Up from Comments
In response to my assertion that news programs shouldn’t solicit commentary from intellectually dishonest entertainers like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin (who is trickier insofar as his book is different in kind from his radio rhetoric), E.D. Kain writes in comments:
Intellectual dishonesty is not something you can scientifically pin down. One man’s intellectually dishonest pundit is another man’s political mentor. I generally don’t like these pundits, Conor, but the notion of banning them from cable news shows because you think they’re dishonest is reprehensible to me.
I’ve got a question for E.D. and other like-minded commenters: Is there anything that would cause you to classify a political commentator like Rush Limbaugh as intellectually dishonest? What if I could demonstrate, for example, that he makes factually inaccurate statements, plays misleadingly edited audio clips, misrepresents the views of his political opponents, and uses obviously fallacious reasoning every single fortnight he is on the air, for years on end? Would that be sufficient evidence to objectively deem him intellectually dishonest, or would it still just be a matter of my opinion? Would it be sufficient to justify his exclusion from news programs?
Here is a thought experiment that demonstrates as best I can why Rush Limbaugh shouldn’t be invited as a commentator on any news program that meets the standards a journalistic organization ought to set for itself. Take the kinds of flawed commentary that I list above: a) factually inaccurate statements, b) misleadingly edited audio clips, c) misrepresenting the views of political opponents, and d) using obviously fallacious reasoning. Imagine that every day during September 2009, a neutral party is going to analyze Mr. Limbaugh’s program, and determine whether it included transgressions a, b, c or d.
Given 5 to 1 odds, would anyone be willing to wager $100 that Mr. Limbaugh will go even one single program that month without doing any of those things?
Would you rather have $100 for every program that month when Mr. Limbaugh commits all four transgressions, or $100 for every program wherein he commits none of those transgressions?
In a contest with 20 other people, where the winner is awarded $1 million for best estimating the total number of transgressions Mr. Limbaugh will make during the month, what would be your guess?
Having answered those questions, does Mr. Limbaugh still strike you as an appropriate guest for a program whose mission is to inform its audience?
You seem to spend a third of your time cogitating about what other people in the commentary biz are saying. The emphasis is misplaced.
A content analysis of the sort you refer would be quite an effort and I doubt many who have opinions on these matters have ever read one. I think Robert Lichter does this sort of thing, but I doubt he would frame the question the way you do.
Speaking somewhat impressionistically, I suspect the winner of a scam-around contest might just be Garry Wills, with an honorable mention to Paul Krugman, but I suppose I am showing my bias.
— Art Deco · Aug 14, 12:14 PM · #
What about a talk radio host like Barak Obama? I think his program is called NPR, or something like that. But he does a, c, and d on a regular basis, especially c. And he probably does b, as well. Should news programs refuse to solicit commentary from him?
— The Reticulator · Aug 14, 12:24 PM · #
That’s an interesting question, Conor.
1) I suppose sufficient dishonesty would cause me to lose respect for El Rushbo. But even, then, I couldn’t be sure if I was right because of the eye of the beholder effect. He just would have crossed my threshhold.
2) Reticulator has a good point. I don’t think there’s any reasonable debate that Obama is routinely guilty of a, c, and d. Bush too, although not on the daily basis that we see Obama engaging in that activity. And don’t even get me started on Pelosi, Reid, Armey, etc. But we let all of them on the tv.
2.5) Do we ban Krugman and Dowd? If yes, I might accept a Rush ban as acceptable collateral damage. If not, why not?
3) The decision of which commentators are sufficiently dishonest for the black list is inherently subjective. Shows should probably make it, but carefully.
— J Mann · Aug 14, 12:43 PM · #
I think the ideal solution to this problem would look something like disbarment in the legal profession. From Wikipedia:
“Generally disbarment is imposed as a sanction for conduct indicating that an attorney is not fit to practice law, willfully disregarding the interests of a client, or engaging in fraud which impedes the administration of justice.”
Replace ‘law’ with ‘journalism’, ‘a client’ with ‘the public’, and ‘administration of justice’ with ‘public discourse’. The biggest problem I see with this solution is that it goes to the heart of the debate about who qualifies as a journalist to begin with. But if the only consequence of disaccreditation is that you don’t get to be on TV news networks, then an industry group run by the TV news networks should be enough.
Personally, I think a structure like this could be great for highlighting the credibility of traditional media sources as opposed to some new media sources. On the other hand, it could end up being to the press what DRM enforcement was to the music industry: a way to nail yourself into a coffin of irrelevancy while alienating all your natural supporters.
As to what standard they use, I couldn’t care less. As long as they ask themselves the questions that Conor raises and act on the answers, the debate over journalistic integrity will happen publicly and soon.
— Michael P · Aug 14, 01:45 PM · #
If you are banning all guests who misrepresent their opponent’s views then every politition and 95% of other talking heads are now banned.
— JD · Aug 14, 01:53 PM · #
Conor:
Is there any way to find out who sent the above post, signed by JD? As you know, I sign mine “jd” and I would never misspell politician. Or does your selective outrage allow it?
Or perhaps the phony JD would like to confess? Unfortunately, the sentiments expressed in the above post show that the commenter has me spot on.
Maybe now he or she would like to fess up?
Or maybe it’s you, Conor?
— jd · Aug 14, 02:05 PM · #
Conor:
Is there any way you could rewrite that sentence using “fortnight” which would make your point more clear? Because I’m sure you didn’t mean to say that Rush is wrong every two weeks.
— jd · Aug 14, 02:16 PM · #
Conor, what standards exactly should journalistic organizations maintain? I think the problem is that objectivity and truthiness are lousy criteria for judging the quality of media reports. We can always imagine a better-informed audience to whom the most well-founded statements will seem inaccurate or biased. More about this, in a China-context, here: http://chirony.com/2009/07/30/the-great-biased-media-debate/
Rush is obnoxious in so far as he offends our sensibilities and intellectual commitments. But as Kain mentions, many of his positions are inspiring and informative to certain audiences. That’s why the only effective and meaningful objections to his positions are democratic.
I guess I just don’t think the phrase ‘intellectually dishonest’ is very useful. If you want to say he is dishonest, that’s one thing. But if you are arguing that he is really bad at representing the truth, then you are probably just on a different side of a given intellectual or political spectrum. I definitely am.
— wfrost · Aug 14, 02:20 PM · #
jd: The other JD post isn’t inflammatory enough to suggest that someone is making fun of you.[*] Is it possible that there is just another JD in the world? (I can’t tell you how annoyed I was when it turned out there is another J Mann).
[*] Unless s/he is the read jd and you are the fake. However, in that case, we are quickly approaching Philip K. Dick-land and should back away carefully before it turns out that every one of these posts and comments is put by Reihan, who developed a split personality as an undergraduate and now believes that he is an entire community.
— J Mann · Aug 14, 02:23 PM · #
Look: Rush Limbaugh may very well be intellectually dishonest. But your emphasis is misplaced. People should be allowed to listen to all viewpoints (even those of liars) and then make up their minds for themselves. If these commentators are as bad as you claim, it shouldn’t be too difficult to discredit them. And demonstrating their dishonesty would be far more persuasive (although admittedly more work and time intensive) than just banning them outright. Banning is the lazy way out . . . and it is wrong.
— Dankoba · Aug 14, 02:25 PM · #
Friedersdorf hammers at the transgressions against truth committed by Limbaugh and his understudies. But I wonder if the emphasis shouldn’t be placed elsewhere— not on Limbaugh’s fictions, themselves, but on the tone of his fictions.
Reticulator makes the piercing observation that the President lies. I assume he or she would concede that the President before him lied, too, and so, typically does any politician or party strategist. We accept a lot of lying from our political leaders. Yet, we can appreciate the different ways in which they lie.
Even though we know they’re a put-on, Clinton’s pursed lips and sympathetic gaze are quite effective. We appreciate the act, even if it hides tawdry intentions. In his time, Reagan was nimble, too, able to claim innocence about matters in which everyone knew he was steeped thanks to his amiable, uncouth veneer.
Successful politicians are experts at seeming above or beyond the fray, even when they’re lying. Generally, we appreciate their game, even when we resent them for getting away with it.
For am radio liars, the whole scene is different. They wallow in the fray. They bank on the fray. They use their lies to further inflame the fray, and this has clearly worked in their format. They’ve attracted a big audience, no doubt about it. But thankfully, this is not NPR’s audience, and with Klein’s decree, CNN seeks to distance itself, however superficially and opportunistically, from it as well. Both networks invite their share of commenters who stretch the truth, but these parties play their fictions, if not elegantly, then at a reasonable volume, at the very least.
Conservative am radio hosts truck in hot tempers that flare in an instant. They remind me of a consultant with whom I occasionally work. He’s a talented guy, hard-working and typically friendly. Again and again, however, when a matter arises that needs resolution, he gets revved up and angry in no time. He instantly and unnecessarily ratchets the intensity, and just as instantly the conversation and thus a solution becomes unnecessarily difficult.
Limbaugh and his understudies have a similar affect. Their loud vexations make it hard to have a genuine exchange. This is fine when they’re yelling from a leather recliner over a gold-plated mic. But seated at a roundtable on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer? No, that would be counterproductive. Limbaugh would set an inflammatory tone that might cause a briefly entertaining ruckus— ala Jerry Springer— but it would kill the conversation. And whether you buy into PBS/NPR’s staid, sober, sometimes dull approach, that’s their thing. They try for the conversation, and I’m happy they do.
The mad-as-hell, hyperventilating approach sets the wrong tone for news channels that regard themselves as delivering an objective product. Lies, themselves, don’t get am radio personas dismissed from CNN and NPR. It’s the over-the-top crudeness with which they tailor their lies.
With Crossfire, CNN of course pioneered a certain model of confrontational political discussion, but I take it that Klein is attempting to pull the channel back from the bad associations that Dobbs and the birthers are delivering. It’s kind of contrived, of course. He’s happy for Dobbs’ ratings, but he has to try to preserve some of the channel’s broader rep. for relatively straight, sober journalism.
This has all been a tempest in a teapot, anyway, hasn’t it? How often were Limbaugh, Hannity or Beck ever invited on CNN programs before Klein’s decree? Almost never, right?
— turnbuckle · Aug 14, 02:27 PM · #
Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Conor see them that he said to his squire, “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend E.D., thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.”
Conor, you’re on the side of the angels; there’s no doubt about that. But this is the land of bad smells and inappropriately wide stances. Check your halo at the door.
(Democratic politics: where its always a bad time to stop sniffy glue.)
P.S. Look up the Alexander Hamilton’s pseudonymously written attacks on his opponents. They are much, much, much worse than most of Rush.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Aug 14, 03:32 PM · #
Uh, when has Barack Obama ever said anything as obviously deceitful or incendiary as the current “death panels” nonsense? When has he ever accused someone of anything as shrilly and bluntly as Beck’s statement that Obama is a “racist” who has a deep hatred of white people? Has Obama ever encouraged any liberal to believe anything as stupid and poisonous as Rush’s promotion of the whole birther garbage?
The idea that one cannot draw a line and distinguish between what is acceptable and what is not is a profoundly liberal weakness.
Mike
— MBunge · Aug 14, 03:37 PM · #
I wouldn’t advocate outright bans. The journalists on these shows, rather, must do the hard work of fact-checking their guests and being well prepared to confront their lies. “Actually, Mr. Limbaugh, there are no ‘death panels’ mentioned in the bill and in fact, what is in the bill is very similar to programs many Republicans have advocated in recent years.” It’s hard work, but it would be a lot more effective than a ban. Rush would then just claim victim status for himself. Well, OK, he already does that, like nearly every other Republican these days. But in this case, he’d actuially have a point. And why give him that?
— tgb1000 · Aug 14, 03:40 PM · #
I wonder, really, if this doesn’t get at the heart of what is wrong with journalism, “news” media, and public discourse. For a partisan, an opponent’s mere act of having a dissenting opinion, or privileging different information sets, is “lying.” But all that is is selection bias. It’s both human and understandable.
This requires an honest interlocutor, one interested in truth and in making good decisions, whether or not they conform to his or her ideological packaging, to seek out dissenting forms of information, as well as those that reinforce our hypotheses. This is what makes what people like Limbaugh do so corrosive: they are the most easily accessible source of either, but have no commitment to honesty, just confirming their pre-conceived notions. And they’ll lie, cheat, and fabricate to do it.
Journalism, especially British journalism, used to have no real problem with this. You knew which writers, and which publications, viewed the facts through which lens. They were subjective, yes, because that’s human, but they were committed to honesty and truth as well. Now all we have is the lens.
I wonder, however, how that is a “profoundly liberal weakness?” Perhaps Mike can expound further on that, rather than make a rather broad assertion.
— Erik Vanderhoff · Aug 14, 03:49 PM · #
You know, I don’t mind Rush. I don’t listen to him, but I don’t particularly mind him. Hannity seems like a nice guy, but I can’t stand listening to him. Levin’s book was mediocre and I can’t stand listening to him. Savage also grates.
That being said, even if you grant that these guys are all insufferable, intellectually dishonest blowhards, I don’t see how that makes them any different from the vast majority of the people on tv and the vast majority of our politicians—in both parties.
— Jay · Aug 14, 03:49 PM · #
Try this variation: “What if I could demonstrate, for example, that Barack Obama makes factually inaccurate statements, misleadingly quotes his critics, misrepresents the views of his political opponents, and uses obviously fallacious reasoning at every single news conference and town hall meeting, for years on end? Would that be sufficient evidence to objectively deem him intellectually dishonest, or would it still just be a matter of my opinion? Would it be sufficient to justify his exclusion from news programs?”
Goose/gander. Sighted/blind.
— vanderleun · Aug 14, 04:03 PM · #
I think you’ve missed it altogether. What’s really wrong with journalism is that to a journalist, one person telling the truth and one person lying through their teeth are just “two sides of the issue”, two people “privileging different information sets”, two people with “dissenting opinions”, etc. Not “one person telling the objective truth, as best it can be known” and one person “knowingly lying through their teeth.”
Oddly enough this is precisely what is also wrong with our discourse about religion and religious claims; a complete unwillingness to treat it as “our best knowledge” vs. “wishful thinking and fantasy” instead of “privileging different informations sets”, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.
— Chet · Aug 14, 04:13 PM · #
Gedankenexperiment:
I’m a radio show host. I tell my audience that Obama’s vision for healthcare encompasses independent panels making end-of-life decisions for individual citizens, where the determinative criterion is saving money rather than lives. I quote Obama on this point. Though Obama doesn’t use the term, I call them ‘death panels’. It’s an evocative caricature, I know, but accurate — ‘death’ and ‘end-of-life’ are synonyms. I tell my audience how I feel about these possible panels. I cite to Paglia where she worries about a “Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral.” I feel very strongly about the whole thing. I worry about slippery slopes. I worry about the soul of my country. I worry about freedom. I worry about innovation. I worry about What Comes Next. I do not introduce countervailing facts or opinions. Everything I say is in earnest.
Can I go on CNN?
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Aug 14, 04:14 PM · #
To Sargent, Hamilton might have been “much… worse” in one sense than Limbaugh, but much better, too, right? His slanders were much better conceived and written than anything Limbaugh could pen.
At least vitriolic distortions weren’t the sum of Hamilton’s game. I doubt that we want to hold up his talent in that department as a tradition worth emulating, anyway. He was also good at supporting political compromises that bolstered the continuation of slavery— doesn’t mean he was setting a worthy example.
— turnbuckle · Aug 14, 04:17 PM · #
Mike, that gets us to my point about the eye of the beholder on dishonesty. Somehow, Obama fans seem to actually believe that Obama is not routinely dishonest. I don’t get it, but they do. Rushbo fans are the same way. (I don’t get that one either). Once you start kicking people out for “excessive dishonestly”, you are in inherently subjective territory.
I would be happy to list Obama’s factually incorrect statements, mischaracterizations of his opponents, etc., but I don’t think you will be convinced. Similarly, I could make the intellectual case behind “death panels,” but you won’t be impressed. (I think a law against the intellectually dishonest would keep both Obama and Palin off the air, FWIW). If you want to, let me know.
— J Mann · Aug 14, 04:29 PM · #
Chet,
I both agree and disagree. I think the “two sides” thing has to do with the pervasive misconception that reporting can really be objective, and that “objective” means “both sides must be represented,” even if one side is batshit insane. When I say “privileging different information sets,” I’m merely speaking of the human tendency to select information that confirms one’s conclusions. Seeking out dissenting information, and giving it fair shrift, is hard. A lot of people — hell, most — don’t do it.
My whole point was to agree with you on how it SHOULD be. A journalist should call a spade a spade and acknowledge when an argument is fact-based and when it is an outright distortion. So many “news” outlets are so concerned with being accused of partisanship that they don’t feel free to call bullshit when one party is outright wrong against another.
— Erik Vanderhoff · Aug 14, 04:31 PM · #
My response:
http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/2009/08/response-to-conor/
I’d add though that we all have the right to boycott or just change the bloody channel.
— E.D. Kain · Aug 14, 04:47 PM · #
Well, when two people are doing this, one of them is privileging a wider data set, or one that is a set of data supported by a greater weight of evidence or a more rigorous standard; even just saying “privileging different data sets” presupposes the narrative where there’s no right or wrong on the issue, no fact vs. fiction; only “two sides of the debate.”
Which I guess is to agree with you agreeing with me, but also to express my amazement on how it continues to be incredibly popular to act like the vast majority of questions can’t be practically answered.
— Chet · Aug 14, 04:59 PM · #
Eh, I just like to hear myself talk. Why comment in ten words when I can use twenty? It’s a failing.
— Erik Vanderhoff · Aug 14, 05:17 PM · #
I too am against factually inaccurate statements, misleadingly edited audio clips, misrepresenting the views of political opponents, and using obviously fallacious reasoning.
And I think all four of these things should be banned from news networks. This would make more sense and be more helpful for conservatism than banning 2 or 3 (depending on the tone of their books) specific people.
But, like I said, just those 4 stipulations alone would constitute a total overhaul of any of the networks. I can only think of 2 or 3 people on tv now who follow all four of those rules every day. This may be an unrealistic journalistic standard.
— shellsman 53 · Aug 14, 05:26 PM · #
Sargent, considering you completely misrepresented the very interview you linked to, no, you can’t go on CNN.
“Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. It’s not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And that’s part of what I suspect you’ll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.”
I’m curious — which part of that can in any way, shape or form be bastardized into “independent panels making end-of-life decisions for individual citizens”? The part where he says such panels would not be determanitive, but would just offer guidance? Maybe it was the part of the interview a bit earlier where he relates his own experience with his grandmother and says that if someone had told him she couldn’t have hip replacement surgery it would have been “pretty upsetting”.
You are lying to your listeners. Whether your lies are well-intentioned or not really isn’t relevant.
— Erik Siegrist · Aug 14, 05:27 PM · #
Erik, we’re back to eye of the beholder.
When Obama says that the panel decision is “not determinative, but I think has to be able to give *you* some guidance,” the question comes down to who “you” refers to.
1) “You” could mean doctors and patients, as in the doctor and/or patient gets a letter saying “Dear Dr. X and Ms. Y – we note that Ms. Y wants a hip replacement, but based on our calculations, Ms. Y only has a 5% chance of living more than one year from now. Please take this into account when considering whether to go ahead with the hip replacement.” In that case, you’re right and Kris is wrong.
2) Or “you” could mean the government – i.e., Obama, Congress, and whatever beureaucracy the new bill creates. (I.e. – our panel of scientists recommended that the public plan and Medicare not pay for hip replacements unless the following criteria are met – let’s vote on it, Congress/CMS executives/whomever).
I don’t think it’s crazy or dishonest for Kris to vote for #2 – given that Obama is in a conversation of how to limit costs, I myself understand him to be discussing a panel that will provide the government with information on how to make the “tough choices” about grandma’s hip replacement, not the patients.
You may conclude differently, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume the Kris or I are foolish or dishonest for reaching our conclusion.
— J Mann · Aug 14, 05:46 PM · #
I think Conor’s argument would vastly more persuasive if his rule, if applied even-handedly, would also exclude any politician I’ve ever followed closely from participation on these shows.
— Bill S. · Aug 14, 05:49 PM · #
Rush routinely says that Democrats are not interested in the good of the public, but only in obtaining power. I don’t recall him allowing that there may be exceptions. He says that liberalism is based on “emotion,” and that it’s the “most gutless choice you can make,” while conservatism is based on “reason.” I have never heard him suggest that his political opponents are ever reasonable or honest.
This is not good will disagreement, it is bad faith and dishonesty. It is cartoon commentary that does not belong on any show pretending to be serious.
— T Root · Aug 14, 06:30 PM · #
I’m with Sargent and J Mann vs Erik S. Of course, I don’t think Erik’s interpretation is wrong, because Obama’s remark is vague and ambiguous. Nonetheless, Erik’s interpretation is implausible. Obama says, “It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance.” The natural way to interpret ‘you’ in this context is as anaphorically referring to something in the previous sentence. And that would be “the country making those decisions”, which, of course, refers to the government making those decisions.
— John · Aug 14, 06:37 PM · #
Really? I have a hard time believing anyone sees it that way, truthfully. I mean it takes all kinds, I guess, but I wonder how much of this is Obama’s not-so-ambiguous “ambiguity” and how much of it is a right-wing fringe who just can’t not believe that Obama is a closet Kenyan Marxist who wants to kill babies and grandmothers. Can’t not believe it, because that’s the only mental framework they have for politics – not, what solutions are empirically best, but whose solutions are just plain wrong because they themselves are evil people.
The natural way to interpret “you” is whoever he was talking to, which is what people mean when they say “you” to someone. Maybe conservatives have their own language, but in English “you” is the second-person pronoun. (Oh, Christ, it’s those dictionary games again! Doesn’t any one else find them so incredibly tiresome?)
— Chet · Aug 14, 06:56 PM · #
Um, OK Chet. So you think Obama is discussing setting up a group that can give David Leonhard guidance? That’s absurd. ‘You’, in that sentence, is obviously not being used as the second person pronoun. I thought about explicitly noting that ‘you’ obviously does not refer in this context to Obama’s interlocutor, but I decided that wasn’t necessary. Whoops.
— John · Aug 14, 07:16 PM · #
“Mike, that gets us to my point about the eye of the beholder on dishonesty. Somehow, Obama fans seem to actually believe that Obama is not routinely dishonest.”
Obama is a politician, so of course he’s routinely dishonest. But there’s a level of spinning, fibbing and rationalizing that is common and relatively harmless in political discourse and in life. There is also a level of deceit and demogoguery that goes beyond that which is destructive and poisonous to political discourse and other human interactions. I’ve given examples of where I feel Rush and company have crossed that line. Please provide an example of Obama doing the same.
Mike
— MBunge · Aug 14, 07:16 PM · #
Sargent – “I tell my audience that Obama’s vision for healthcare encompasses independent panels making end-of-life decisions for individual citizens, where the determinative criterion is saving money rather than lives. I quote Obama on this point. Though Obama doesn’t use the term, I call them ‘death panels’. It’s an evocative caricature, I know, but accurate — ‘death’ and ‘end-of-life’ are synonyms. I tell my audience how I feel about these possible panels.”
What do you tell your audience about the insurance companies that actually are doing what you only suspect Obama’s health care reform would lead to?
Mike
— MBunge · Aug 14, 07:26 PM · #
Erik Siegrist,
First, a pet-peeve of mine: Why not be charitable and say my hypothetical views are ‘mistaken’, that I’ve ‘misread the facts’, that I’ve ‘overemphasized some clauses’ or ‘read too much into Obama’s extemporaneous thoughts’, etc.? Why use words like ‘lie’ and ‘dishonest’, which denote intentional fraud, when that’s not only the least charitable but also the least plausible interpretation of my words?
Second, what is the standard we’re using here? Do we ban someone from the national media because their interpretation of events is not supported by the preponderance of the evidence, or by a clear majority of right-thinking people? Isn’t that a bit overaggressive for a democracy, where most interpretations are, by definition, held by a minority of people?
Third, even though I disfavor the ‘death panel’ argument as overdramatic caricature, there is a plausible good-faith case to be made that we’re headed for a world where cost-control will be a prime determiner of coverage and service options. (Yes, of course we get that already with insurance companies. And yes, that sucks. But at least with insurance companies there is a market for better contracts — a market which will dry up once the public option becomes the core player, which is what the progressives say they want. And you can sue under these contracts in a court of law to enforce the terms or get damages. Not so much with the public option: sovereign immunity and all that. At most you’re a politically potent story. Most likely you’re just a write-off.)
Fourth, in that same interview you have Obama saying things like:
That’s not a very damning quotation, but it’s worth pointing out because right after saying this, Obama volunteers the following (quoted in part).
Obama gives the example of his grandmother, as we all know by now. But interspliced with this heart-wrenching story are the words of cold pragmatics. For example, what we have now is not a ‘sustainable model’; end of life care is a ‘huge driver of cost’; cost control will force us into ‘some very difficult moral issues’; and ‘the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.’
These formulations don’t make your ears perk up, not even a little? And if not, can you at least see why some of your fellow citizens might have less trust in the moral clarity of remote administration?
And so on. On the one hand we have the pragmatic issue of cost. On the other hand, we have you, grandma. We know that if you ‘just sit there with your hip like this, you’re just going to waste away and your quality of life will be terrible.’ But we also know you’re going to be gone in a few months anyway. To address these competing interests, we have constituted an independent panel of doctors, scientists, ethicists, and bureaucrats to advise you. Sure grandma, you may elect to get the hip surgery, but since you’re on your way out anyway, please consider doing the patriotic thing, and save the rest of us some money? In return we’ll give you a steady drip of the good stuff.
Also, is it impossible for us to end up with, say, a special queue for end-of-life ‘discretionary procedures.’ What if, to borrow Tom McQuire’s point, certain panels are too liberal with handing out these ‘discretionary services’? Might there an internal audit procedure to determine how well these doctors are pushing ‘the cost-approved alternative scenarios’. Isn’t it reasonable to expect these audits to create morally dubious incentives.
You obviously don’t agree with all this. But it’s a failure of imagination to not get that for some person, it really does sound kind of icky and dystopian. Obama himself knows this; that’s why he talks about ‘very difficult moral issues.’
That these difficult moral issues are being fleshed out in public is to be expected, no? And when issues are moralized, as healthcare is on both sides, overreaction is the rule rather than the exception.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Aug 14, 07:32 PM · #
“Yes, of course we get that already with insurance companies. And yes, that sucks. But at least with insurance companies there is a market for better contracts”
Yeah, because when someone is deathly ill and at the end of their days, that’s the moment when they need to so shopping for a new health insurance plan.
Mike
— MBunge · Aug 14, 07:48 PM · #
Doesn’t a big portion of this debate depend on a presumed obligation that CNN has to extend an open invitation to any ideological pundit who has an audience?
But CNN doesn’t, nor should it feel so obliged. The stations that carry Limbaugh’s program don’t feel any obligation to run programs like Diane Rehm’s. Okay, they might not openly ban them but they effectively do. And so what if they did openly reject such programming? It’s their prerogative.
It’s worth noting again that the most opportunistic, transparent liars get plenty of exposure on cable TV and elsewhere. How else do you explain the ascendancy of Dick Morris and Karl Rove as pundits?
— turnbuckle · Aug 14, 07:54 PM · #
Mike, when do we go shopping for insurance under Obamacare? When we’re sick? If it crowds out the market, ever?
To be clear: insurance companies, and the way they do business, is a legitimate beef of mine. My mother died from breast cancer when I was little. We had insurance but they balked at the bill. Said it was a pre-existing condition or some shit like that. My dad got wiped out, and I moved in with my grandmother and aunt for a few years (in Detroit of all god-forsaken places) while he pieced his life back together. So yeah, by all means: let’s do something about that.
However, just because the sea water is deadly doesn’t mean I should try the motor oil from the engine.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Aug 14, 08:04 PM · #
Thanks to everyone for an awesome comments thread.
The only thing I want to add now is that while I agree that the standards I lay forth would result in a lot of people who now appear on cable news not appearing anymore, this wouldn’t apply to elected officials, because their statements are themselves newsworthy. If Barack Obama says the moon is made of green cheese, he should be called on it, but it’s also worth knowing that the president is claiming that the moon is made of cheese.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Aug 14, 08:20 PM · #
““I tell my audience that Obama’s vision for healthcare encompasses independent panels making end-of-life decisions for individual citizens…”
But that’s not correct. It conflates two issues: 1) Expert panels that determine what procedures government-funded care would pay for based on peer-reviewed research into validity and reliability, and 2) voluntary counseling sessions with the physician of your choice, funded by the government option, on end-of-life care, such as whether or not one wants to be on a respirator or put a DNR order in place, or demand that any and all life-preserving measures be taken. The former is done day in and day out in other social services (such as at my agency) and by private insurers. The latter is done daily, but usually at consumer expense, by all kinds of consumers.
Whatever your intention, you’re giving incorrect information by conflating the two. As far as I can tell, there are no provisions for individual care panels vetting what sort of care one receives on a case-by-case basis. And aren’t you railing against what happens in private insurance every single day? How else do you end up with plans that will cover everything but your lungs because you’ve been diagnosed with asthma, just to pick one?
— Erik Vanderhoff · Aug 14, 08:34 PM · #
Conor,
I have a few fields of expertise on important public policy issues (immigration, affirmative action, etc.). I try to live up in my writings to all the standards you espouse. My motto is: “The truth is better for humanity than ignorance, lies, and wishful thinking.”
I can assure you, from decades of experience, that very few other pundits try to live up to your standards on these issues. Should they all be banned from CNN?
— Steve Sailer · Aug 14, 08:36 PM · #
The pitcher for the Orioles? WTF are you talking about?
You think that whoever he was talking to would never die, and therefore would never have need of end-of-life counseling? I don’t understand your point, here.
— Chet · Aug 14, 08:52 PM · #
“A journalist should call a spade a spade and acknowledge when an argument is fact-based and when it is an outright distortion.”
They are generalists hired for their ability to generate copy. You are fortunate when they can from their fund of knowledge critique something reliably.
“I can assure you, from decades of experience, that very few other pundits try to live up to your standards on these issues.”
I do not suppose you would care to name names? Re those decades, “Readers’ Guide” lists your earliest published article as a brief humor piece which appeared in “The American Spectator” in 1992.
— Art Deco · Aug 14, 08:58 PM · #
There’s an unexamined assumption in Conor’s argument: that the people who speak for CNN itself, the reporters and editors and producers, are in general intellectually honest, and have the standing to bar those who aren’t from the channel on that ground. Is this in fact true? Who exactly are the people working in modern TV journalism who don’t routinely commit the crimes Conor accuses Limbaugh of?
— Michael Brazier · Aug 14, 09:01 PM · #
“Mike, when do we go shopping for insurance under Obamacare? When we’re sick? If it crowds out the market, ever?”
1. You do understand that Obamacare is NOT a single-payer system? If your contention is that private sector insurance won’t be able to compete with a public option, plead explain how Federal Express, UPS and a multitude of private security companies survive and thrive.
2. You do understand that by your standard where it’s okay to accuse Obama of advocating euthansia because of what you think he might do, liberals are even more entitled and justified in referring to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their supporters and “war criminals” because of what they have actually done?
Mike
— MBunge · Aug 14, 09:26 PM · #
Hypothetical: “Chet” strikes me as intellectually dishonest. In addition, I frequently disagree with his comments. Should he be excluded from Conor’s News Network? If we cannot use my opinion, then whose criteria are we using? Shall we convene a ‘neutral panel’ to decide on the intellectual veracity of our commentators? Does such a thing exist outside the mind of Mr. Friedersdorf? Should it be located, will I be seated upon it? Why not, and on whose authority?
Shifting topics: on the previously discussed notion of whether or not Palin’s “Death Panels” statement was intellectually vigorous, Taranto has some comments that I think might interest the thread.
— Austin · Aug 14, 09:36 PM · #
“You think that whoever he was talking to would never die, and therefore would never have need of end-of-life counseling?”
I suspect millions of people die in the United States every year without receiving ‘end-of-life’ counseling.
— Art Deco · Aug 14, 09:38 PM · #
Chet,
You say the following:
The natural way to interpret “you” is whoever he [Obama] was talking to, which is what people mean when they say “you” to someone.
David Leonhardt is the person who conducted the interview in which Obama used the word “you” in a way that has caused some controversy here. So David Leonhardt, according to your interpretation, would be the person Obama was referring to when he said “you.” I’m not going to tell anyone how to interpret Obama’s words, but it is at least as likely that President Obama used the word “you” to mean “one,” as is fairly common when people are discussing hypotheticals or general scenarios. I think there’s no case to be made for your interpretation as the definitive one.
— Kate Marie · Aug 14, 09:50 PM · #
Erik V., there are three distinct issues IMHO: 1) the overall vision of Obama et al; 2) the provisions in the current, competing drafts of the bill; and 3) whether and how #2 should be interpreted in light of #1.
What if you believe, as many conservatives do, that #2 is merely an opening salvo, a first battle over the war for Numero Uno? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to opine on ‘camel noses’ and slippery slopes, and ignore the “But it’s not in this bill!” chorus?
Anyway, it’s inevitable that ‘cost control’ will force some group of people somewhere to make some morally dubious decisions on covered services. This is true whether the burden to decide falls upon a panel of ethicists (god help us), or whether it falls upon some other people higher up and more remote. Somewhere, at some level, somebody’s first priority will be “Do no harm to the bottom line.” (Yes, insurances companies do it. However, I’m pretty sold on the idea that bad private practice is even worse when done by the State.)
And again, to be clear: I’m not a conservative. However, I do tend to align with them on an extremely narrow issue: I lament any authority that’s not me.
Mike,
Do you believe that “Obama wants to euthanize you!” is an apt reduction of what I said? Because I pretty much just said what Obama said.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Aug 14, 10:12 PM · #
Anywho, it’s 6 o’clock on Friday, which means it’s time to make a mockery of preventative health. Happy weekend all.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Aug 14, 10:17 PM · #
Kristoffer-
Vanderhoff is dead on, and I further note that the argument you’re making above is besides the point of your. gedankenexperiment. At the time you were saying that what said radio host was saying WAS TRUE, and was, in fact, supported by Obama’s quotes. If Erik V. is right, then it’s NOT, in fact, true, and that’s a big issue – we’re simply not looking at “death panels”, or anything close to it, where individuals are told by government authority who may and may not receive medical treatment on a case-by-case basis. Whether there are other things to worry about w/r/t Obamacare is besides the point for your thought experiment – if your radio host is saying such a thing, he’s lying.
And the idea that what Conor’s proposing is censorship of some sort is ludicrous – nobody’s saying that said radio host can’t lie on his own program, only that CNN is doing the right thing by declining to have said guest on their shows. Hasn’t Rush himself said something along the lines of “everybody has a right to free speech, but only I have the right to speak into my own microphone?”
And as for the idea that Rush and Obama are equally bad when it comes to lying, etc…. I’ll throw up my hands, direct interested parties to the opening chapters of Senator Franken’s Rush Lambaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, and leave it at that.
— Chris · Aug 14, 11:54 PM · #
M. (that’s Mike) Bunge wrote:
Must be Sarah Palin was a little more honest than you thought. According to the LA Times they took that death panel provision out of the bill. There was no death panel/end-of-life provision in the bill, but they took it out anyway.
That’s sort of like what Obama accused doctors of: in order to make more money, even if there is no diseased tonsil, doctors take it out anyway.
— jd · Aug 15, 12:13 AM · #
Mike: “Uh, when has Barack Obama ever said anything as obviously deceitful or incendiary as the current “death panels” nonsense? When has he ever accused someone of anything as shrilly and bluntly as Beck’s statement that Obama is a “racist” who has a deep hatred of white people? Has Obama ever encouraged any liberal to believe anything as stupid and poisonous as Rush’s promotion of the whole birther garbage?_
Is this a trick question?
What do you mean by “when”? What times of the day? What days of the week? Does the White House post a log of when the president gives his talks and interviews?
— The Reticulator · Aug 15, 03:44 AM · #
How dare you impugn the utter sincerity of a Chicago politician!
— Steve Sailer · Aug 15, 04:12 AM · #
Every once in a while I wonder if I really am irrevocably biased, and that it really is the case that liberal policies and politicians are just as deluded and morally compromised as conservatives insist they are. Then I read a comment like Reticulator’s above, and it reminds me that at the end of the day, they’re all hat and no cattle – that all their talk of Obama’s evil boils down to willfully imagined links with William Ayers, Kenyan birth certificates, and the like.
So, thanks for the pick-me-up, Reticulator!
— Chris · Aug 15, 07:33 AM · #
Sargent, I was not charitable in my description of your statements because I am done with being charitable on this issue. If it’s a pet peeve of yours to have your statements branded as lies, perhaps you should make an effort to have those statements not be so blatantly false.
Every time you call the plan “Obamacare” and imply that it will be single payer (i.e. the public option will become the core player in the marketplace), you are lying.
Every time you reference panels, government or independent, that will make end-of-life decisions for people, you are lying.
Every time you refer to Obama’s vision of health care being one that prioritizes cost controls over lives, you are lying.
The fact that all your supporting evidence basically boils down to “here’s what Obama really meant” just makes my case for me.
Your pet peeve is having differences of opinion labeled as lies. Mine is having objectively false statements labeled as mere differences of opinion. I guess we’re at an impasse.
— Erik Siegrist · Aug 15, 01:59 PM · #
How can you be so willfully dishonest? They were political allies. Obama had his “coming out” party at Ayers’ home. There is nothing imagined about the links between Ayers and Obama.
— jd · Aug 15, 02:57 PM · #
JD, don’t forget the “facts” that Ayers ghostwrote Obama’s book, and that they met back in 1987, and the Chicago Annenburg Challenge was actually an incubator for a radical leftist plot to destroy the US.
Nothing imagined about those either, right?
— Chris · Aug 15, 03:44 PM · #
“Every time you call the plan “Obamacare” and imply that it will be single payer (i.e. the public option will become the core player in the marketplace), you are lying.”
I don’t think you know what lying means. Calling it Obamacare isn’t a lie. It would be a lie, I suppose, to say that Obama calls it ‘Obamacare’, but no one has said that to the best of my knowledge. And he can only be lying when he says that the public option will become the core player in the marketplace if he doesn’t believe that. And he clearly does. He might be saying false, but the claim that the public option will become the core player is much more likely true than false. If you don’t believe that-if, as you say, that is objectively false-I’m willing to give 100-1 odds on a conditional bet: assuming something equivalent in the relevant respects to the plan on the table gets passed (and remains in effect), I bet you $10K that in 20 years the public option is the core player. If you win, $10,000 to you. If I win, $100 to me.
“Every time you reference panels, government or independent, that will make end-of-life decisions for people, you are lying.”
Are you saying that no one is going to make decisions about the amount of care people get at the end of life other than the people or their families? That the public option will pay for anything, if the patient chooses it? If you think that, I’m willing to make the above bet about that as well.
“Every time you refer to Obama’s vision of health care being one that prioritizes cost controls over lives, you are lying.”
If you think that choices aren’t going to be made that it is just too expensive to prolong the life of someone for x amount of time, I’m willing to make the above bet (modified in the obvious ways).
“Your pet peeve is having differences of opinion labeled as lies. Mine is having objectively false statements labeled as mere differences of opinion. I guess we’re at an impasse.”
If those claims are objectively false, put your money where your mouth is.
— John · Aug 15, 05:28 PM · #
Erik S writes:
Erik, IMHO, this is a good example of the trouble with calling people you disagree with liars. I think that it causes you to consider the other side’s viewpoint less carefully than you should because you dismiss the other side as liars or fools. (By “should”, I mean two things: (1) You are going to have a harder time convincing people to come around to your side if you don’t understand them; and (2) there might be some occasions when you would change your own mind if you understood the other side.)
You will have to take it on faith, but I am not a liar or a fool, and I honestly don’t believe it is a lie to call Obama’s health plan “Obamacare” or to “imply that . . . the public option will become the core player in the marketplace”.
1) “Obamacare”: Yes, that’s not what Obama calls it, but (i) we need a label to discuss Obama’s proposal, and (ii) Kris isn’t trying to fool anyone into believing that Obama calls the bill “Obamacare”. As far as I know, there isn’t an actual name for the bill, or even a final bill, so a shorthand label seems fine.
2) “Imply that . . . the public option will become the core player in the marketplace.” There is a detailed discussion to be had here, and I will be glad to have it. At first, though, let me ask you to take it on faith that reasonable people can honestly believe that many of the public plan proposals will lead to public plan dominance. If you want to discuss why, let me know.
But at a first remove, rather than call Kris a liar, it might be more productive to say “I don’t see how a public plan leads to single payer. Can you explain why you think so?”
— J Mann · Aug 15, 07:35 PM · #
Mike,
1. We understand that your point comparing health care to the very cost-cutting, efficient post-office and its 2 major competitors is clipped from the same talking points e-mail we all get every morning.
And, like most of political analogies, this isn’t very airtight. If the government plan is as bloated and expensive as the post office then very few will have money left for any private insurance, except the rich and powerful (like Obama and friends). This is exactly the design and intent of the plan as Obama has reassured us more than once.
2. You don’t have to think Obama wants to euthanize you to be suspicious of putting the government in charge of everyone’s health and health records. You just have to have the annoying American habit of questioning authority, and suspecting the motives of elected leaders who say they just want to help.
And please. No one has to euthanize anyone. If it’s right for everyone to have healthcare, then everyone will get the same amount and quality of health care (except the rich and powerful), in the name of fairness.
There simply won’t be enough care or medicine available for anyone once the boomers are completely retired and declining. How can we deny what we don’t have?
Soon our democracy will be making much weightier policy decisions at election time. Maybe there will even be a party of fatties and a party of addicts fighting it out over priority of treatment. Can’t wait.
Eventually we will have to choose: exorbitant taxes, or let someone else’s grandma die? What will your kids choose, Erik? (cuz I’ll take your money now, while you’re so compassionate, please).
And if you really think a sitting president was a war criminal or worse, why on earth would you ever want a potential future president with that sort of power over political enemies?
Apparently you think Bush isn’t a war criminal, or that no one that evil could ever be president again, if you are so willing to ram this through as if we were in the midst of a crisis, and there’s no time to think.
Were you as supportive of creating Homeland Security? Thanks, that was helpful. I just hope the new bureaucratic overseers of health are as effective as those who came up with the color alert system.
Obama won’t euthanize anyone because most of “his” plan will actually be implemented and funded until he is out of office (that’s why there’s no time for critics to talk about the details of the bill or this impending crisis any longer). Sure, you are very trusting of this guy who seems to need you to explain what he says for us, but after his term, when someone, who knows who, takes over, how can you so easily dismiss such doubts – especially if we’ve already had one war criminal. You think Milosevic would be fair to everyone in his administration of rationing care?
What if there were a president more evil than Bush some day? Say he heard of a coming pandemic, like swine flu, and chose to ignore it and let it happen for some delusional idea that it would make the country stronger, united, or less populated and polluted in the long-run.
It may seem far-fetched now that we have a prez who only thinks of the country before his own interests, allies, and political fortunes; but he surely will step down some day.
— Another Fake Jay Dee · Aug 15, 09:01 PM · #
Another Fake Jay Dee,
The creation of the Department of Homeland Security did envelop the creation of a new (and dysfunctional) federal agency, the Transportation Security Administration. For the most part, however, it merely collected extant agencies which were scattered over several departments. Its business is law enforcement and civil defense, and these are inherently public functions. One can conceive of ways the performance of the federal government might be improved in these matters (ending collective bargaining for federal employees, ending racial, &c preference schemes in federal hiring and promotion, holding civil service examinations within sixty days of a vacancy, making federal civil servants terminable nearly at will, moving the agencies around between departments) but a set of public agencies you will have.— Art Deco · Aug 15, 11:15 PM · #
Rhather than guage the habitual honesty or otherwise of their guest, perhaps show (and viewers) should rate the seriousness and value of their practical answers. And perhaps the networks should refuse to air comments that don’t even pretend to seriousness. For example, for the last thirty years, the United States economy has consumed about 3% more than it has produced, importing the remainder on credit. Over thirty years, the US has piled up an external debt, which continues to increase. Other countries manage to maintain health outcomes as positive as those for the US while spending 60% or less of what Americans spend; that difference alone could restore American competitiveness. And the United States does lose industrial development to places like Canada because of the effect of the high cost of American health care on employers.
So invite anyone you want on the show. But tell them that you plan to deal with serious questions, and if, say, Limbaugh responds to the effect runaway health costs have on the American economy by telling them that Obama wants to whack their Granny, they’ll either do unto him what Chris Matthews did unto Kevin James or else they’ll just cut his mike and not air the segment. But if Rush Limbaugh or Karl Rove happened, mirable dictu, to have a serious and workable solution to a monster that threatens to eat up the American economy, would you refuse to listen to it just because of their previous
mixedbad records?BTW: you can interpret President Obama as saying that individuals or doctors should have ethicists to advise them in difficult times. Or you can interpret him as saying that legislators should get advice from ethicists about medical legislation, including the limits of mandatory or public insurance coverage. But I see no way you can in good faith interpret what he said as advocating a panel that would sit on individual cases and order individuals euthanized or relegated to palliative care. And I think we all know that the death panel meme refers to some variant of a panel sitting in judgment on individuals. Nobody shows up at a town hall meeting with a gun because Congress might consult ethicists as well as bean counters to make general rules for health coverage.
— John Spragge · Aug 16, 01:30 PM · #
Yes, we spend way too much. It’s a crisis! Americans may be generally healthy already, but at what cost? How will we pay off the trillion dollar stimulus if we are spending so much on our health?
Obama reassures us that less cost doesn’t mean anyone will be denied any necessary procedure, and he would tell us straight-up because he believes in the truth and dialogue and informed deliberation more than getting his desired policy signed into law at any cost, even though it’s a crisis.
But, how would costs be reduced? Preventative care will just cost more, mandatory universal coverage will cost more. Of course, quality of care will only get better somehow, so we can’t simply cut back on that….
Somehow, we must curb what Americans are unnecessarily spending their money on now as individual consumers (it’s a serious problem).
We know where most of our costs come from, so how will the new coverage reduce these costs?
At this time insurance companies refuse coverage all the time, based on panels of experts who apply different criteria to different situations and policies.
No existing insurance company tells you to die now, and the new one won’t either.
Costs will be saved under the new plan, by introducing new, cheaper insurance provided by government (supplemented by taxes).
This arrangement will only truly be cheaper if the overall costs of health care are “curbed,” especially the costs end-of-life care that Obama has already deemed superfluous (because it is largely the reason we spend so much more).
So the government insurance bureaucracy will just decide (apparently on the basis of ethicists’ ethical advice) not to cover certain procedures, like companies do now (presumably with less ethicists).
Don’t worry though, because you can always get another more expensive insurance from a company with profit-motive (if you are rich like Obama).
So what’s the difference? It will be cheaper than the current system only if Americans in general are prevented from many end-of-life procedures that are now driving up costs. I thought Obama knew this, because he’s said it more than once, but maybe I misheard him and he’s a poor communicator who has no idea what’s driving up costs.
But it doesn’t mattter – whoever is in charge when this plan is finally, fully in effect will have to cut-back on the cost of our collective health in a way that it can be funded collectively.
And since the only realistic way we will be able to reduce costs is by cutting back on end-of-life care, we can expect less choices, a more standard death procedure of each that benefits the whole.
Sure you’ll have a right to health care – equal health care – defined as being no more and no less care than what can practically be provided to every single person (unless you are rich).
Insurance can only insure you of care in some cases, if it denies coverage in many other cases.
That is how it works – through general policies that benefit the aggregated collective good, it preserves some freedoms to have certain procedures/treatments, when needed, by discouraging or denying other choices it deems “unnecessary” or wasteful.
If you don’t think Obama knows this or is saying this, he is either a fool or a liar. If you don’t discern that he is saying this, he is either not a good speaker of you are not meeting him halfway and defining his terms correctly. Surely he wouldn’t obfuscate.
Obama said he doesn’t think figuring out how to curb costs should be decided through the normal democratic channels, but according to the determination of committees, full of ethicists (so you know their ethically frugal), instead of by elected officials.
But, according to John Spragge, I just can’t trust he means what he says or has any idea of what cutting costs will require.
Of course, Americans spend more on everything, and the same arrangement of making everyone pay for everything purchased would reduce all the wasteful ways people seem to find for their money when they are just left on their own with a few too many legal options.
Since overspending is such a big problem I suppose we should demand similar government companies soaking up demand and curbing supply in other areas of the economy as well.
— Another Fake Jay Dee · Aug 16, 05:40 PM · #
Chris wrote:
Nice strawman, Chris; disputing something that I never suggested. But since you brought up the Annenburg Challenge, and have made the ridiculous assertion that there was no link between Obama and Ayers: this is not an imaginary link.
— jd · Aug 17, 01:09 AM · #
I have no reason to believe that David Leonhard_t_ is someone who will never die, and thus have no need of end-of-life counseling, so again, I don’t see why it’s unreasonable to assume that when Obama said “give you some guidance”, he meant “David Leonhardt and people like him.”
You seem to think it’s self-evident that David Leonhardt will never in his life require end-of-life counseling. Can you explain this perspective?
— Chet · Aug 17, 06:31 AM · #
I think there’s no case to be made that the antecedent of Obama’s pronoun is sufficiently ambiguous to support an interpretation of death panels, which is the position under contention.
— Chet · Aug 17, 06:34 AM · #
Something you never suggested, sure. Something that’s gone hand-in-hand with the other Obama attacks you bring up, absolutely. (And those were the “willfully imagined links” I was referring to, JD, not your grandstanding that, gosh, the CAC really existed and they were both involved with it! GASP!)
The fact that you then shoot yourself in the argument in the foot by linking to Stanley Kurtz’ overheated rhetoric about the CAC just proves my point – conservatives have repeatedly attacked Obama by insisting that largely innocuous facts somehow add up to a grand and utterly damning conspiracy. Whether it’s death panels or ghost writing, it’s all the same crap, and all equally meaningless.
— Chris · Aug 17, 06:50 AM · #
You seem to think it’s self-evident that David Leonhardt will never in his life require end-of-life counseling.
I do? Where did I say that? With all due respect, Chet, your statement is a non sequitur. Because I believe there is an interpretation of President Obama’s use of the pronoun “you” that is as plausible (and perhaps more plausible) than yours, it does not follow that I believe David Leonhardt will never require “end of life” counseling.
On the other hand, you seem to think Leonhardt’s interview with President Obama in the NYT was an account of a personal counseling session. Can you explain this perspective?
I have made no claim about whether Obama’s use of the term “you” is “sufficiently ambiguous to support an interpretation of death panels,” and the interpretation that I prefer (that he used “you,” as people often do when dealing with generalities or hypotheticals, to mean “one”) neither requires nor implies such a corollary.
— Kate Marie · Aug 17, 07:12 AM · #
Another fake jay dee said:
You spend more than you make. If you go on doing so indefinitely, you will face a reckoning.
At this point, the debate encounters a paradox. On one hand, we have the assertion that somehow Americans cannot reduce their expenditures on health care. And then on the other hand, we have the numbers from other countries that spend as little as half of what Americans spend and have outcomes as good as or better than the American system. The data clearly suggest that Americans spend a lot of money, somewhere, that has no relation to longevity or overall health. That, in turn, very strongly indicates that you can eliminate expenses without whacking grandma. At the very least, those opponents of health care reform who insist that savings can only come at the cost of cutting back essential care and causing early deaths have an obligation to explain away the data from nearly every other country on Earth.
If you know where most of the costs come from, please explain what costs Canada, France, Britain, Holland and Germany have eliminated, and why Americans cannot cut those costs as well.
Please defend your assumptions about cause and effect with numbers, because if President Obama has in fact “deemed superfluous” certain types of end of life care, he has some formidable evidence on his side.
— John Spragge · Aug 17, 03:57 PM · #
I don’t believe that at all. I’m simply asking you to explain why you believe that it’s completely unreasonable – obviously so – to interpret Obama’s use of the word “you” to mean “David Leonhardt, whom he was speaking to, and by extension other American citizens just like him”; and why the other guy seems to believe that by “you”, he meant “the government, who will be deciding if you live or die based on death panels”, and why you believe this absurd view is just as reasonable, if not more so.
If Obama was talking to David Leonhardt about the CARS program, and what he said was “you can take your car in, and if you trade up at least 10 mpg, you can receive a $4500 rebate”, it would hardly seem unreasonable to interpret “you” to mean who he was taking to, and that what he meant was that David Leonhardt – and people like him – could receive a rebate. No one would think that by “you” he meant “we, the government”, which is the absurd interpretation being thrown around above.
— Chet · Aug 17, 03:59 PM · #
I haven’t listened to Rush in ages (read a few pieces though), but I think he is much less a liar than Obama who keeps adding to the debt and deficit and yet saying he isn’t going to raise taxes.
So do you favor banning Obama from cable TV as well?
— JB · Aug 17, 07:24 PM · #
Are people still reading this? I was halfway through a funny retort to Chet a few days ago where I took each time Obama used “you” in that interview and assumed that Obama meant NYT reporter David Leonhart personally, but then I figured people had moved on and gave up.
Maybe I’ll try again tonight, and you will be amazed at how funny I am.
— J Mann · Aug 17, 07:39 PM · #
I still don’t understand why it’s viewed as so incredibly unreasonable to suggest that Obama was talking to David Leonhardt as a proxy for the American public, which is something politicians do pretty much every time they’re speaking to reporters.
— Chet · Aug 17, 07:49 PM · #
1) Chet, what you wrote, and what we all responded to was:
2) What kind of dictionary game are you playing, Chet? Once you grant that Obama might mean the American public, why can’t he mean the American public, acting through their representatives (i.e., the government)? Why do you exclusively get to define what Obama means, rather than the consensus?
(Note: in none of the above uses of “you” did I mean anything other than the literal Chet. To understand me as referring to the American public requires interpretation above the literal)
3) Nevertheless, I will try to post all of Obama’s “you’s” and plug in “the American public, and definitely not any other entity such as the federal government” and see what happens. I predict hilarity.
— J Mann · Aug 17, 09:06 PM · #
“I haven’t listened to Rush in ages (read a few pieces though), but I think he is much less a liar than Obama who keeps adding to the debt and deficit and yet saying he isn’t going to raise taxes.”
Uh, Obama’s made it perfectly clear that he’s going to raise taxes on the upper income brackets.
Mike
— MBunge · Aug 17, 10:18 PM · #
“3) Nevertheless, I will try to post all of Obama’s “you’s” and plug in “the American public, and definitely not any other entity such as the federal government” and see what happens. I predict hilarity.”
What’s hilarious is that this dispute is over, essentially, one grouping of words used by President Obama in one particular interview, totally disconnected from every thing else he’s ever said or written on the subject.
If that’s the standard, I’m pretty sure I could find a sequence of words that would “prove” that Rush Limbaugh was a pedophile and Sean Hannity a bigamist.
Mike
— MBunge · Aug 17, 10:22 PM · #
And I haven’t changed or contradicted that. He was talking to David Leonhardt who, as a journalist interviewer, acts as a proxy for the American people.
I don’t understand how that’s a difficult point to understand. You can use “you”, the second person pronoun, to refer directly in conversation to another person, and by referring to that person, be talking not only to them but to everyone they represent. It’s a locutive act of synedoche. If your surly mob storms in the door with you at the head, and I look right at you and say “you need to get out of here right now”, it’s clear that I’m addressing the leader of the mob but refer to the entire thing.
Because that makes no sense. The government doesn’t need end-of-life guidance.
It would require me being a journalist, speaking and asking questions on behalf of the American public. On the other hand, I could be referred to as “you” by someone who means “you liberals”, or “you Democrats”, or “you nutty leftists who post here”, and so on; indeed I’ve been addressed that way quite often just on this website.
How is that supposed to make any sense at all? Now, when Obama uses a word to mean something, it can only mean that one thing throughout the entire extent of his speech? When does the lock-out expire, exactly? If he uses the word “head” to refer to his cranium, how long before he can use it to refer to a ship’s toilet?
— Chet · Aug 17, 10:28 PM · #
You’re website has very good infos. I learned very a lot from reading these.
— cheap jordan shoes · Aug 19, 04:23 AM · #
“If your surly mob storms in the door with you at the head, and I look right at you and say “you need to get out of here right now”, it’s clear that I’m addressing the leader of the mob but refer to the entire thing.”
No, that’s not clear at all. I predict most competent English speakers will assume that ‘you’ is being used plurally to refer to everyone in the mob. ‘You all’ isn’t correct English.
Look, I grant that what Obama said is ambiguous so I don’t think everyone HAS to interpret the remakes the way I do. But again, this is what he said:
“It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. And that’s part of why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance.”
In the first sentence he’s talking about “the country”, i.e., politicians, making decisions. I don’t think we can interpret ‘the country’ here to be referring plurally to all of us, since we don’t make decisions through political channels. But then, in the second sentence, which is supposed to follow, he says “you” need to have independent groups to give you guidance. Presumably the people needing guidance are the politicians, and presumably they need guidance with the decisions mentioned in the previous sentence. Hence Mann’s and Sargent’s interpretation is the preferred one. I don’t know if we have death panels yet, but I never took a stand on that in the first place.
— John · Aug 19, 05:57 PM · #
By competent speakers of English? No, absolutely not. By partisans determined to twist Obama’s words to support an interpretation of death panels? Totally plausible, I guess.
But I guess this is something like how Obama says that rural voters, who (perhaps accurately) perceive neither party advocating to their fiscal interests, so they resign themselves to voting based on social issues, and somehow that becomes “Bitter-gate.” “Peak wingnut”, in other words, where the discourse and perceptions of the right are so insular and ideosyncratic that they no longer make any sense at all to normal human beings.
— Chet · Aug 19, 08:56 PM · #
This is rich:
“Peak wingnut”, in other words, where the discourse and perceptions of the right are so insular and ideosyncratic [sic] that they no longer make any sense at all to normal human beings.
Because, you know, it’s not at all condescending to assume that people don’t really mean what they say they mean, especially when those people are the rural hicks who are too stoooopid to know what’s good for them. All those poor rural voters don’t really care about those social issues (“religion and guns”) that they say they care about; it’s just their only way of getting attention, poor things. And if you don’t see it that way, if you see Obama’s comment as actually condescending and casually insulting, you’re just an “ideosyncratic” [sic] wingnut” and not a normal human being.
Really, the mind boggles. It must be nice to live on a planet where everyone who disagrees with you is either evil, dishonest, “ideosyncratic” [sic] or moronic. Here in the “reality-based community,” I give people who disagree with me the benefit of believing they mean what they say they mean.
— Kate Marie · Aug 19, 09:20 PM · #