Playing the man

By international standards the level of civility with which our political class conducts debates is mild

By international standards the level of civility with which our political class conducts debates is mild. On the whole the Dáil does not tolerate bad language or attacks on the integrity of members. Former Green TD Paul Gogarty was notably reprimanded by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges after he rounded on Emmet Stagg with the words “F… you Deputy Stagg, f…. you”, language he cheerfully repeated online. Eamon Gilmore, on the other hand, managed to accuse taoiseach Brian Cowen of economic treason without formal reprimand, the sort of charge that would have brought the house down on him in Washington, where they take these things very seriously indeed.

A study last week from the Annenberg public policy center on civility in Congress records members being upbraided for as little as suggesting colleagues were “pinkos”, “half-baked nitwits”, “disingenuous”, or “like Mephistopheles”. Red cards dispensed at such a rate in the Dáil would leave the playing field barren.

If a member of Congress insults another, the one on the receiving end can request that the words be stricken from the record. Such protests were used by the survey as a measure of civility, finding - perhaps surprisingly given the rancour of debate on the airwaves - that the current session of Congress is by some distance the most polite in years – the worst were 1946 and 1995. The studys author says the low number is surprising, because insults usually peak at times when one party takes control of the House from the other.

This year words have been “taken down” only three times – the suggestion that Democrats are “socialists”; that propaganda against health reform was the “lie of the year”; and that Republicans “just make stuff up”.

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There are a few explanations for the outbreak of politeness – Congress opened with solemn pleas for bipartisanship all round, not for the first time, and in the event more observed in the breach than the practice; perhaps it was genuine shock at the assassination attempt on one member, Gabrielle Giffords, and the demaguoguery that may have contributed to the climate in which it could happen; or perhaps it was, more simply, the departure under a cloud of scandal of the House’s own Gogarty, New York representative Anthony Weiner.

A gloomier and probably more realistic view holds that the new civility reflects the reality that Congress is so divided members don't even bother with name-calling. The Washington Postcites one as observing that "it's easy to be polite if you're not really talking at all."