When it comes to the history of Bush Wars, I am not going to call out Mark Ambinder for special condemnation. I didn’t even know who he was until about 2007, so I am no expert on his failings as a journalist during the peak years of deceit. What I do know is that from 2005 until the end of the Bush presidency I wrote three or four or five posts a day detailing the myriad ways in which the administration was lying and the media was failing to call them out on it. I think I have been vindicated on more than 95% of what I wrote. With extremely rare exceptions, I did not have direct sources within the government. I used raw empiricism. The administration was lying about nearly everything they were willing to discuss, and it was obvious. Over the first term of the Bush administration I did develop what could be described as a raw hatred, but it was well warranted. They earned my antipathy. What I wrote was based in logic, not mere animus. I challenge Mark Ambinger to read my archives and find where I was wrong because hatred blinded my analysis. I doubly challenge him to read my archives and find where my hatred was without merit.
With extremely rare exceptions, I did not have direct sources within the government. I used raw empiricism. The administration was lying about nearly everything they were willing to discuss, and it was obvious.
I think the parallels to the late Soviet era samizdat are striking. Quite simply put, the samizdat was ordinary people without “direct sources in the government” who figured out the government was lying.
So why is it Boo and others are in the “minority” and that piercing through government lies is so easy and yet so uncommon? I mean after all, there is a tremendous volume of public access information out there so the “figuring out” that the government is lying is actually the easy part.
There seems to be one big reason why governments lie and get away with it.
* A lack of acknowledgment that it is an obvious fact that people in/around government have multiple incentives (primarily money and power) to lie.
Not just the American government, not just the Soviet government, all people in/around government have multiple incentives to lie. So as long as those incentives exist, they’re gonna keep lying.
That’s what I.F. Stone said: all governments lie. They always have and they always will. Anything different than that is the “real” story.
The Armbrinders of the world are just re-enacting the latest version of the Emperor’s New Clothes, wherein the “Emperor” is shorthand for all the bullshit patriotic crap of what the American government is supposed to be/always have been: Mom, baseball, freedom of speech, apple pie, trial by jury et al.
Saying you’re right and figured it out all on your own without special gov’t access is no different than the kid who pointed out the Emperor was naked – all you have to do is open your eyes and the evidence is right there in your face.
Pax
Perhaps, the folowing quote is relevant here.
Now you see why 9/11 had to happen.
So Bush, the Incompetent and Immoral, could get his war with Iraq who, as everyone knows, was the ally of Bin Laden.
Damn straight. People lie all the time. Humans are such compulsive liars that we actually have stock phrases to indicate when we’re going to make an exception and tell the truth, e.g., “To be frank…”, and we regard habitual truth-tellers as being so exceptional that we have specific names for them — “outspoken”, “scrupulously honest” — not all of which are actually flattering, like “blunt”.
And our instinctive proclivity toward dishonesty aside, human memory and reason is spectacularly unreliable. Even in a field like science where most everyone is, out of sheer necessity, scrupulously honest, we have elaborate protocols to eliminate honest errors — which is what scientific method is largely about — built on the understanding that even honest mistakes are easy to make and hard to root out.
Given that, taking someone, anyone, at their word is just plain stupid. To do so in an environment like politics, which is largely divorced from the world of facts to begin with, borders on insanity. As such, publishing any statement in the press without extensive fact-checking is at best grossly negligent. The MSM has ample reason to be ashamed of itself, not just for being inexcusably careless, but also for allowing itself to be so easily seduced as well.
Boo:
If you trusted Molly Ivins, you were warned at the very beginning that Bush was no good. No one in the TradMed would even give her the time of day. Did the TradMed ever look into Harken? Or all of the other stuff? As you know too well, if the TradMed ever did their job, Republicans would be already be joining the Whigs on the trash heap of history.
Boo, I read through all the comments on the Mark Ambinder article, and, by and large, they were in your corner. Some of them were quite devastating especially the ones dealing with a journalist’s integrity or lack thereof.
When the Republic was on fire, Ambinder didn’t even notice the smoke.
Unfortunately, he may be having the last laugh.
Please read Eugene Robinson:
Obama needs to drop the Caspar Milquetoast act and bring some heat. He needs to call the Republicans AND the “blue dogs” hypocritical liars. As I’ve said before, the American people are waiting to see some passion from our side. Obama must provide it.
To Ambinder, if you didn’t have Karl Rove on your speed dial, you don’t count. As a journalist, a writer or a person.
one didn’t need ‘ sources’ booman. one only had to THINK FOR THEMSELVES…which you obviously do.
After reading all the snake game to the Mark Ambinder piece, I can say that the vast majority of people are on your side. Particularly harrowing were the ones that questioned the journalist’s honesty or lack thereof.