Argh
Almost as if he’s out to prove how right I was that big bloggers don’t care about the truth or reality, merely their own assumptions and stereotypes, yesterday the Instapundit linked to a blogger describing Russia as “a dog chasing cars” because it “hates plans” and loves chaos.
Ignoring the obvious Fred Thompson tie in—that crowd loved Fred Thompson when he was competing with John McCain to be the oldest president evar—it is such an ignorant thing to say, I don’t even know where to begin. This seems to be what passes for analysis and discussion in that circle of friends.
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Tags: Georgia, blogosphere, Russia.
Posted by Joshua Foust on August 20th, 2008
Permalink | Trackback | Comments: 11
Comments
Time: 8/20/2008, 2:37 pm
That some people whom you’d think know better are knowingly (or so it seems) participating in this nonsense-a-thon is itself a disturbing sign. Just calling them out on their “ignorance” wouldn’t work: it’s not pure ignorance that’s driving it. Weird sort of “political correctness” at work, I think: they feel that they need to say the “right thing” for their audience to retain credibility with them. Not a good development–not because it’s new, but because internet spreads information and misinformation extremely fast….
Time: 8/20/2008, 3:19 pm
My point isn’t that he’s ignorant — it never was. Instapundit is a very smart guy — he’d never have gotten to where he was if he wasn’t.
My point is that ideology (being a former FSO doesn’t exactly endear me to the guy) in this crowd seems to outweigh facts. You can brag about the guy’s qualifications all you want, but to pretend Russia is an ill-tempered dog in love with its own chaos is simply irrational.
Time: 8/20/2008, 4:28 pm
I’m not bragging about his qualifications, I’m just saying that it’s not exactly the same as just posting up endless links to Little Green Footballs or whatnot.
That said, does ideology come into it? Yes, fair enough, I think it probably does. If Crawford was taking a dovish line I dare say he’d either not get the link in the first place or it’d be along the lines of “OMG! Look at this, Foreign Office Camel Corps! Munich 1938!!!! Britain is the Teh Suck!!!!!!?!!!!!!!” or somesuch.
I think it’s also worth arguing that, quite apart from the impact of the ideological lens, a lot of the output would be improved if more people were prepared to openly state that at this stage all the facts simply aren’t available and everything carries a big health warning. This is a problem that seems to be shared with 24 hour news networks. “At this point I’m really not sure and you should probably take anyone who claims to be certain with a big pinch of salt”, largely ceases to be an acceptable stance.
Time: 8/20/2008, 4:39 pm
Instapundit is a very smart guy
wtf? I don’t know about his take on science, but politically he’s a moron. He’s popular, but so is Bill O’Reilly.
Time: 8/20/2008, 4:50 pm
I agree that his politics aren’t well thought out — that’s kind of the point of this post — but normally morons don’t become law professors who publish regularly. Lots of smart people have dumb politics.
Which, again, is what I’m getting at here. I run into people all the time who SHOULD know bettter than to say or do something, but they do it anyway.
Time: 8/21/2008, 3:59 pm
To repeat, the problem, as it seems to me, is not that these folk (in media spotlight) SHOULD know better, but don’t…rather, it is far more likely that they DO know better, but they act ignorant intentionally. That’s far more sinister than mere willful ignorance.
Time: 8/21/2008, 10:34 pm
nah, bollocks. Bloggers are people, and when people talk about stuff they don’t know anything about - a link machine like Instapundit does that all the time - they go wrong. But some of them depend on providing the constant feed, so it’s pretty much a certain thing. Blogs are good when the blogger in question knows about his subject, and writes about nothing else. Not particularly entertaining, but at least trustworthy.
Time: 8/21/2008, 10:35 pm
Wow. That’s all I can say is, wow. I was even more floored when I came n the comments section and found out that the guy was a FSO. Whatever you think about them in general I never would have attributed such an essentially childish and simple-minded viewpoint to a FSO.
Time: 8/22/2008, 8:24 pm
Shorter Registan: Everybody but Josh Foust is an idiot. Repeat post after post.
Time: 8/22/2008, 8:42 pm
Shorter Cynic: I don’t like knowing what I’m talking about because I never bothered to read anything else about someone before forming an opinion about him.
Wait, that’s longer. Whatever — it fits.
Time: 8/20/2008, 1:58 pm
Setting aside the quality of the comment, Charles Crawford is a former senior Eastern Europe hand with the Foreign Office. He’s not just Some Bloke, so while I think there are many ways in which Instapundit might deserve being skewered up the catflap, I’m not sure this is one of them, simply on the basis that Crawford’s on paper qualifications are good enough that the lay chap might reasonably go “Hmm…ok”.
This isn’t to dispute your broader point, as such.