George Lakoff, The Huffington Post, September 16, 2007
Betrayal is everywhere in the news. We learned today from the Washington Post that Alan Greenspan said, in his new book, “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” Not keeping our country safe, as the troops were told. Not democracy. Not Weapons of Mass Destruction. Not al Qaeda. Oil! All those lives and maimings about oil! Are you shocked, shocked? It is Betrayal of Trust of the highest order: “Politically inconvenient … everyone knows…” Oil was not discussed at the Petraeus hearings. The silence in Washington has been polite.
MoveOn’s “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” ad has raised vital questions that need a thorough and open discussion. The ad worked brilliantly to reveal, via its framing, an essential but previously hidden truth: the Bush Administration and its active supporters have betrayed the trust of the troops and the American people.
MoveOn hit a nerve. In the face of truth, the right-wing has been forced to change the subject — away from the administration’s betrayal of trust and the escalating tragedy of the occupation to of all things, an ad! To take the focus off maiming and death and the breaking of our military, they talk about etiquette. The truth has reduced them to whining: MoveOn was impolite. Rather than face the truth, they use character assassination against an organization whose three million members stand for the highest patriotic principles of this country, the first of which is a commitment to truth.
New York Times columnist Frank Rich, right about so many things, got it wrong when he criticized the ad in his Sunday column.
He overlooks the fact that the “distraction” he worries about has led the supporters of the Iraq occupation to endlessly evoke the Betrayal of Trust frame, identifying themselves with the Betrayer of Trust in that frame. The betrayers themselves took MoveOn’s bait.
Thanks to their making it a national issue, we can now proceed to discuss their Betrayal of Trust on the national stage they have conveniently provided. The importance of this frame is discussed in “Betrayal of Trust: Beyond Lying” — Chapter 6 of Don’t Think of an Elephant!