Friday, October 26, 2007

Someone is to blame

The fundamental flaw I see in all conspiracy theories is the assumption that "unanswered questions = someone is hiding something".

The truth is that there has never been a criminal investigation that didn't have at least a few unanswered questions. In criminology, the official conclusion of an investigation is that theory which best fits the available facts. For any other theory to be considered it must explain more of the available facts than the official conclusion.

So many conspiracy theories fail simply because they have more holes in them then the official conclusion (if 9/11 was a fake then where are all the passengers from those planes?)

Potemkin Press Conferences

who in their right mind would think this was a good idea?

Democratic Perfectionism

I'm thinking a little more about the previous post. Generally speaking, gossip propagates best when it validates preconceived notions. The thing that gives them weight is the feeling that people have that, even if the allegation is false, it's the kind of thing they would expect to be true.

Republicans have a lot of negative feelings about Democrats. Democrats have a lot of negative feelings about Republicans. And Independents have a lot of negative feelings about both. The weed of bad gossip spreads because their is fertile soil in which it can grow.

I think the most fascinating aspect of the story linked to previously is the 25 positive Bush emails that Hayes identified compared with the total lack of any similar emails for Kerry. If gossip (bad or good) requires the validation of preconceived notions, then the successful propagation of good gossip about Bush means there was a fertile landscape of good feeling about the man. The total lack of such emails for Kerry means that he had no positive feelings to begin with.

Which brings me to a key question: are Democrats simply incapable of having lasting, positive feelings about their own leaders? Do Democrats demand a level of perfection from their leaders that is guaranteed to produce negative feelings when they inevitably fail? Ever notice how many of the most loved Democratic leaders are either dead or have never gotten into a position of real leadership where they had real impact? Just compare the residual feelings of Republicans towards Reagan with the Democrats toward Clinton and you will see what I am talking about.

Republicans continue to ascribe good motives to their leaders even when they fuck up while Democrats almost celebrate the opportunity to throw their leaders under the bus when something doesn't go right.

Can this be changed? Or is it an essential characteristic of the Democrat's mindset? I have no answer to that question. But I think it is one that needs to be answered.

Gossip: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

This article by Christopher Hayes provides some good coverage of the prevalence of right-wing smear gossip passed through email. But I think it falls a bit short in implying that there is some kind of coordination behind these smears (just the use of the word "machine" in the title of the story is giving to much credit). While I am certain there are people who try to coordinate these things, viral communications is a tricky field that few really understand well enough to manipulate.

I also think it is more bipartisan than Hayes suggests. He addresses this here:

The New Right-Wing Smear Machine: "From the beginning, the vast majority of these Internet-disseminated rumors have come from the right. (Snopes lists about fifty e-mails about George W. Bush, split evenly between adulatory accounts of him saluting wounded soldiers or witnessing to a wayward teenager, and accounts of real and invented malapropisms. In contrast, every single one of the twenty-two e-mails about John Kerry is negative.)"

If we accept these numbers than half of the Bush mails being negative would mean there were 25 of them compared to the 22 for Kerry. So according to Hayes there were roughly an equal number of negative Bush rumors as there were Kerry rumors. The major difference between them was that there were an equal number of positive Bush rumors while there were no positive Kerry rumors.

So maybe in this there is a clue for Democrats: The best way to deal with bad gossip is to create a firewall of good gossip. Unfortunately, Democrats seem to be as bad at saying good stuff about their own as they are at pushing negative stuff about the other side.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Whip It Good

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

We, The People

Thanks to Christy Hardin Smith for finding this. I still find myself humming the preamble. School House Rock informed my generation.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

A Time For Action vs. A Time For Obstruction

Big Tent Democrat once again puts his finger on the essential flaw in the Democrats legislative strategy.

There are times when the job of a political body is to be active in producing legislation (in the case of Congress) or enacting policy (in the case of the President). But there are times, such as the present situation, when one political body (the Congress) simply cannot be proactive in its work because there is a roadblock in the way (Bush).

Such times require, as BTD points out, a different strategy. If you can't pro-actively push forward the legislation/policy that you want then at least you can minimize the damage of the policy/legislation you hate by becoming a roadblock yourself.

Think Clinton after 1994. His ability to pro-actively enact policy was severely limited by the Republican congress. Clinton recognized this limitation and he worked within it by acting as a brake on the unwise policies of Congress. The resulting shutdown of the federal government effectively derailed the Gingrich program.

The fundamental mistake Democrats have made since 2006 is thinking that they had the power, let alone the mandate, to act pro-actively. They were (and are) naive. They make the same mistake Gingrich made in underestimating the stopping power of the Presidency. Furthermore, they didn't understand that the people didn't elect them to pass a minimum wage, expand S-CHIP and do many other things (even though they might approve of those things). The people elected the Democrats to put the brakes on George W. Bush.

There are times that call for action and there are times that call for obstruction. Now is one of the later times.

So start obstructing dammit!

Monday, October 22, 2007

It's Complicated

(hat tip Balloon Juice)

I try not to discount any report from Iraq simply because it doesn't match my current assessment. So I don't discount positive reports even though I currently think Iraq is a huge fuckup.

Not all positive reports can be delusional. Nor can all negative reports be delusional. Those who push one or the other cannot simply dismiss the counterparts because they don't agree.

Iraq is complicated.

The question I always come back to is this: if Iraq is a complicated puzzle is the military really the best way to solve that puzzle?