Republican Smears: A Literary Critique

It takes a real man of letters, like literary critic James Wood, to dissect the GOP’s assault on language. The Republicans, Wood writes, frame Obama as "an elitist who works with words." Yet it is the Republicans, "[t]he campaign that claims to loathe ‘just words,’ which has proved expert at their manipulation, from reversals of policy to the outright lies of some of its attack ads (‘comprehensive sex education’) and the subtle racial innuendo of a phrase like ‘how disrespectful.’” Wood’s conclusion: John McCain has embraced the ambiguity of words, whether the lipstick is on a pig, or a pit bull.