MITT! DUMP THE STUMP!

It was Tuesday morning. Journalist Richard Wolffe had a question for us: four former White House speechwriters on a C-Span panel talking about that night’s State of the Union. What advice did we have for Obama’s speechwriters?

John McConnell, the genial, principled and skillful former speechwriter for Dan Quayle and George W. Bush, said, “Don’t use straw man.”

“Straw man” means those times when politicians start a sentence: “There are those who say,” present some caricature of what the other side “says,” then rebut what they just made up.

I was so happy with his answer. I’m a Democrat. But now I teach speechwriting. My job is to show both Republicans and Democrats how to write good speeches. Straw man is not just a fallacy. It’s unethical. Both sides do it. I’m glad both sides have people who dislike it.

So, here’s my question. On the night of another primary, what should we make of the profoundly unethical assortment of distortions and lies couched as straw men making up Mitt Romney’s stump speech, so helpfully transcribed during the New Hampshire Primary and put online by the New York Times last month?

Much as I like Obama, there are many principled ways to criticize him. In fact, Romney’s CPAC speech last year did that reasonably well.

The stump is different. And I don’t mean the small distortions and exaggerations you find in any campaign speech. There are many, but some you could chalk up to my own biases and most could be fixed with a word or two.

The heart of Romney’s stump, though, is the contrast he draws between his “opportunity” society and Obama’s “entitlement” society.

In a short article I can’t go into the detail I’d like. But here are three examples.

First, what Romney offers as a basic Obama principle, or “idea.”

His idea of bringing us together is not to lift us up but use the invisible boot of government to bring us down.

Note: Romney doesn’t say Obama’s “ideas” bring us down. That is: ideas Obama might think workable actually have the reverse effect. He tells us Obama’s idea — his conscious intent — is to “bring us down.”

Where in the world has Obama expressed or even implied this idea?

Actually, his speeches and writings— including things he’s written himself— argue that he wants to lift us up. If anything he’s too hopeful about it as he was in last Tuesday’s State of the Union (“Our journey moves forward, our future is hopeful…”).

Whoever created the Romney stump, a graceful enough writer to insert that “invisible boot” image with its outrageous association with fascism, knows this is a lie.

And what about this one?

I am tired of a President who wakes up every day, looks out across America and is proud to announce, “It could be worse.”

Actually, here’s what Obama said the other day.

I wake up every day focused on how … we restore America’s promise for all our people.

The truth? Obama probably wakes up, looks in the mirror and thinks,”Why’s my hair so gray?” Or, “Wish I still smoked! Really could use a cigarette with my oatmeal!”

But where did he say—or where does his rhetoric imply—pride that things could be worse? Answer? Nowhere.

Is this just hyperbole? Is Romney exaggerating to make the kind of joke permissible in campaigns? No, because having invented this non-existent line of Obama’s, Romney then pretends to be mad about it.

“It could be worse?’”Is this what it means to be an American? It could be worse? Of course not.

Let’s get this straight. This is not just straw man — taking issue with something the opponent never said. Romney rebuts the line, then accuses Obama of being un-American. Maybe the author of that line is un-American. But Obama didn’t author it. Romney did.

Finally, what about the very heart of Romney’s stump: the contrast of his “opportunity” society with what he calls Obama’s “entitlement” society. (“He believes in an entitlement society.”) Romney describes Obama’s beliefs this way.

President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to others. And the only people who truly enjoy real rewards are those who do the redistributing—government.

There are seven assertions in that remarkable paragraph. Except for the one about redistribution—something Romney is on the record as favoring—I challenge my Republican friends to find any place where Obama has said anything like that.

Actually, Obama has said and written exactly the opposite. In last Tuesday’s State of the Union he talked about an America “where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.” Does that sound like “effort” isn’t rewarded?

Romney has achieved something quite difficult: six straw man arguments, and six lies in a single 55-word paragraph.

Does it need mentioning that you aren’t supposed to make up what the other side says and pretend it’s true?

Especially because it’s a stump—not just something he was handed once, or an ad lib where he got carried away in the heat of the moment, but a speech he uses over and over— the Romney stump is, to use a word he used recently, repulsive.

In our panel discussion, John told the story of how Richard Nixon used to announce a difficult decision by saying he had rejected the advice of those who told him to “take the easy way.”

William Safire, Nixon’s writer, would ridicule the idea that anyone would tell him that.

But to keep Nixon honest, Safire joked, he would sometimes walk by the closed Oval Office door at night and whisper, “Mr. President! Take the easy way.”

Believe it or not, there are those of us who’d like to teach budding speechwriters that even in politics there’s room for ethics. For us and them, the Romney stump makes the way harder.

I’ve never believed those stereotyped views of Romney as without principles.

When you look at this despicable exercise in carefully wrought deception, you have to wonder.

Former White House Chief Speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore, Lehrman has written thousands of speeches for Democratic politicians at the highest levels, as well as for nonprofit heads, corporate CEOs and entertainers.