Doubts About Doublespeak By William Lutz

Politicians serve as leaders of our country, and when one thinks of a leader, words like honesty, communication, and consistency should come to mind. But many politicians today seem to demonstrate the exact opposite of these qualities. The word politician, has seemingly taken on a negative connotation, and this is because of the way many politicians win their elections. Gone are the days where politicians received nicknames such as Honest Abe or The Man of People. For example, you will not hear most people going around saying Honest Nixon or Honest Clinton when talking about today’s politics. That is not to say that all early U.S presidents were perfect moral citizens. Rutherford B Hayes, in fact, earned the nickname RutherFraud for a supposed

In the essay Doubts about Doublespeak, William Lutz explores this concept of altering language to conceal one’s true meaning. Lutz gives several examples of governments using words with positive connotations in order to put a positive spin on negative events. “Do you question politicians who don't speak of slums or ghettos but of the "inner city" or "substandard housing" where the "disadvantaged” live and thus avoid talking about the poor who have to live in filthy,poorly heated, ram shackled apartments or houses?” (Lutz). This a perfect example of the way politicians make a bad situation sound better through what Lutz calls doublespeak. This doublespeak is essentially no better than lying, and people should certainly have a problem with their leaders lying to them. According to Lutz the main problem with this is the fact that, “Afterwhile we may really believe that politicians don't lie but only "misspeak” (Lutz). Lutz brings up a very important point here, in the fact that people can not simply believe that everything politicians tell them is true, but that they must make the realization that some politicians lie and use language to trick voters, and use this knowledge to see past the