- Eric Muller explains the sloppy mendacity reflected on the cover of Michelle Malkin’s “In Defense of Internment”. It seems you can judge a book by its cover.
- NYT discovers the absentee ballot fraud problem that I've been worrying about for weeks. As of the latest Jeb Bush revisions of the voting law, Florida has fewer safeguards against fraud of anywhere (see the chart) — and a great propensity towards it.
- WashPo on bad decision making in Iraq. And yes, the fish does rot from the head.
- How the Pentagon reports Iraq 'casualties' — it's much, much less than the number of soldiers actually hurt
- CBS document discourse has split into parallel universes. In one universe the claims the documents are modern creations are obviously bogus, while in the other universe they are proved. I was leaning towards suspicious until Safire weighed in with a typically bombastic and tactical column. It's usually a safe bet those sorts of column are wrong, so I'm leaning towards genuine again.
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“Its usually a safe bet those sorts of column are wrong, so Im leaning towards genuine again.”
If you find a similar column which gets snarky on the stock market, please let me know, thanks.
The debate about the documents split into parallel universes last Friday. See my comments on your original post on the issue here:
https://www.discourse.net/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1485
If such a relatively simple issue can lead to so many poor arguments, misleading claims and the like, consider what that means for the level of discourse for more complicated issues.
As for the case at issue, I continue to believe that valid concerns have been raised about the authenticity of the documents and that more information is necessary to resolve them. I also believe that this issue is important, although so are many others, and it is worthwhile for at least some members of the press to pursue this story proving either the documents probable validity or determining who created the forgeries. In either case, I believe that CBS’ editorial and fact-checking process should be investigated.
Actually, “judge a book by its cover” is one of my favorite essay topic suggestions when I’m wearing my literature professor hat. Particularly when I’m teaching “genre” fiction. Frequently it’s interesting to weigh how the marketing and commodification of a book relates to its actual thematic content.
Trivial point, I know, but that cliche has another side to it…
While we’re double/not-double counting, I had heard that the official counts of deaths only included those who died in Iraq; that is, if they die of their wounds stateside, they’re not counted in the official record. It was a while ago, and so I don’t remember the source…
Yes, shame on Ms. Malkin for expecting people to read more than the dust jacket…
Thanks for the link!
While I understand the inductive reasoning – when those who cry “Wolf!” so often are saying there’s a wolf around, don’t rush to judge. However, the physical evidence in this specific case seems to be beyond a reasonable doubt. Even a stopped clock can be right sometime. Note that doesn’t make it a good clock.
the memos create a serious problem for the wingnuts that hasn’t been covered yet. One of the memos not released by CBS, but on the USA Today website, makes it clear that Bush did some training after April 30th, 1973–presumably at Ellington. This is the FIRST evidence that Bush actually did any training when he got back from Alabama. In 2000, the 147th’s personnel officer (Rufus Martin) said he thought Bush finished out his last year in Alabama, and Bobby Hodges said that (in response to questions about Bush losing his flight status) that if Bush had shown back up at Ellington the he would have made Bush fly again. And despite a reward being offered, no one has come up with any evidence that Bush did show back up at Ellington.
So here we have a document that claims that Bush DID show back up, and do SOMETHING, and the freepers are trying to discredit it….
Yes, shame on Ms. Malkin for expecting people to read more than the dust jacket…
No, shame on Muller for expecting Malkin to be honest.
Read the linked article, please. Really quite amazing just how intellectually dishonest she is on this one.
Michelle Malkin looks to me like what I imagine one of the two Chechen women who downed the Russian airliners looked like.
Intern Malkin Now!