A Jay Rosen piece which is too good to excerpt, but I will anyway. Quoting Chris Hitchens:
But when Rosen interrupted to reject this as part of
by John Cole| 17 Comments
This post is in: Media
A Jay Rosen piece which is too good to excerpt, but I will anyway. Quoting Chris Hitchens:
But when Rosen interrupted to reject this as part of
by John Cole| 10 Comments
This post is in: Humorous
You just know that a parody of this post is going to appear on Huffington’s Toast or Huffington is Full of Crap:
There I was, as is my Sunday morning tradition, watching Meet the Press while doing yoga. (Or is it doing yoga while watching Meet the Press? Whatever.) Tim Russert was interviewing Howard Dean. At least, I
by John Cole| 33 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
Via this excellent post (she quotes me liberally, what else can I say) by Hilzoy at Obsidan Wings, I see that the new Newsweek meme that the mainstream media is somehow ‘circling the wagons’ and ‘flooding the zone’ with torture stories appears to be gaining steam. Since I have probably already bored most of you with long tedious posts replete with my usual mendacity and dense prose, let me simply state what I think of this theory in the simplest terms possible:
It is stupid and silly.
Since many of the people promoting this ‘circling the wagons’ stuff are probably the same folks (Republicans) who wanted to lock Jennifer Wilbanks for going to Vegas for four days, let me put it this way. If this sort of silliness were a crime, I would charge you with a first degree felony violation for pushing this theme.
Hilzoy touches on many of the reasons why this is an idiotic meme, at least when applied to this case, but perhaps one reason will stand out:
Finally, it’s worth pointing out that Newsweek is owned by the Washington Post, the Times’ biggest competitor.
Most reasonable people would get it right then and there with that little piece of information. Read the first part of my last sentence again and you will understand why I am going to have to provide an additional theory.
As an addendum to Hilzoy’s post, I offer you two things:
First, the post hoc fallacy:
The Post Hoc fallacy derives its name from the Latin phrase “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.” This has been traditionally interpreted as “After this, therefore because of this.” This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that one event causes another simply because the proposed cause occurred before the proposed effect.
Second, Occam’s Razer:
The principle is most often expressed as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, or “Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”, but this sentence was written by later authors and is not found in Ockham’s surviving writings. William wrote, in Latin, Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate, which translates literally into English as “Plurality should not be posited without necessity”.
This can be interpreted in two subtly different ways. One is a preference for the simplest theory that adequately accounts for the data. Another is a preference for the simplest subset of any given theory which accounts for the data. The difference is simply that it is possible for two different theories to explain the data equally well, but have no relation to one another. They share none of the same elements. Some would argue that in this case Occam’s Razor does not suggest a preference. Rather Occam’s Razor only comes into practice when a sufficient theory has something added to it which does not improve its predictive power. Occam’s Razor neatly cuts these additional theoretical elements away.
The principle of Occam’s Razor has inspired numerous expressions including: “parsimony of postulates”, the “principle of simplicity”, the “KISS principle” (keep it simple, stupid), and in some medical schools “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras”.
A re-statement of Occam’s Razor, in more formal terms, is provided by information theory in the form of minimum message length.
“When deciding between two models which make equivalent predictions, choose the simpler one,” makes the point that a simpler model that doesn’t make equivalent predictions is not among the models that this criteria applies to in the first place.
I will now take a moment to point out that Occam’s Razor should not, under any circumstances, be confused with Occam’s Toothbrush, which I submit is the greatest blog name ever. Ever.
Now, back to the ‘circling the wagons’ nonsense.
If we are to believe the ‘circling the wagons’ theory (CTW from here on out), we must believe the following:
1.) Michael Isikoff is a a liberal hack who wrote a thinly sourced piece in order to discredit the Bush administration because he hates Bsuh, is anti-military, and wants to discredit the war on terror and the war in Iraq.
2.) All journalists, newspapers, and mainstream media members feel the same way.
3.) When one media source is discredited, all laws of the free market in journalism are immediately suspended, decades long rivalries cease, and the media members immediately band together to discredit the accusers.
Really- you have to believe this stuff to buy into the circling the wagons bit, and I could probably throw in more stuff with that . Fortunately, I have too much respect for my time and yours to do that, and we will just stick with these three.
Michael Isikoff is no liberal hack. I can point you in the direction of hundreds of liberal hacks, and Michael Isikoff is not one. He may have been a touch sloppy with this story, but that hardly qualifies someone for hackdom. If you want to see liberal hacks, go google “Ivins + Molly.” Isikoff simply does not fit the bill.
Isikoff is aggressive- he went after Dean’s files as Governor, he went after Gonzalez and Bush’s DUI, he went after Clinton with the Lewinsky affair, he went after Gannon- but he seems to be pretty bi-partisan as to who and what he targets.
As to the rest of the media, I don’t even need to address it. The media ranges from Bush apologists like Bob Novak all the way to ‘Liberals can do no wrong’ individuals like Eric Alterman. The media most certainly did not have a monolithic approach to the war in Iraq and the War on Terror, and they don’t now.
As to them banding together to defend Isikoff now, it is ludicrous. Go read Martin Peretz. Go read Newsweek apologizing to the point of absurdity. Go read the Washington Post’s coverage of the affairs. The media, as a whole, are hammering Newsweek and Isikoff. They covered EVERY SINGLE WORD uttered by Condi Rice and Larry Di Rita and Scott McClellan and President Bush on this issue. I am hard-pressed to find a defense, other than what Greg Palast offered on his own personal website.
This is how they circle the wagons? An orgy of self-flagellation and snide condemnations of the accused? Jeebus, they ARE idiots.
So now, we are to believe, the media’s true conspiracy is rearing up. They just hammered Isikoff and Newsweek viciously at first, but now they are flooding the zone in their hidden conspiracy to crank out stories on torture to somehow discredit Newsweek’s detractors.
Really. That is what the circling the wagons theory entails. If you are drooling and feel ready to bang your head off your desk and feel dumber just for having heard of such an insane theory, you know how I feel.
Enter Occam’s Razor and the post hoc fallacy.
On May 9th, Isikoff pens the fateful column.
On May 20th, the NY Times releases a report on torture that was just written because the MILITARY FINALLY RELEASED THE DETAILS AFTER CLOSE TO THREE YEARS.
The prosecution rests and reaches for a stiff drink.
And, as much as it pains me, this is pretty accurate.
On Circling the Wagons and Other NonsensePost + Comments (33)
by John Cole| 36 Comments
This post is in: Politics
It appears I have created a shit-storm with this post.
Good- We need to deal with what is going in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Gitmo and we need to act like responsible adults and fix problems where we see them.
Bad- It appears only lefties agree with me, which is not troubling to me because I mind siding with Democrats and Progressives when they are right, but because I find the continued silence by many on my side of the aisle to be troubling. I am as partisan as they come, and I hate being used as a club against my own party, but I am not going to wallow in hubris just because some in my party choose to do so.
Let’s deal with some specific nonsense that has arisen:
1.) This is all about Hugh Hewitt– Nonsense. My personal opinions of Hugh Hewitt, the person, are irrelevant. In the past, I have kindly linked to Hugh when I thought he was right, and I have had unkind things to say when I thought he was wrong. I am sure he is charming, pleasant, and his family and friends love him, but it just so happens that I think he is wrong, dead wrong, on this issue, and his rhetoric is not only demagogic but dangerous, and simply a decent example of what my side is trying to peddle. Enough, already.
2.) We should expect there to be incidences of torture, because this just happens in war– This may be one of the dumber sentiments expressed, and it seems to be used as a defense for what is currently going on. Of course there have always been violations of international law, abuses, and inhumane crimes during times of war. I naturally assume that most of my readers on both sides of the aisle are aware of these things, and I apologize for holding you in higher regard than I should have.
I assumed that people have heard of Lt. Calley and My Lai. I assumed that people were aware of the summary executions of Germans after the Battle of the Bulge. I assume people know history and have heard of the atrocities at Andersonville during the Civil War. That war is nasty and that there will be war crimes seems to be inevitable, and, in this debate, an utterly irrelevant point of order.
The only reason the history of atrocities is mentioned in this debate is to deflect attention from what is currently going on, in an attempt to somehow excuse the outrageous “pulpifying” of innocent victims.
As for me, you can peddle that hogwash elsewhere. The time for a debate about the inevitability of abuse in a time of war is something that should be factored into the discussion about whether or not we should go to war. Not, as some would now have you believe, as a post hoc excuse for ongoing torture, and not, as some would like to pretend, as a sign of media restraint during World War II. I’ve gone through my own archives, and I don’t recall ever slowing down my pro-war rhetoric because I was concerned about abuses- I knew abuses would happen, but I hoped it wouldn’t.
I just didn’t think the abuses would take the form of systematic torture and that it would be this widespread, that people on my side of the aisle would tacitly condone torture, and I thought we would prosecute it.
I was wrong. The torture appears to be more widespread than I thought, my party thinks all you have to do is say ‘We don’t condone torture” and everything is taken care of, and the only people being prosecuted with any great effect are the reporters who had the temerity to cover the issue.
In other words, I was REALLY WRONG.
Personally, I think the only decent and responsible position is to deal with these abuses now, rather than just throwing my hands up in the air and wailing, “Such is war!”
3.) The media was more restrained in previous wars like World War II– Maybe, but in WWII, there was a pretty widespread consensus that the war was approriate and just. While I feel that way about the Iraq War, many do not. Regardless, with the global media and the internet, this is completely irrelevant, especially if you factor in the utter speciousness of the claim that reporting on torture and abuse somehow damages operational security.
Only if the operation you wish to undertake is continued torture. Otherwise, this ‘media restraint’ argument is, in a word, absurd.
4.) “Newsweek Lied, People Died!”– While the Newsweek story may have helped to agitate the riots, it is important to remember several things. First, who pulled the trigger.
The answer is, of course, the Afghan Police, as Greg Palast pointed out. Here is another report on who did what:
Four people are reported dead and 47 injured after the police opened fire on the protest, sparked by the report in Newsweek magazine that US personnel had flushed a copy of the Islamic holy book “down the toilet” at the detention centre in Cuba.
Next, who was shot? Well, most likely, the people who were killed in the riots were extremists who most of us generally would not lose sleep over were they killed. My new left-wing friends may lose sleep over my position, but I don’t necessarily lose a lot of sleep if Talibanesque Islamist fundamentalists are killed in protests- it just doesn’t move me to tears.
But since we are keeping score here, when an innocent cab driver is dragged from his car and systematically and methodically beaten to death for the sheer sadistic pleasure of it, to Hugh and others it is not news. When several people who are most likely Mullah Omar wannabees are gunned down while participating in rabid anti-American riots, we throw the outrage and rhetoric into high gear.
Spare me. I don’t have the requisite ability to ignore my cognitive dissonance to pull this one off.
5.) The Newsweek story was wrong– Maybe technically, but you have to wonder why it resonates so well among the communities in question. Could it be that the hundreds of documented reports of actual use of the Koran and Islamic symbols to bait prisoners resonates in these communities? And as far as I can tell, the source for this story has not denied that the Koran was flushed, but admitted only that he can not find the report in which it was detailed. If I am wrong about this, please correct me.
6.) Michael Isikoff is a left-wing hack– This is just an example of how quickly my fellow persecuted right-wingers make our enemies lists. Let me say just one thing in defense of Michael Isikoff’s alleged left-wing bias: Blow Job.
That is it for now. I am sure more bullshit will surface, and by all means, if you feel the need to offer up your own offal, feel free to do so. This is like playing t-ball with stupidity for me.
by John Cole| 7 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
A bill that will most likely be found unconstitutional just passed the Illinois Senate:
The Illinois Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to approve a revamped version of Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s plan to ban the sale of violent and sexually explicit video games to minors.
But one lawmaker said the governor’s pet project actually could cost the state money.
The Senate approved the measure 52-5, and now a few changes made on the floor will need to be approved in the House before the bill goes to the governor’s desk.
Under Blagojevich’s plan, businesses and clerks caught selling violent or sexually explicit games to a person younger than 18 would be charged with a petty offense and fined $1,000. Retailers would be required to affix stickers labeled “18” to games depicting “dismemberment, decapitation, disfigurement, maiming, mutilation of body parts or rape.”
The industry’s Entertainment Software Ratings Board already labels games as A for adult, M for mature, T for teen and E for everyone, but those ratings aren’t legally binding. Under this bill, retailers would put the mandated stickers on games rated A or M that fall under the bill’s definition of violence.
Other than the rape, the dismemberment, maiming, mutilation and other stuff pretty accurately describes almost every video game I have bought in the past couple of years.
My gut instinct is to oppose this, but, this does not seem terribly onerous. Discuss.
*** Update ***
For whatever reason, the dismemberment/maiming bit reminded me of one of the best quotes in movie history. From Blazing Saddles:
Hedley Lamarr: Qualifications?
Applicant: Rape, murder, arson, and rape.
Hedley Lamarr: You said rape twice.
Applicant: I like rape.
by John Cole| 4 Comments
This post is in: Movies
Just saw Zatoichi, and while a little more brutal than what I am used to, I still enjoyed it. Not time for some vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries and the double feature choice- The Legend, with Jet Li.
I guess I wiull have to pause at 11:30 to watch SNL and see how skinny Lindsay Lohan really is, too.
BTW- Star Wars ROTS is still sold out here in Motown.
This post is in: War on Terror aka GSAVE®
I was in the Army for close to ten years, on both active duty and in the Guard/Reserve. I was an armor crewman, I was a combat engineer, and I was an instructor. I count the years I was on active duty as the best years of my life, and I, to this day, actively worship our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.
I also was and still am a pretty vocal supporter of this war. Despite the fact that no active WMD programs or weapons were discovered, I continue to think what we did and what we are doing was and is the right thing to do.
Why am I telling you this? To deflect the inevitable knee-jerk, wingnut responses I will get when I say this:
Hugh Hewitt’s so-called ‘support’ of the military does it far more harm than it does good.
Today’s entry is a classic example:
The combined volley of a fake story (Newsweek’s) and an old story (the New York Times’) underscore Terry Moran’s assertion that there exists deep hostility to the military in the MSM, and Linda Foley’s idiocy is proof positive of the existence of a lunatic fringe that will believe whatever they have to believe in order to justify to themselves their feverish hatred of George W. Bush. It is almost inevitable that more anti-military stories will surface, powered by more leaks, all designed to discredit a war effort that is all too obviously succeeding in Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon and hopefully elsewhere in the Middle East.
Such a “leak” ended up leading to the death of innocents this week –though MSM seems uniquely disinterested in naming those dead in the Newsweek riots– and the damage future scoops may cause can only be guessed….
Everyone repeat after me:
Reporting on abuses that have been committed by our troops, in our name, is not anti-military. While I am not arrogant enough to attempt to divine the motives of every journalist who reports on such abuses, Hugh appears to be up to the challenge. I find his attack on the reporting of the outrageous abuses detailed at length in the NY Times to be both disturbing and disingenuous.
Apparently in the myopic worldview of Mr. Hewitt, reading and reporting the just-released documents the Army itself created is both ‘anti-military’ and ‘re-hashing’ an old story. Let’s not focus on the fact that few, if any, have been punished for these transgressions. Let’s not focus on credible reports that these incidents continue to occur. Instead, if Hewitt is to have his way, we should all focus on the ‘anti-military’ stance of the media.
What is particularly disturbing is how he and others have artificially conflated the Newsweek error and the NY Times story. This is no accident, but an act of intentional and outright propaganda. The Newsweek story may have been inaccurate, but the NY Times story was not. To read Hugh, you would think both were inconsequential and simply the result of a media hostile to the military. “Nothing here- just the military-hating mainstream media.”
To their meager credit, Hugh and his cheerleaders are not calling for outright censorship of the media:
Regarding my