November 7, 2006
Campaign Tricks IV Posted by John Steele Gordon at 05:25 PM EST Regarding illegitimate children, I agree with Joshua Zeitz that the term is obsolete in any meaningful sense. But in that case the quotes—forgive me for reverting to my long-ago status as a copyeditor—should have been around illegitimate not illegitimate child. The latter inescapably implies there was something doubtful about the particular child’s status. And there wasn’t. It is interesting that illegitimacy has seen an ebb and flow of opinion over the centuries. Before about 1600, the term bastard was not pejorative, merely explanatory, for illegitimacy carried no social stigma but merely disbarred individuals from inheriting their father’s status (and lands, etc.). A major figure in fifteenth-century French history was known, then and now, as the Bastard of Burgundy. Today bastard is purely an epithet, quite devoid of other meaning, except in a historical context. But illegitimate never meant an “illegitimate human being” merely one unlawfully begotten, as the word’s Latin root implies. And while, needless to say, no one should suffer simply because he or she is the child of a “single parent,” there is a mountain of evidence that children born of married parents are, on average, much better off. Society has a genuine interest in promoting the idea that parents should be married. That, inescapably, means discouraging illegitimacy. Mr. Zeitz writes, “Perhaps so, but the best Mr. Gordon can come up with is a juvenile act of tire slashing carried out by the son of a Democratic congresswoman.” First, they weren’t juveniles, they were adults, and it wasn’t one person, it was five. Second, Mr. Zeitz very conveniently ignores the ACORN scandal. Are they children too? The federal grand jury didn’t think so. He writes, “As for his suggestion that George W. Bush had nothing to do with the push-poll carried out against John McCain, I repeat: Mr. Gordon and I are living on different planets. John McCain certainly believes that the Bush campaign coordinated these calls with an outside group.” I made no such suggestion and wouldn’t be in the least surprised if the Bush campaign (which is not in any way the same thing as George W. Bush) was involved. What I wrote, quite clearly, was that Mr. Zeitz presented not a scintilla of evidence that the Bush campaign or even self-appointed Bush partisans had something to do with it. What John McCain believes is neither here nor there and is in no way evidence. If Mr. Zeitz has evidence, which is what historians—as opposed to political partisans—are supposed to deal in, then Mr. Zeitz should present it. If not, he should not present unsupported accusations as established truth on a history blog. Mr. Zeitz and I do indeed live on different planets. I think evidence should be presented when making serious charges. He, apparently, believes that anything that favors his politics and disfavors the politics of anyone with the lese majesty to disagree with him is, ipso facto, the truth.
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