“Ethos”

Along with Pathos (“You’ll make baby Jebus cry”) and Logos (“Making baby Jebus cry is objectively wrong and irrational”)…(and , OK, ‘Wackos’, if you’re including Hate Radio), it is one of the three elementary rhetorical devices.

In its original meaning, it is more or less an “Appeal to Authority”.

It saying to your audience, you can trust me…

…because I build these for a living.

…because I have a certificate.

…because I have shed blood for this cause.

Or, in the estimation of the Beltway Bund, Ethos can be confered on a candidate or speaker because of the excellence of their hair, the broadness of their shoulders, and the raw, undeniable pheromonic power of their man-musk.

This assertion that “I know what I am talking about” is at the core of all claims the Mainstream Media make about being the journalists of the First Water for American politics, culture, etc. It is their velvet rope for keeping the vituperative poo-flingers out.

Now Broderella has already been taken to task for the specifics of his column -- "A Mob-Rule Moment" – of a few days ago wherein he expressed his cringing horror

that the D.C. Elite were showing signs of bending to the will of the unwashed hoi polloi that, y’know, elected them.

So that is not my purpose for taking it up it here.

Instead, as an exercise for the class, note here a relatively rare example of the explicit invocation of Beltway Jounralisminess as a proxy for true Ethos.

Note the exact spot at which Broderella unequivocally rests the entire tonnage of his argument on one, thin, reed of “Trust Me”…

A Mob-Rule Moment
By David S. Broder
Thursday, July 5, 2007; A17

Former senator Fred Thompson has begun his unannounced quest for the Republican presidential nomination by telling audiences in New Hampshire that Washington is badly out of touch with the country.

As a senior campaign adviser put it to The Post's Michael Shear, Thompson believes that "the politicians have lost their connection with what people really want and what they really expect."

Few if any of the other 17 men and one woman vying for the presidency would be bold enough to challenge Thompson's claim. The belief that official Washington is deaf to the people's wishes is a staple of political rhetoric for both Republicans and Democrats -- even those, including Thompson, who have operated inside the Beltway for decades….

And then Rip Van Broder comes right out with it.

…
Let a reporter who is not running for anything suggest that exactly the opposite may be true: A particularly virulent strain of populism has made official Washington altogether too responsive to public opinion.

From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, philosophers have written of the healthy tension that normally exists between the understanding and strategies of leaders and the sentiments and opinions of their people.

In today's Washington, a badly weakened president and a dangerously compliant congressional leadership are no match for the power of public opinion -- magnified and sometimes exaggerated by modern communications and interest group pressure.
The latest cave-ins involve immigration and trade policy, and both seriously threaten the national interest.

…

He then takes up his balsa wood cudgel and brings it down equally on the defeat of the Immigration Bill and the defeat of Presidential fast-track trade authority. Because in the minds of the Beltway Bund, Republicans dropping anvils on the leader of their own Party is exactly equal in shamefulness and icky Washingtonism as Democrats acting in a manner entirely consistent with a principled opposition which simply does not want this Earth-scourging, labor-hating Administration to be allowed to continue using trade policy to fuck up the environment and fuck over the working man unfettered anymore.

Because according to Broder’s definition of "Ethos", it is the job of everyone -– regardless of principle, party, or circumstance -- to shut up, do what Daddy says, turn that damned music down, and get the Hell offa his lawn.

But back to the phrase that pays:

“Let a reporter who is not running for anything suggest that exactly the opposite may be true

See, but that’s not exactly true, is it David?

Because every day, every one of the Beltway Bund is running flat-out for the fleeting honor of being a “Dean” of The Agitprop Guild.

Every day, with every paragraph, David Broder shows that he is is in a continuous footrace with the rest of his peers to be the Mayor of Punditland. He runs as hard as Nixon ever did for the opportunity to rule over these clowns.


But to get to be the Mayor of Punditland you must run on a the strict Orthodox Beltway Platform.

You must stand in the Center of the Stage, place your hands (both, so as not to show favoritism) upon the Center page of the Bible, and swear The Mighty Pundit Oath written in Middle English using only words that can be spelled from letters in the middle of the alphabet.

The oath which demands that Fortress Fake Center from which the Punditocracy commands the media heights must be held at all costs, and therefore the Washington Power establishment must be defended at any price against yahoos, the blogger vituperati, truth-hawks ™ and assorted flea-bitten peasants.

Which demands that for every scrofulous GOP mole rat who is forced to stop using the Constitution as ass-floss, the Pundit Posse is required to ride into Liberaltown and drag a Democrat out of his or her bed to string up…for…for…well…something!

Every day, column after column, the Broderites of this land sacrifice the Truth on the altar of Centrism in order to earn bonus cocktail weenie points up in the Kewl Kids Klubhouse. In ways as cold-blooded and “partisan” as anything Tom DeLay ever attempted, the Broderites sell us all out one column inch at a time to impress their peers by dressing up in new panties and pasties the same, tired arguments defending their toxic, consensual dogma they have been pushing for twenty years.

And “Ethos” that ain’t.