The title of this diary is stolen from an essay by George Orwell, and I don't pretend this short piece is as profound as Orwell's essay.
I read Lakoff's original book on framing quite a while ago (I remember a post in which I recommended it to Markos), so I have at least some idea of the subject. But there are definitely pitfalls in the practice of framing, and substituting a phrase like "American Option" or "American Choice" for "public option" certainly demonstrates some of those pitfalls.
Orwell's original essay in it's entirety is here
One thing both conservatives and progressives do in the pursuit of political wins is to ignore the contingencies that result from their actions. It's done in the construction of political programs and legislation, and it's certainly being done by those who want something more melodious than "public option" to describe what, after all, is both public and an option.
In Orwell's essay he first lists five particularly horrible examples of contemporary writing, and then goes on:
Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse.
We can argue whether "American anything" exhibits staleness of imagery - it's certainly been used extensively in film titles, from American Graffiti to American History X to American Pie and American Psycho, so American Choice isn't a fresh and new construction. American Choice also brings to mind a kind false patriotism and hucksterism, at least to my mind.
But I think the danger in a phrase like American Choice or American Option lies in its lack of precision and meaning. What do those phrases mean? How do you decode them into a political program?
Well, in fact, they're meaningless phrases. You may think they mean the same thing as "public option" (because you coined the phrase and attached it to some particular program) but certainly someone unacquainted with the public option and your relabeling is going to be mystified, short of the somewhat smarmy appeal to false patriotism noted above. Democracy used to be about choices made by an informed electorate, and American Choice certainly isn't informative in itself.
Worse, because the terms define no specific object, it becomes simple to do a bait and switch under the banner touting the meaningless title. After all, a regional co-op offers an American Choice, doesn't it? In fact mandating that someone choose from one of a number of private insurers is unfortunately a more truly American Choice than the public option we would like to see implemented. It's pretty likely that if you're not precise about what it is you want, somebody is going to cut deals to give you something with the same name but vastly different substance. On the other hand, neither co-ops nor private insurers are considered 'public' in common usage, so there's less confusion using that word explicitly in describing what you want.
I'm all for framing and for using political language in ways that are appealing and persuasive. But I'm more strongly in favor of political language that conveys accurate meaning and lets the listener verify that a particular policy conforms to the meaning of the phrase that describes it.
Or to put it more succinctly, while I strongly favor the public option, badger unbellyfeels AmChoice.