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Lurking behind the curtain

Posted by: Peggy Denker on May 08, 2009

Near the end of the Wizard of Oz, the little dog Toto pulls back the curtain and exposes a man behind the scenes who's pulling all the strings. And so today, in Toto's memory, we bring you the latest contribution from GOP spinmeister Frank Luntz.

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkeley says this about Luntz:

Dr. Luntz, the man who developed language designed to promote pre-emptive war in Iraq and distract from the severity of global warming, is at it again - this time with a messaging strategy designed to sink our historic opportunity for health care reform.

And Politico's Mike Allen reminds us that

Luntz, the author of the bestselling book "Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear," has been involved in creating much of the language Republican lawmakers used from 1994 through 2004. . . . One of his coups was popularizing the phrase "death tax" for "inheritance tax."

Reading the Luntz memo - and you SHOULD read it - you won't know whether to yell or laugh. On the one hand, he urges readers to pretend that private insurance companies never, ever deny care to those in their plans:

Nothing will anger Americans more than the chance that they will be denied the healthcare they need for whatever reason. . . . So say it.  "The plan put forward by the Democrats will deny people treatments they need and make them wait to get the treatments they are allowed to receive." 

And, on the other hand, there's this remarkable pivot:

Make no mistake: the high cost of healthcare is still public enemy number one. . . . You can't blame [the failure of cost containment] on the lack of a private market; in case you missed it, capitalism isn't exactly in vogue these days.  But you can and should blame it on the waste, fraud, and abuse that is rampant in anything and everything the government controls.

The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn offers a useful factual refutation of Luntz here and here.

But now that we've seen the guy who is pulling the strings, we have to conclude with two observations. First, if you needed any evidence of how far we've come, how much the wind is at our back, read the Luntz memo: His strongest advice is to acknowledge the crisis because people are so fed up, they won't even listen to you if you try to minimize it. Although his goal is stopping reform, Luntz's images and language mimic the way we all talk about it.

Second, as wrong-headed and cynical as this memo is, do NOT underestimate Frank Luntz. His language is already being echoed by the opponents of reform and, as we've seen in the past, they're more inclined to all sing in harmony, out of the same hymn book, than we are. We need to figure out ways to expose the man behind the curtain and the ways he's trying to deceive American voters into opposing the very thing they want.