More “Nuance” Nonsense

I have complained before about journalists falling into what might be termed the complexity trap, i.e., the mistaken assumption, or even assertion, that because John Kerry’s pronouncements are often long, complicated, and even contradictory they are necessarily complex or nuanced.

Now even Slate’s William Saletan, normally a reliable observer, has stepped into the trap, claiming that “[u]ntil now, the campaign was shaping up as a fight between simplicity (Bush) and complexity (Kerry).”

I see the pained ponderousness. I see the strained efforts to make current statements square with past statements, and occasionally even to make current statements square with current statements. I see continual, even continuous, “repositioning.” I see repeated effort to blame unnamed staffers and speechwriters for statements Kerry himself nevertheless makes in the speeches. (See Mickey Kaus’s hilarious put down today of Kerry blaming speechwriters for something he said in a speech, and then hastening afterwards to do something because he said in the speech he’d already done it.) I see a great deal of what is at best contradictory ambiguity and at worst duplicity.

What I don’t see is any “nuance” or “complexity.”