NEW HAMPSHIRE — Michael Kinsley famously wrote that “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth—some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say.” But in the 24/7 media age, another type of gaffe has emerged. In this case, the target is a defensible statement that can be taken out of context to advance some narrative about the politician.
Classic examples include Al Gore’s statement that he “took the initiative in creating the Internet” while serving in Congress, which was twisted into the false paraphrase “invented the Internet”; John Kerry’s statement “I actually did vote for the $87 billion [in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan] before I voted against it,” which was rewritten as “I voted for it before I voted against it”; and Mitt Romney’s “Corporations are people, my friend,” an accurate description of who bears the ultimate costs of corporate taxes that was falsely described as a declaration that corporations have the same rights as individuals. In each case, the press appears to believe that these statements reveal the true essence of the politician in question and as such are exempt from normal standards of accuracy.
The latest example of the genre is Romney’s statement last Monday that “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me,” which came during a discussion of individuals shopping for their own health insurance. The furor over the quote did not prevent Romney from winning the New Hampshire primary. But before moving on, it’s worth looking more closely at how the controversy was covered since it raises broader concerns about the way the media handles these sorts of gaffes.
Here is the full statement in question:
I want people to be able to own insurance if they wish to, and to buy it for themselves and perhaps keep it for the rest of their life, and to choose among different policies offered from companies across the nation. I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy.
It also means if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. If someone doesn’t give me the good service I need, I’m going to go get somebody else to provide that service to me.
While his phrasing may have been insensitive, the context provided above makes Romney’s meaning clear. As liberal commentators and the non-partisan fact-checkers at PolitiFact concluded, Romney was referring to his ability to shop for services, not fire employees from a business. However, the statement was still interpreted by Romney’s opponents as a gaffe and treated as such by reporters because it could be truncated as “I like being able to fire people,” a phrase that could be linked to concerns some people have about Romney’s record as CEO of Bain Capital.
It’s not surprising that several of Romney’s opponents jumped on the statement and took it out of context, with Jon Huntsman saying “Gov. Romney enjoys firing people” and Rick Perry making a ringtone. But it’s more disappointing—though equally predictable—that the media frequently hyped the truncated quote before, or instead of, providing the full context of the remark.
For instance, the Boston Globe, which is widely read in southern New Hampshire, published a process story about the controversy that served to amplify the distortion. Under the savvy but incomplete headline “Romney comment on firing may give opponents ammo,” the Globe’s Matt Viser lede highlighted the spin before providing any context on the quote:
Mitt Romney, who has been under assault from his political rivals for his business background, came here today to tout his early “entry level” job trying to work his way up through consulting firms. But it was a comment he made in the final minutes-“I like being able to fire people”-that is sure to provide further ammunition for his opponents to cast him as a wealthy, out-of-touch executive.
Romney made the comment while touting a health care approach that would allow people to purchase their own insurance, which Romney said would give the companies an incentive to keep their customers happy and healthy.
Yahoo's Daniel Gross had a sharper piece about the real Romney "gaffe" embedded in that quote, linked below. I disagree with Nyhan in the sense that the firing quote does seem to fit a larger truth about the man, and what reporters wrote about it wasn't unfair analytically. I'd also disagree with Nyhan about Romney's infamous "corporations are people" quote. That surely represented an implicit affirmation of the Citizens United ruling and the idea that corporations are entitled to the same free speech rights as human beings.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/real-problem-romney-fire-people-gaffe-160257883.html;_ylt=AqoXPDZ_N_uiA_Aek5ipAnM6_Od_;_ylu=X3oDMTRpNTEzbDl0BG1pdANFbGVjdGlvbnMgMjAxMiBTZWN0aW9uTGlzdCBUaWNrZXQEcGtnAzM1MTY4ZDQzLTBlYWEtM2I5NC1hMjZjLTYzZTE0MzBmMjhjNgRwb3MDMwRzZWMDTWVkaWFTZWN0aW9uTGlzdAR2ZXIDNWJmNzYxMDAtM2JhZi0xMWUxLTg3ZWEtNGJjNWZmYzQwNzYz;_ylg=X3oDMTJjMjRsb3ZrBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANwb2xpdGljc3xkZXN0aW5hdGlvbjIwMTIEcHQDc2VjdGlvbnMEdGVzdAM-;_ylv=3
Romney was talking about health insurance, and why he favored a situation under which individuals — not companies and the government — would be responsible for purchasing and owning health insurance policies.
But — and it's a big but — there's not much evidence that the market for health insurance resembles the market for landscapers or restaurants. Anybody who has gone out and bought insurance for themselves as individuals knows that health insurance is a market in which consumers have little choice and almost no power. It's not like buying cars, or shopping around for landscapers, where it's easy to find lots of people who want to come provide the service and are willing to compete on price. In the majority of states, there are at most a few expensive choices for individual policies.
In fact, many customers are afraid their insurance company will fire them.
#1 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Tue 17 Jan 2012 at 01:10 PM
Mitt's problems with republicans smearing republicans earn a smidge of sympathy from me. I might give more of a smidge were he not using his own smears on Obama and others.
The real problem with Romney's description is the way it trivializes the health care purchase process, buying health care isn't like buying white bread. As Harris says "many customers are afraid their insurance company will fire them", but the other factor to consider is that insurance companies in America rarely deal with individuals and individuals pay high premiums in order to be covered as individuals. Many people are covered by group plans and these people don't get to pick their services, choose their terms, and fire their providers unless they decide to opt out of group coverage.
It's unfortunate that republicans keep trying to push these trite "simple free market" models on situations which are more complex. In a simple exchange, goods are exchanged for goods or their representation (money).
In a health care situation, you are exchanging goods for a promise of future benefits in the event of certain circumstances. You are not conducting a present oriented exchange, you are constructing a future oriented relationship which both parties would like to exploit. If the insurance company sees you as an unexploitable liability (due to cancer or some other chronic ailment), it will avoid making or keeping the relationship. If you feel the cost of an uncertain future benefit (because you're young and healthy) is too high, you will avoid making the relationship or make a cheap one that provides insufficient benefits when the need arises.
So both parties seek to exploit eachother's present comitments and future obligations under unpredictable circumstances, but only one party has the knowledge and expertise to do so. They're in the business of health care, they know how to exploit it. You are paying for a service to be rendered in the future. When their services and terms prove unsatisfactory to your circumstances, are you going to fire your provider? Where are you and your cancer going to go? Wouldn't it have been nice to have bought the right loaf of white bread when you were healthy?
The thing is, Romney knows all this. He did build a system once. Now he disavows it and talks about trite crap like firing your immigrant insurance company. He should know better.
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 17 Jan 2012 at 02:32 PM
Digby had an interesting post about why this (overly spun, granted) gaffe still reveals how out of touch Romney is:
When it comes to basic services like healthcare, almost no one in America sees the relationship that way. Most of us wouldn't speak of "firing" our health insurance company. No matter how much we might detest our insurance company, we probably wouldn't describe the experience of removing ourselves from their rolls an enjoyable one.
But most of all, we don't see the health insurance company as providing us a service. We see ourselves, rather, as indentured supplicants forced to pay exorbitant monthly rates for a basic need that responsible people with means can't get out of paying for if we can help it. We don't see ourselves as in control of the relationship with them. They are in control of us--and no more so than when we get sick and need the insurance most. If the company decides to restrict our coverage or tell us we have a pre-existing condition after all, we're in the position of begging a capricious and heartless corporation to cover costs we assumed we were entitled to based on a contractual obligation. It's precisely when we need insurance most that we're least able to "fire" the insurance company.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/why-romneys-firing-gaffe-resonates-by.html
#3 Posted by Shinobi, CJR on Wed 18 Jan 2012 at 10:30 AM
A little context about context, please. Let's just say for the sake of being fair and balanced that the "I like to fire..." comment was, within context, reasonable. If so, though, what kind of candidate would choose that particular locution as a mid-winter gift-wrapped bauble for his opponents. Do we want these sorts of context-irrelevant gaffes from our Chief Executive when the 'opponent' is named Kim or Ahmadinejad?
#4 Posted by John Emery, CJR on Wed 18 Jan 2012 at 11:55 AM
Here's a good James Fallows short piece on why he finds Romney's "firing people" quote disturbing:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/why-you-cannot-say-you-like-firing-people/251123/
#5 Posted by Harris Meyer, CJR on Wed 18 Jan 2012 at 04:20 PM