaths were not deemed to be assassinations unless the bullet was to the back of the head — before the general could bluntly refute it.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not bemoaning the uncivil nature of the discourse. I like a good brawl as much the next guy. It is the lack of depth. The lack of a basic grasp of the facts or history or logic.

The current level of debate has little more substance than the foul-mouthed chants of football fans who disagree with the referee’s call. It matters not what the truth is or even what the instant replay camera shows. All that matters is whose side you are on.

Somehow, when it comes to matters of life and death, war and peace, victory or surrender, I’d rather the debate be a bit more substantive.

The power of the president as commander in chief is hardly a newly minted subject for discussion.

At least when Philadelphiensis, thought to be Benjamin Workman, challenged the ratification of the Constitution in the 74th of The Antifederalist Papers, he did so with thoroughness, verve and strong argumentation.

“A conspiracy against the freedom of America, both deep and dangerous, has been formed by an infernal junto of demagogues,” he wrote. “Our thirteen free commonwealths are to be consolidated into one despotic monarchy. Is not this position obvious? Its evidence is intuitive … Who can deny but the president general will be a king to all intents and purposes, and one of the most dangerous kind too — a king elected to command a standing army. Thus our laws are to be administered by this tyrant; for the whole, or at least the most important part of the executive department is put in his hands.”

I must say that Gen. Petraeus rose above the fray. When asked by a reporter on Wednesday about the MoveOn.org ad, he commented that on the day the ad appeared a friend from his hometown — Cornwall on Hudson, N.Y. — sent him a copy of the Rudyard Kipling poem “If.”

He said he “took some strength” from it.

Though the general had the uncommon decency to not recite poetry aloud in public, I, of course, have no such qualms.

The poem begins:

“If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you

But make allowance for their doubting too,

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating …”

It also includes the lines:

“If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools …”

And concludes:

“… you’ll be a Man, my son.”

Real men don’t chant bad puns.

They turn off the TV and pick up the newspaper.

Thomas Mitchell is editor of the Review-Journal and writes on the role of the press and access to public information. He may be contacted at 383-0261 or via e-mail at tmitchell@reviewjournal.com.