Word: spinnings
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...means starting with the conclusion you wish to reach and coming up with an argument. It means being untroubled by inconsistency between what you said yesterday and what you say tomorrow, or between standards you apply to your side or the other guy's. It means, in short, spin...
...Florida recount was five weeks of spin overload. The sheer volume of the stuff (in the sense of both quantity and noise level) was impressive enough. Consider as well how effortlessly the spin machine handled all the hairpin turns. Every amazing development and reversal in the drama was converted within minutes into two or three talking points for each side to repeat without mercy...
...issues involved in the recount made it a laboratory experiment in spin. Most had enormous partisan consequences but no ideological component. When Republicans and Democrats disagree along party lines about, say, a tax cut, it's at least theoretically possible that everyone involved is expressing carefully considered and sincerely held views. When they become excited about the dangers or benefits of affirmative action, it's not out of the question that their displays of emotion are sincere. But until Nov. 7, there was no obvious liberal or conservative view about manual recounts or absentee-ballot applications. A chad...
Lawyers are, in a way, the fathers of spin. They call it "vigorous representation of my client." The central distinction of spin--between knowingly lying and ignorantly or disingenuously misleading--is a positive ethical obligation of the legal profession. Lawyers are forbidden to do the former and required to do the latter as best they can. This includes what's known as "arguing in the alternative"--the practice, infuriating to lay people, of saying, "My client never stole the money, Your Honor, and anyway, he gave it all to charity...
Journalists--truth seekers and cynics that we are--have no tolerance for spin. Right? Well, not exactly. The truth is that journalism has bought into the spin culture. Getting spun is flattering, like being seduced, or like being admitted to the club. And if politicians didn't spin, reporters and pundits would have nothing to interpret and act knowing about...