Mayor Bloomberg's press secretary Stu Loeser, attempting to defend his boss's temper tantrum on Monday at a Newsday reporter over use of the word "maintain," shows a creative streak today by coming up with a never-before-seen definition of the word.
Newsday reporter Michael Frazier initiated a question at a Monday press conference by saying, "Mayor, you maintain that you kept a dialogue open with Sean Bell ..." Bloomberg terminated the questioning, delivering a mini-lecture on how the use of the word "maintain" was not "appropriate:"
"Next time you have a question, you want to insinuate that I lie - just talk to the press secretary."
In today's installment, News 4 reporter Melissa Russo takes a look at various recent Bloomberg stack-blows, noting that "one thing the mayor did not maintain was his composure" and pointing out that the mayor was "losing his cool" more frequently. Loeser's response:
"I don't agree with the premise of your question, but like most New Yorkers, and most people, the mayor doesn't like being called a liar. If we need to go over the meaning of the word maintain, I can. It's exclusively used to refer to an allegation that is either not backed up by facts or in contrast to facts, as in: The courts has ruled seven times that Mr. Jones is a pedophile, but he maintains they are all cases of mistaken identity."
Well, we do need to go over the meaning of the word "maintain." Loeser has pulled his assertion about how the word is "exclusively used" out of his navel. The fact that you can use "maintain" in a sentence involving a pedophile that is consistent with the pedophile lying does not show that the word "maintain" has any aspect that implicitly insinuates that a person is lying.
What it does show is that Loeser lacks an understanding of both language and logic. In the sentence he has constructed, Loeser could use "says," or "contends," or "insists," or "argues." Because he has set up a scenario in which the pedophile is obviously lying, any word he inserts will be infected by the implication.
The word "maintain" is neutral, not accusatory -- it neither disputes nor endorses the pedophile/Bloomberg position. It expresses no opinion. Which is precisely what professional reporters are supposed to do.
We repeat the challenge we made in this space yesterday: If they think they're right, Bloomberg/Loeser should find a dictionary that says "maintain" insinuates a lie. Loeser making up some spurious example because his boss tells him to doesn't qualify. What we want is called a "definition."
If they can't, they should apologize. Being a billionaire and being a mayor does not privilege you to point fingers, behave like a petulant child and insult the professionalism of a newspaper reporter publicly and without cause and then avoid accountability by having your press secretary invent silly excuses.
Video of the incident is after the jump.
Comments (2)
Loeser is basically correct, although the members of the press are playing a semantic game to avoid admitting it.
One of the definitions of "maintain" in the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary is :
"to affirm in or as if in argument : assert "
Notice that in the example they provide, they use maintain to defend a false statement. That's exactly how the press was using this word in constructing the question. By using maintain, the implication was intentionally made that his premise was false.
What surprises me is how aggressively the press is trying to deny this - there's nothing wrong with reporters striking an adversarial stance or accusing an elected official of bending the truth. But it becomes silly when you try to pretend that that was not the intention.
I'm not sure the press as a whole particularly cares about this. We do at Spin Cycle because we don't think politicians should have open season to take cheap shots at Newsday reporters, and when they do we're going to pay attention to it.
We looked at Merriam-Webster Online. Bob D. is correct about the example, but there is nothing in any of the definitions to suggest that "maintain" carries with it an implication of the truth or falsity of the proposition that is being maintained.
The problem here is that reporters need to use language that distances them from the politician's position -- "maintain" is no different than "assert" or "contend" or "argue." You go to a press conference with a prosecutor on a new indictment and say, "You allege that the defendant..." He doesn't go ballistic and accuse you of insinuating that he is lying. He understands that you're just being neutral.
Bloomberg conflates language that establishes distance with accusatory language. To him, neutrality implies lack of trust which insinuates lying. When the reporter uses a word that says "I don't necessarily accept your position," Bloomberg acts like he's being accused of lying.
He's totally wrong. Even if a reporter agrees with and believes a politician, the reporter is not supposed to express that agreement in the way he asks a question. He's supposed to use words like "maintain" and "contend" and "assert" and "argue" to publicly maintain neutrality.
Bloomberg has it backwards.