By Tom Burke / Herald Columnist
I wasn’t going to write another column about Donald Trump this month.
Rather, I was going to write about what we old-timey ad guys called “weasel words,” words whose purpose was (still is) to deceive and make claims without actually claiming anything.
In other words, to not quite lie, but surely to not quite tell the truth.
I was going to cite a column-full of advertisers/products using weasel words in their TV ads, but instead, here is just one big glaring example: the supplement “Nervive,” which proclaims itself as wondrous relief for nerve pain and who’s message is delivered by a “retired” doctor, proclaiming Nervive “reduces occasional nerve discomfort.” Ahhhh, relief! Not!
What makes this a BS ad are four weasel words: three run-of-the-mill weasels – “reduces” (By how much? Dunno, they don’t/can’t say.); “occasional” (How often is that? Dunno. Is it once a day or once a month?) and “discomfort” (How do you measure discomfort? Dunno. What’s discomfort for you might be agony for me.); and one superb, all-time-grand-prize-give-that-copywriter-a-raise-weasel for inking that Nervive contains a “clinically studied amount of ALA.”
What makes these weasel words the best in show? First, no-one has any earthly idea what ALA is (nor does Proctor & Gamble, which makes the stuff, explain what it is); next “clinically studied” means someone, somewhere, “studied” the product (whatever a “study” is.) Did they just read the label or actually test the produce. (Dunno.) An “amount? How much is an amount? Enough to be clinically effective or just enough to say it’s in there? Again we don’t know and they ain’t tell’n. Finally, they never say what the results of the “study” were. Good? Bad? Indifferent?
And to add insult to injury, this is personal “testimony” by the retired doc (who was paid to endorse the product and say whatever the writers wrote) and is a trick to avoid making a product claim, thus relieving P&G of all responsibility for actually delivering a product that does something.
Finally, you gotta understand that this is a nutritional supplement and not real medicine; so they are legally bound to proclaim (in the smallest mouse-type at the bottom of the screen) that “This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration” and “This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”
Which means the whole commercial is BS. Great BS. Product-selling BS. But BS all the same.
Now, on to another star purveyor of BS, Trump; someone who doesn’t bother with weasel words but just straight-out lies.
About everything.
Mostly about the “fake news;” which isn’t fake at all but real facts he wants to deny:
Like he was told that his name is in the Epstein files.
And that he did lose the 2020 election.
And that it’s unclear how effective the Iran bombing of nuclear facilities was.
And that Russia worked hard for him in the 2016 election.
And that he didn’t pass the Veterans Choice health care program into law; the bill was a bipartisan initiative signed into law by Barack Obama in 2014.
Last week Trump called out the Wall Street Journal for “fake news” over its reporting of his drawing of a nude woman and birthday wishes to pedophile Jeffery Epstein.
And he’s suing the Journal; Rupert Murdoch; and two reporters alleging they published with “malicious intent” to harm his reputation. He is seeking more than $10 billion in damages.
Aside from the fact he and his cracker-jack lawyers apparently filed the suit too late per Florida law (it might be dismissed without any further action), the case to prove the paper, the publisher, and the reporters acted with “actual malice” is very tough to make.
And Trump’s record of actually winning these types of suits isn’t great; he’s had cases against CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post dismissed.
However his track record of blackmailing media outlets is better; his suits against ABC and CBS have netted him millions as one company took the coward’s way out and just paid up (ABC) and the other, CBS, in order to save parent company Paramount’s $8 billion merger surrendered to Trump $16 million and fired Stephen Colbert. (Note: After CBS’s capitulation, Trump’s FCC approved the merger.)
Trump’s attacks on the “Fake Media” are rising, even when they transcend common sense and are easy to disprove. To wit:
He said he would drive down drug prices by as much as 1,500 percent. A price cannot drop by more than 100 percent.
He claimed gasoline prices had fallen to $1.99 a gallon in five states. According to AAA, it’s over $3 in every state.
And he proclaimed businesses had invested $16 trillion in America in the past four months, an absurd claim as the entire U.S. economy last year was worth about $30 trillion.
Trump’s history of lying, then screaming “fake news,” isn’t new. He was convicted in a civil fraud case for inflating his net worth by as much as $2.2 billion annually.
Gentle reader, weasel words in advertising have been around since forever and may cost us a few bucks when we buy something that doesn’t work as claimed.
But when the President of the United States uses weasel words, or worse, simply lies, the cost is near impossible to calculate; i.e., Trump’s weaseling, lying, ego, and just plain stupidity killed hundreds of thousands during the covid epidemic.
The cost over the next four years may be impossible to bear, and no patent medicine, not even Nervive, is going to “reduce occasional nerve(s) discomfort” especially when our discomfort is over the viability of our democracy.
Slava Ukraini.
Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
