What is a moderate? Is someone who is pro-choice, against the death penalty, opposed to gay rights and in favor of lower taxes a \u201cmoderate\u201d?<\/p>\n
And what is the opposite of a moderate? An immoderate? An extremist? Careless? Gluttonous? <\/p>\n
I ask because yesterday, as most days, The Washington Post used the word a lot. <\/p>\n
\u201c[W]hen a more expansive<\/a> proposal\u2026was modified to appeal to moderate Democrats and Republicans\u2026.\u201d (Does this mean all Republicans are moderate or that none of them are?)<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026troublesome moderates\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSome moderate Democrats are arguing\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u2026the type of moderate<\/a> who could cool the nation\u2019s long-simmering judicial battles.\u201d (as opposed to those hot-headed progressives and conservatives?)<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026judicial moderates with \u2026 a record of what he considers good judgment\u2026\u201d (as opposed to progressives and conservatives with poor judgment?)<\/p>\n I\u2019m not passing judgment on The Post\u2019s good reporters. It is a institutional problem, not only at The Post but at virtually every newspaper in the U.S. They feel compelled to describe people in politics as either liberal, conservative or moderate.<\/p>\n I think moderate is a word with meaning. My unabridged Random House dictionary that always sits opened next to my desk is not, at more than 2,000 pages, moderate. I guess that makes it inferior to a smaller, more moderate, student dictionary. Nonetheless, according to my sidekick, the first definition of moderate is \u201ckept or keeping within reasonable or proper limits.\u201d Which means liberals and conservatives are not proper or reasonable. The second and third definitions may be more accurate, i.e., \u201cof medium quality, extent,\u201d or \u201cmediocre, fair.\u201d By the fifth definition we come to what Post writers and editors must mean: \u201ca person who is moderate in opinion or opposed to extreme views or actions, esp. in politics or religion,\u201d thus placing progressives and conservatives in the \u201cextreme.\u201d<\/p>\n If you examine a recent report<\/a> on the political ideals of the American public, you will find them extreme. There is widespread support for many typically \u201cliberal\u201d policies, along with large pluralities who think that homosexuality is \u201cunnatural\u201d and nearly as many people who think immigrants are a \u201cburden\u201d on society as those who don\u2019t. Are these people extremists?<\/p>\n Are moderates more measured, reasonable, temperate, level-headed, thoughtful? Or are they just the people who think with both hands, as in \u201con the one hand\u2026\u201d? <\/p>\n Describing politicians as moderate is passing judgment on them because the word itself is affirmative in meaning.<\/p>\n What if The Post banned the words moderate, liberal, conservative, progressive, reactionary and extremist to describe politicians? What would readers lose, other than the newspaper\u2019s pre-defined category of thought?<\/p>\n Journalists often describe those who are commenting on a policy as belonging to a political caste. By preceding Kathryn Kolbert\u2019s comment with an identification of her organization as a liberal advocacy group, The Post enabled a lot of people to discount her thoughts before she uttered them. But, The Post is bi-partisan, or perhaps prejudicial on an equal opportunity basis. \u201cThe Judicial Confirmation Network, a group that supports conservative nominees\u2026.\u201d Pity the poor reader who doesn\u2019t know how to judge ACORN as it is described in the story<\/a> as only an \u201cadvocacy group.\u201d Advocates for what? What would readers be left with if the newspaper didn\u2019t feel compelled to ascribe a general, vague definition to political thought? Heaven forbid they would judge the comment on its merits. If by using terms like moderate, liberal or conservative to describe someone who is quoted journalists are forewarning the reader that, as Mark Twain once said, \u201ctaffy is being pulled,\u201d then why include the quote at all?<\/p>\n A quick search finds 14 articles or Post blog postings yesterday that used the word moderate to describe someone in the American political area.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a proposal: If The Post wants to raise the level of political discourse above that of a pre-pubescent argument, e.g., \u201cYour mother wears combat boots,\u201d let\u2019s drop the pre-ordained descriptions.<\/p>\n I hope The Post will consider this modest, dare I say moderate, proposal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is a moderate? Is someone who is pro-choice, against the death penalty, opposed to gay rights and in favor of lower taxes a \u201cmoderate\u201d? And what is the opposite of a moderate? An immoderate? An extremist? Careless? Gluttonous? I ask because yesterday, as most days, The Washington Post used the word a lot. \u201c[W]hen… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}