On December 7, Congressman-elect West committed his very first honest-to-goodness Washingtonian gaffe when, in an interview with the African American Conservative Radio Show, he called for the effective dismantling of the First Amendment. Yesterday afternoon, West attempted to minimize the damage with his very first Washingtonian spin job. The gaffe was committed with considerably more elan than the spin job, which was frankly amateurish.
The trouble began when West was asked about Julian
Assange's Wikileaks
website. "Regardless of whether you think [Wikileaks] causes harm," said
West, "the fact that here is an individual who is not an American
citizen -- first and foremost -- [who has] for whatever reason, you
know, gotten his hands on classified American material and has put it
out there in the public domain. And I think that we also should be
censoring the American news agencies which enabled him to be able to do
this, and then [who are] also supporting and applauding him for his
efforts."
Whoopsies. That's a hard thing to hear from an elected official whose
fans consider him a freedom fighter and small-government conservative.
In its most mild manifestation, West's prescription for
censorship would necessitate the kind of license-yanking advocated by the
Nixon White House, when it was under threat from the Washington Post.
At its most extreme, West's prescription calls for the seizing of
the New York Times' newsroom by Sharpie-wielding government
goons.
But wait, wait, says West -- this is all a terrible misunderstanding.
When his words were greeted with outrage by the anti-censorship
blogosphere, West explained that we had all misheard. What he really said
was "censured" -- that is, he advocated the harsh criticism of news
organs, such as the Times, that have reported on the content of
Assange's Wikileaks.
"I am heard on the African-American Conservative Radio Show saying the
media should be 'censured,'" wrote
West on his Facebook. "In no way would I ask to 'censor' anyone or
any organization."
The statement goes on a bit -- you can read it here
-- but that's the nut of it. It is, we may safely say, one of the worst
spin jobs in recent political history.
A more experienced politico probably wouldn't try to tell us we
hadn't heard what we so plainly did hear
-- over and over again, in hi-fi audio. He wouldn't say "you misheard."
He would say "I misspoke." The tape is unambiguous and unforgiving, and
"censor" and "censure" sound nothing alike.
And a more experienced politico would probably have tried more
diligently to avoid shooting himself in the foot while removing the
combat boot from his mouth. It is clear from West's rebuttal that either
his
interview or his spin was a misstep at best, and a bald-faced lie at
worst. Because if West is sincere in insisting that he would never "ask
to 'censor' anyone or any organization," he wouldn't have a problem with
Wikileaks in the first place.
