Letters to the Editor
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Intelligence and Expertise Both Over-rated
Many pols and journalists are given far more credit for their intelligence and expertise than they deserve. McCain confusing the Sunni & Shi'a and their respective ideological and political relationships sounded like some college student who had just crammed for a final exam after a semester's worth of skipping class and got his facts confused on the essay question. I also believe that there are few journalists who are bothering to keep their facts any straighter, which makes it very easy for these kinds of factual errors not only to go unreported but to be left unnoticed for weeks. Quite frankly, if Lieberman hadn't corrected McCain (corrected him on video, more importantly), these errors most likely never would have been revealed, despite the fact that McCain had been spouting his mistakes all over the Middle East. Ignorance, laziness, bias, bigotry still play a huge role in our attitudes towards the peoples of the Middle East--a sense of "it's so hard keeping track of all these differences--and do they really matter, anyway?" a la Trent Lott. It's political and it's journalistic. In other words, I don't think McCain was purposely mis-characterizing. I think he isn't as smart as journalists and Iraq war sympathizers/rationalizers (who, themselves are lazy, ignorant and who are still willing to let other people think for them and take too much that is in dispute on faith) hope he is. Please America, do your homework this time. Reject cultural insensitivity and laziness; reject warmongers who would pretend to intelligence and expertise and the media who enable them.
And on a "given too much credit for intelligence" tangent, let me remind you all of Hillary Clinton's casting her indefensible votes: 1. The authorization for the use of force against Iraq (she didn't even read the NIE!!!) and 2. Declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.
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Put their comments side by side
What would be useful would be to put the comments of individual members of the press side by side: what they said about Bush before the 2000/2004 elections and what they're saying about McCain in 2008. I think a lot of similarities between how they speak about these candidates would be quite evident--my reaction to media "wisdom" nowadays is that they are doing for McCain exactly what they did for Bush--presenting McCain as straightforward, committed, what have you. Put the heat on a different media individual every day and ask them to explain how, if they were so spectacularly wrong about Bush, we are supposed to take their assessments seriously now. Thye need to be taken to account, one by one.
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Mix Me a Double!
In the minds of these bloodthirsty cretins, no error in favor of violence can ever be wrong,
Cocktailhag
That went down like a perfectly mixed drink. Smooth, but powerful!
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Where is LWM?
Considering the grief he gave me when I once (tangentially) mentioned that McCain had been shot down while carrying out a bombing mission over Vietnam, I find it curious to note his absence in today's thread. If I remember correctly, LWM contended that he was absolutely sure that McCain was not responsible for any deaths in Vietnam. Where for art thou, LWM? Hath thee no backbone to criticize thine peers on thine favored issue?
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@Settembrini
McCain just has Lieberman and Huckleberry Graham to whisper in his ear and mentor him.
- - Settembrini 01:11 PMOkay, so Joe is John's brain.
Okay, so then Digby asks the obvious question:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/dumb-as-fox-by-digby-i-have-often.html
But what's Huckleberry's job?
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-- has_te
Well, he was ONLY a frikkin' flyboy...high above the fray, as it were*.......
You're wrong. North Vietnam, contrary to what you have written, had a world class anti-aircraft defense system and those pilots who flew missions over Vietnam had to have courage to do it.
There's no reason to minimize the danger McCain was in while flying over NV, or even when flying off an aircraft carrier. Having been in danger, however, does not automatically bestow upon someone, any expertise other than to be able to handle danger.
If we have to "swiftboat John McCain", and minimize or lie about his service for "our" candidate to win, perhaps "our" candidate won't win anything worthwhile. There are enough things that McCain is either in favor of or responsible for which work against his candidacy, we don't need to tarnish his military service. He served honorably.
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One for each?
But what's Huckleberry's job?
-- sysprog
Don't know, but McCain does have two ears.
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Gone toe-to-toe with the Russians?
Before you start criticising McCain's experience you just better know that John McCain was, when a pilot, an early and ardent exponent of the "wet start" technique. This "wet start" method is like "choking" a car- the engine is flooded with fuel before ignition by the pilot (back when these controls were manual) so when ignition takes place, BOOM! This results in a huge tongue of flame being ejected from the jet's tail, and on an aircraft carrier, where the planes are at close quarters, gives the guy behind you a hell of a start. So he gets woke up, you get your jollies, and everybody has a great day. Unfortunately, on the USS Forrestal, it resulted in some unstable 1000lb. bombs "cooking off" on the plan behind. This made a hell of a fire. McCain was transferred to transfer his technique to other carriers, and since those 1000lb bombs weren't supposed to have been used, the thing was hushed.
So don't tell me McCain hasn't any or sufficient military experience. If this is even partly true, he seems to have experience in all the phases of military tactics which have redounded to the glory of recent Presidents. Okay, he hasn't actually gone AWOL, but what do you want? Not every man is George Bush, not by a long shot, no sir!
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re: Where is LWM?
Considering the grief he gave me when I once (tangentially) mentioned that McCain had been shot down while carrying out a bombing mission over Vietnam, I find it curious to note his absence in today's thread. If I remember correctly, LWM contended that he was absolutely sure that McCain was not responsible for any deaths in Vietnam. Where for art thou, LWM? Hath thee no backbone to criticize thine peers on thine favored issue?
-- omooex
He has been here; never leaves. He does switch handles often and sometimes lets lwm cool off.
A sort list of the many handles includes but is not limited to, lwm, Derbig Mooser, KB4hire, q8dhimmi, Lisa Michele, and Settembrin.
I suspect both Proximity Warning and SomeNYGuy but that is still open. William Timberman posted some others a few days back, but I don't remember what his list was.