Time Magazine's Joe Klein got his undies in a bundle when a commenter on his group blog, Swampland asked him to discuss the nature of his military sources. The commenter wrote:
Of course, it is very likely that Joe Klein's sources include many of the retired generals mentioned in the NYT article - the ones who spread disinformation to United States citizens over the public airwaves. And there is no reason to expect them to be more truthful to Joe Klein than they were on the air. So what about Klein's other sources? I am not asking him to name them, rather I am requesting that he engage us in a short discussion about how he views the information being fed to him in light of the recent verification of a program that many of us have suspected for a very long time. I realize that one must trust somebody in order to form an opinion so lets talk about how that trust is established.
This was published originally this week as a long-lead feature piece in Wilder Voice, a publication at Oberlin College in Ohio. It is crossposted at Ich Bin Ein Oberliner. I know it's long, but I think it's worth it.
At a recent campaign stop in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama went bowling. He only played seven frames. He scored a 37. This abysmal score did not go unnoticed in the media. The major papers and news services--AP, Reuters, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post--and a host of minor ones all printed stories. The big television news networks--CNN, MSNBC, FOX--not to be left out, ran their own segments. It was a column after column, day after day, Obama bowl-a-thon.
Warning! Not a candidate diary! Crossposted (with pictures... ooh...) at Ich Bin Ein Oberliner.
The New York Times's Saturday revelation (here) that The Pentagon was directing the messages of network and cable news's military analysts was a bombshell. It was evidence that our government, and, in particular, our military was deliberately and deviously propagandizing the nightly news.
Dallas County broke the '06 total vote yesterday, with over 57,000 early votes (not counting the mail ballots). We've looked at about 55,000 of those, and as best we can tell, virtually half have no '02, '04 or '06 primary history. Less than 3,000 have previous R primary history over the same period.
Primary season... silliness abounds. Here, at MyDD, across The Tubes, people have been getting their undies in a bundle for good reasons and bad (often, really bad).
Hillary isn't human! Obama leads a cult! I'm gonna vote for McCain if ___ doesn't win!
If presented with two different explanations for the same set of facts, how does one tell the difference between them?
For example:
(1)
Fact: a substantial number of Independents and some Republicans voted for Obama
Explanation 1: It’s a malicious conspiracy.
Explanation 2: He has some cross-party appeal.
(2)
Fact: Senator Clinton almost cried a couple of times on the campaign trail.
Explanation 1: She’s faking it to gain sympathy.
Explanation 2: She’s a human being who feels human emotions.
(3)
Fact: There are fossils of dinosaurs.
Explanation 1: They were put there by God to trick us.
Explanation 2: They are there because dinosaurs once walked the Earth.
Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirming instances everywhere: the world was full of verification of that theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refused to see it.
-Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
There are two types of theories that provide explanations for Obama's successes. One claims that Obama has created a cult of personality. The other claims that Obama is just a good politician. Both theories rely on the same set of facts (excluding the Obama is a dirty politician and friends with terrorists meme). The Cult Theory (CT) is not a good explanation. It is overly complex and riddled with ad hoc dodges. It contains one of the hallmarks of irrationality; there is no situation that it cannot explain, there is nothing that does not confirm it. It is unfalsifiable, and, therefore, a bad theory.
By all accounts, Tim Walz should not have won. He has no prior political experience. When he started, he had virtually no money and little support. He ran in a blood-red district against a popular incumbent. But he won, riding a political wave, the likes of which America has not seen since 1994 (fitting, as the incumbent--the hapless Gil Gutknecht--rode in on that very 1994 wave).
Democrat minority leader Nancy Pelosi and 159 of her Democrat colleagues voted today in favor of more rights for terrorists," Hastert said . "So the same terrorists who plan to harm innocent Americans and their freedom worldwide would be coddled, if we followed the Democrat plan.
The stakes are high,'' Bush said at a fundraiser here Tuesday. "The Democrats are the party of cut and run. Ours is a party that has a clear vision... Time and time again, the Democrats want to have it both ways. They talk tough on terror, but when the votes are counted, they are soft.''
MN-01 is supposed to be an easy, safe, red district. Not anymore.
It's been trending blue for the last couple of years; Sen. Kerry got 48% of the vote in 2004, and Tim Walz, a Netroots candidate, has been working hard to win. It looks like it's paying off...
Tim Walz is one of the most inspiring candidates we have. He's a Netroots candidate running in MN-01 against Congressman Gil Gutknecht, a '94 Revolution Republican, who, despite the rather flamboyant name, is just another pliable and bland rubber stamp.
This is to all the writes, the directors, the producers, the actors, the composers, the newsmen, the pundits, the politicians, and to everyone who will shape what we remember about the events of September 11, 2001, I implore you to remember this...
My politically plugged-in friends and I are taking bets on the upcoming election. Who will take back the House? By how much? Will we win in MN-06? Will Webb eke one out against Macacca? Lamont/Liebermann? Oh, it's all gold! Come November, I'll probably have fifty dollars riding on the midterm elections.
In some ways, politics is like sports for me. I've got my home team, the guys I want to win. I'll jaw with my friends, cheer when we win, and cry, I mean punch the wall all manly-like when we lose.
I don't know if it was Mr. Olbermann's jaw-dropping critique of Secretary Rumsfeld and the Bush administration; I don't know if it was reading the names of the dead on the News Hour With Jim Lehrer tonight; I don't know if it was the heartbreaking, infuriating, beautiful Katrina diaries here on Dailykos. I don't know what it was, but something is different now.
Okay, let's play a free association game. Minnesota: snow... cold... the movie Fargo... people horribly mispronouncing words... cold... lots and lots of Scandinavian people... really, really cold... three possible pick-ups in the House... cold...
If I had to pick my favorite media narrative, it would have to be "The Angry Left." We are "crude" and "crass," "loud" and "mean," and above all, we are angry.
We aren't polite. We aren't--at least according to the Narrative of the Angry Left--civil. We're the unwashed masses of the Democratic Party: farting, belching, and cussing as we destroy western civilization with our unregulated series of tubes.
But like most media narratives about the netroots, it's wrong. We're labeled uncivilized, and the beltway establishment--the likes of Senators Lieberman and McCain--gets to appropriate civility for themselves. It's wrong, and it's frustrating just how wrong it is. At the end of the day an energized, people-powered, progressive Democratic Party is the best and only hope for civility.
If you'd be so kind to indulge in a bit of navel gazing...
Today I voted in my first election, the MN primary (absentee, in person)! I'm wearing my "I voted" sticker, and I'm just as proud as a peacock.
If someone had told me four years ago that I would care who won a primary in CT, that I would know who my Congressman is and what committees he's on, or that I'd spend hours wasting away reading politics on a liberal blog called Dailykos, I would have laughed in your face.
But here I am, and I just voted for the first time today.
Al Gore has spoken: The world must embrace a "carbon-neutral lifestyle." [...] But if Al Gore is the world's role model for ecology, the planet is doomed.[...]
Unfortunately, here at Dailykos, too often the debate on human embryonic stem cell research has been framed as a struggle between two opposite and exclusive world views. Either the debate is between the forces of religious dogmatism and scientific progress, or between ethical watchdogs and irresponsible experimenters. By turning stem cell research into a political issue, old and bitter enemies have found new ways to take the moral high-ground: social conservatives view stem cell research as another front in their confrontation with liberals, and left-leaning groups have finally found a wedge-issue of their own--a way to counter the increasingly powerful pro-life movement.(1) While this politicization has proved somewhat successful, especially for left-leaning candidates and groups,(2) it threatens to claim responsible science as yet another casualty of this increasingly polarized political environment. (Wow! There's more on the flip!)
