Seven Items, Give or Take None
1) I’ve got a piece up at The Daily Beast arguing that sports fans are better off ignoring whatever happened at Tiger Woods’ house over the weekend — and a followup post at True/Slant pushing back against the folks who argue that being a highly paid endorser means that Mr. Woods hasn’t any standing to complain about his lack of privacy.
2) Prior to this weekend I’d never been to Greenpoint, a Brooklyn neighborhood where the signs are in Polish, folks on the sidewalk are mostly speaking that language, and the food is cheap and delicious. Thanks are owed to Elizabeth Nolan Brown for her hospitality.
3) I enjoyed this performance.
4) Victor Davis Hanson isn’t very good at constructing logical arguments (not to mention getting his facts right) — whereas Tim Lynch makes excellent points at The Corner. I should remember to send a contribution to the Cato Institute — any organization that funds the work of Mr. Lynch, Will Wilkinson, Radley Balko, Julian Sanchez, Brink Lindsey, and many other folks whose work I’ve followed is deserving of support.
5) Looks like ACORN isn’t always against hidden video stings.
6) Freddie writes:
I hear a lot, from people like Conor Friedersdorf or Mickey Kaus or others, that there is something beneficial in a Democratic president and a Republican congress, because this is a combination that reins in the excesses of either. I think that there are members of this here League who would echo similar sentiments. Yet we need to be clear what such a situation actually privileges, which is the status quo. Now in some sense preserving the status quo does indeed represent victory for conservatives, but often the status quo is simply antithetical to contemporary conservative goals.
I don’t think I am misrepresenting Mickey Kaus when I say that he and I liked the last instance of divided government, during the Clinton/Gingrich years, due to the status-quo-changing welfare reform bill and deficit reductions.
7) I’m not sure I understand the argument in Courtney Martin’s piece on the Washington Post pundit contest — it sure seems like she’s assuming rather than demonstrating its truth. I do think, however, that it’s tougher in some ways to be a female pundit, as demonstrated here by Kashmir Hill.
I don’t think anybody from ACORN walked into a Jackson Hewitt in a Halloween costume, manipulated volunteer staffers into making jokes about crime, and then handed over heavily edited and context-free videos to their political opponents.
The idea that ACORN was “stung” – as though ACORN regularly advises people on how to hide income from prostitution rings or murder husbands – is, frankly, fucking ridiculous. Which is why, you know, absolutely nothing has come from the ACORN videos (except the opportunity, miraculously, to Federally defund Halliburton and Blackwater/Xe.)
— Chet · Nov 30, 10:53 PM · #
This post does nothing to explain how Victor Davis Hanson is not very good at constructing logical arguments or how Megan McArdle shows that Hanson is not getting his facts straight. The links in your post don’t make this clear, especially the McArdle link which goes nowhere close to anything regarding Hanson. At best this is shoddy work; if it’s intentionally leading down a dry hole, then it’s like the work of, well…Chet.
— jd · Nov 30, 11:59 PM · #
As is typical of Freddie, his response to Ross responds to not much that is recognizably Ross. This is not to say Ross’s column is one of his stronger ones – a grab bag of ambiguous polling data. So, Freddie responds to Ross as if Ross were in his heart of hearts a spinmeister for the RNC, but still this weak column of Ross’s vaguely resembles a typical column by Kristol, so Freddie is getting closer, I suppose.
— Matt Feeney · Dec 1, 12:31 AM · #
Ah, Feeney— still providing the valuable service of bending the curve for your fellow bloggers. Soldier on.
Incidentally, Conor, one Democratic administration with one Republican congress totaling six years of shared rule in one particular unique time is not the kind of data set I would want to draw a lot of conclusions from. As usual, though, your sensitivity gets the better of you.
— Freddie · Dec 1, 01:22 AM · #
Sensitivity?
And Jd — the logical flaws are evident, while the fact is that contra VDH Black Friday was dismal for retailers.
— Conor friedersdorf · Dec 1, 01:47 AM · #
Sorry, the logical flaws are not evident. Please explain.
And, considering that unemployment is at the very least 10%, sales were not as bad as that 0.5% increase suggests. Sales may have been dismal for retailers, but that does not disprove VDH’s point.
— jd · Dec 1, 02:12 AM · #
Yay, Edward Sharpe!
(that is my contribution to this discussion)
— Elizabeth · Dec 1, 03:41 AM · #
You ignored the point, Conor— one six year span in a time of unique economic growth doesn’t seem to me to be the kind of thing to generate a whole governing philosophy around.
— Freddie · Dec 1, 04:14 PM · #
Well, I’d hardly call a preference for divided government “a whole governing philosophy”!
— Conor Friedersdorf · Dec 1, 04:30 PM · #
“Sorry, the logical flaws are not evident. Please explain.”
That would be like trying to explain the concept of yellow to a dog.
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 1, 04:36 PM · #
<i>This post does nothing to explain how Victor Davis Hanson is not very good at constructing logical arguments or how Megan McArdle shows that Hanson is not getting his facts straight. The links in your post don’t make this clear, especially the McArdle link which goes nowhere close to anything regarding Hanson. At best this is shoddy work; if it’s intentionally leading down a dry hole, then it’s like the work of, well…Chet.</i>
Sometimes something is so obvious that there’s really no need. I hear ya, but give me a break. VDH’s degeneracy is foregone conclusion.
— Ray Butlers · Dec 1, 05:37 PM · #
Conor, some people need change. They need it because they are suffering. Suffering because, say, they don’t have health care. This romanticizing of the politics of gridlock is terrible for them. THEY NEED CHANGE, and they can’t get it when government is incapable of doing anything. I know that you like the status quo. I know that it is preferable for you. But your obtuseness and lack of perspective on the fact that many people need major change now is really aggravating. People who are not privileged in this system have every reason to oppose “divide government”. But you don’t even acknowledge that fact.
— Freddie · Dec 1, 05:40 PM · #
What if it’s also good for the country? What if alleviating suffering everywhere has diminishing marginal returns to the state, is in fact dangerous to the state and repugnant to personal liberty? Where would your loyalties lie? With the state, with liberty, or with the left behind and to hell with the rest?
Remember, the difference principle is undesirable and unstable and cannot be a principle of justice. In the parlance of the community, this statement is operationally valid.
And side note: Romanticization? Really? You really have to get better with your vocabulary. Conor makes a case for X because he prefers the effects — a pragmatic case — and you call it by its exact opposite. Be smarter please.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Dec 1, 05:57 PM · #
Ahem, that’s why the original position needs to be updated to include an Ourworld perspective, and why we must pursue a vertical compromise in addition to a horizontal consensus.
Where’s James when I need him? He doesn’t believe me, but he understands.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Dec 1, 06:03 PM · #
Freddie,
Where have I romanticized gridlock? Where have I talked about a great desire to preserve the status quo? Those are words that you’ve put into my mouth, falsely presuming that gridlock is why I prefer a government divided in the ways that I’ve described. But a better explanation is that Republicans are fucking insane about foreign policy, while Democrats under a unified government are insane about creating unaffordable new entitlements.
On health care, I’ve specifically said that I’d support reforms like the ones outlined in that Atlantic cover story — which calls for a bigger change to the status quo than anything Obama is advocating.
Instead of pretending to argue against Ross and I, why not just find people who actually favor merely maintaining the status quo and argue against them?
— Conor Friedersdorf · Dec 1, 07:13 PM · #
Last one out, turn off the lights.
I’m offering you bourgie conservatives a soulstone…..renounce, reform, or reject your WEC “low information” base or sustain an Epic Wipe against the Boss of the 21st century.
The status quo is as dead as reagan.
And just as stinking and rotten.
— matoko_chan · Dec 1, 07:44 PM · #
So burn it down. All of it. Twang twang.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Dec 1, 08:07 PM · #
In the post, itself, Friedersdorf plainly states that the appeal of the two parties sharing government power lies not merely with maintaining the status quo.
However, is it likely that the results he named would have accrued in any divided government?
Wasn’t welfare reform abetted by an executive who was quite moderate and exceedingly averse to toeing a hard party line whenever it might hamper his popularity? These very traits of Clinton’s— whether viewed as signs of pragmatism or weakness/vanity— appear in very few of the current Republican candidates for the White House. (Okay, Romney has shown great pragmatism in the past, but would these qualities re-materialize once through the ringer of his party’s nomination, assuming he survived it?)
For that matter, would a future feistier liberal Democratic president cede ground to a Republican congress on entitlement cuts? That’s certainly not apparent. Is it even likely?
Regarding deficit reductions, the atmosphere— however fragile— of peaceful prosperity in Clinton’s era seems a long way off now. Assuming Republicans could somehow win back a majority in the legislature at the mid-term, how likely is it that a divided government would be in any position to reduce the deficit with cuts to military expenditures? Between the refrains of victory from Republican hawks and a Democratic executive who is about to push more chips into Afghanistan, it seems profoundly unlikely.
So, even if challenges to the status quo have at times succeeded during split governments, it’s not clear to me that those challenges came as a result of split government. In fact, it’s quite possible they succeeded in spite of split government.
— turnbuckle · Dec 1, 09:10 PM · #
So Chet the Truther is open-minded enough to believe that Bush was aware of the coming 9/11 attacks and let it happen for a reason to go to war with Iraq besides UN mandates, with no evidence, but believes it is “fucking ridiculous” to think holy ACORN has no compunction about advising people on how to hide income from prostitution rings or murder husbands because the all the evidence he is willing to watch that shows they are able and willing to do so is context free and heavily edited?
Well, at least he never blames anyone else for having a consistency problem. Oh, wait, nevermind – I hadn’t read his embarrassing declarations about international law 4 and a half hours earlier on the same day. My apologies.
— consistency policeman; internal affairs division · Dec 1, 10:38 PM · #
Tb: Kaus’s preferencence anyway is not for divided government as such but for Democratic presidents with Republican legislatures…the latter restraining domestic spending and the former not pushing defense spending as much. But the 90s were not wartime.
Freddie: I suppose if setting curves is within your power then bending them is within mine.
— Matt Feeney · Dec 1, 10:55 PM · #
Just to clarify (again), I’m not now, nor have ever been a “truther.”
It strikes me that you must have the same problem, in reverse, since you apparently believe that Bush had absolutely no warning of 9/11 but that ACORN is staffed, top to bottom, with criminal masterminds (yet accomplishes nothing but advocacy for the poor.)
Of course, the truth is I have no consistency problem; that Bush was warned about the major elements of 9/11 but chose not to act (for some reason), and that ACORN is not in fact the largest criminal organization since La Cosa Nostra, are conclusions that are eminently supported by ample evidence.
And if this is the best “gotcha” you think you can catch me in, it’s no wonder you’ve chosen to post completely anonymously. I’d be too embarrassed, too.
— Chet · Dec 2, 01:43 AM · #
No, Chet that was just more bait. You gotcha’d yourself. Again.
I am impressed with your lame qualifiers though (“absolutely” no warning of the “major elements” of 9/11).
Sounds like you’ve backed off your much more clearer and certain claims of Bush’s criminality a bit, now that the particular mind-control meme isn’t being pushed as much by anyone since the election.
But doesn’t your new moderated tone reveal your previous insinuations as hot air?
Everyone knows (or would assume) that the previous administration had some vague warning of imminent attacks, as I’m sure the present one has some sort of knowledge of vague threats as well. So what’s the big deal? Aren’t you now just accusing Bush of “absolutely” nothing (yet without taking back your past accusations of what amounts to high treason)?
Should I take this as full retraction and vindication of Bush? You are not as clear as you used to be about this.
I didn’t think you could sink lower than being a truther who refuses the title his statements merit.
But simply rephrasing your previous, very serious accusations so that they are virtually meaningless, without acknowledging the cowardly change in terms takes you down to a whole new level of slime.
Are you inconsistent on even this matter? Have you no courage of this conviction you’ve defended so adamantly before?
Or did something happen recently that led you to actually change your mind? What could it have been….?
Maybe you just realized how stupid your previous truther insinuations were and you just don’t want to admit it?
I suppose that would show some capacity for shame, at least. Is Chet growing?
However, your new timidity in stating your latest half-assed, cowardly accusation (Bush “chose” to ignore these warnings of “major elements” “for some reason”…) is still just more typical truther talk (imply a lot, own up to nothing).
Can’t let go of that security blanket can you? The world just wouldn’t make sense if Bush weren’t the devil and ACORN full of angels.
Speaking of which, you do sound sadly and willfully ignorant when you say things like “ACORN accomplishes nothing but advocacy for the poor.”
But, as always, good job disproving Mr. Strawman’s statements that “ACORN is staffed, top to bottom, with criminal masterminds” and is not “the largest criminal organization since La Cosa Nostra.” I can’t believe he tried to get another red herring like that past you, Chet, the Champion of Honest Debate, and the Truth.
You never fail to put him in his place for making such ridiculous claims.
I guess you are consistent (predictable) in some ways.
Still, though, I find it hard to believe anyone could so easily go from trustworthy to cynical so quickly depending on the subject. It’s almost as if you were bipolar, or a rigid partisan.
Wait, are you an ACORN employee? You ought to make some money off this talent for consistent inconsistency.
— consistency policeman; internal affairs division · Dec 2, 04:03 PM · #
You’ve written a lot but said very little.
I haven’t backed off of anything. My position hasn’t changed in any way; I believe that the Bush administration was warned of a serious upcoming terrorist attack, the attack that turned out to be 9/11, and consciously ignored the warnings and took no investigatory action that would have identified the true scope of the threat and avenues for interdiction – because they thought the attack would not be that damaging – a bomb in a mall, perhaps – and that they could leverage the national reaction for political capital.
That’s not a truther-style claim that “9/11 was an inside job”, but nor is it the fictitious-but-accepted narrative that “we had absolutely no warning about 9/11.” I’m not now, nor have ever been, a “truther”; just someone who, unlike you, paid attention to the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission.
My clarity, and my position, has not changed in any way. You simply have to read what I’m saying, not strawmen of my position presented by my opponents. I’m not now, nor have ever been, a “truther.”
Well, fill me in. What prostitution rings do they run? What drugs do they smuggle? Whose husbands have they murdered? What have they done, in fact, except lobby politicans and turn in voter registration forms?
Uh, isn’t that exactly the definition of being reasonable? Being credulous or skeptical based on the degree to which the evidence supports either? Where on Earth did you hear that the exact same degree of trust should be put in all claims and all accusations, regardless of evidence?
What you’re doing is akin to accusing a jury of being “inconsistent” simply for finding some defendants guilty and some innocent. There’s just no “gotcha” here, except the ones you keep walking into.
— Chet · Dec 2, 06:51 PM · #
Chet, it seems you are always arguing with voices in your head. It’s too bad those voices make such absurd arguments. It can’t be satisfying to refute them.
I, however, never said ACORN runs prostitution rings. Do you realize that? Can you distinguish these words from those of your enemy, The Strawman?
The evidence that they are a publicly partisan organization that has no clear policy against helping those who do means they are not simply advocates of the poor.
Saying that they are not mere ‘advocates of the poor’ (or the truth that they are users of the poor) is not the same as saying they run prostitution rings, deal drugs or murder. Does that make sense? I said the former, you attributed the latter.
Again, this is a very consistent, annoying habit of yours (and not very well done).
Simply accusing me of the same thing without explanation does not make it right.
Likewise when I said you seem to automatically go from cynical presumptions to trustworthy ones, depending on the subject (Bush or acorn) I am not accusing you of reacting differently to different evidence. Subjects are not the same as evidence. Does that make sense?
I’m asking because it really is not clear if you think you are being disingenuous or not capable of replying to the actual words people say.
What’s weird is that you say this when there is actual evidence of ACORN breaking the law, numerous times, that we’ve all seen, and no evidence of Bush making the “conscious” choice to ignore an imminent attack “that they could leverage the national reaction for political capital.”
That’s called libel, and the casual way you slander those you hate makes you unfit for rational or civil discussion in a democratic society. I won’t ask if you understand why. But I suppose it is impressive to you that you are brazen enough to keep saying it without the protection of anonymity.
Saying you know this because you are well-informed is funny, but I think you probably know this was not a conclusion of the 9/11 commission, and trying to attribute it to them is just another pathetic attempt to hide your lies behind deceit.
You have no evidence that Bush failed to act preemptively for political reasons, but there is evidence that ACORN, a non-profit tax-payer-funded organization, is. Do you know what evidence is?
Like I said before, administrations, including this one, have to “ignore,” or not investigate (which you seem to think is the same thing) all sorts of threats, by necessity. Does that make them all as guilty as Bush in this regard? If so, why keep repeating the same thing, if it is such a meaningless non-charge?
Because you are a Truther.
Do you know what that term, ‘truther’ even means? Wait, before you say the same lie again. Don’t slander the Truthers as well – they don’t think 9/11 is “an inside job” (that’s a bumper sticker).
Here’s some actual evidence: Truthers’ own words, stating what they actually believe (found on their own site (truthmove.org),
“There is widespread evidence and documentation that elements of the US government were involved in facilitating the 9/11 attacks. This is not to say that Muslim extremists were not involved or that everything was faked. Many of the claims attributed to the “9/11 truth movement” are speculative, irresponsible, and downright false. This does not change the fact that there is a huge body of legitimate evidence.
Whether or not one believes that government complicity is conceivable or possible does not matter until he or she has personally reviewed the evidence. All citizens should be vigilant in independently studying important events or issues such as 9/11, rather than simply accepting the official line from the government and corporate media.”
Hey, they have “evidence”! And they say what you are saying, but with a little more polish. Maybe you should go consult with them. Come back home to your fellow lovers of the truth, truther. Go home.
— consistency policeman; internal affairs division · Dec 3, 12:09 AM · #
It’s amazing to me that this is where you’re getting hung up. Did I say that you made such a claim? Anywhere?
That’s an interesting standard. Why would any organization need a policy against “helping people who run prostitution rings”? Should people who run such rings not be able to buy groceries? Purchase health care? Watch cable TV? It strikes me that almost nobody demands that organizations, companies, and service providers have policies against selling things to criminals. Against even talking to people who look like they might be criminals. And how would such a policy be enforced? Should you be subject to Congressional investigation every time you try to buy a tie, just in case you’re running a hooker ring? Oh, right – in Conservative-land, pimps and hos can be reliably distinguished by the Halloween costumes they always wear.
I know you’re not. You’re accusing me of cynicism, and I’m rebutting your accusation by telling you what I’m actually doing – basing my trust or distrust on the evidence.
No, there’s not. Believe it or not it’s not against the law to try to counter-punk a stupid kid who’s obviously trying to punk you. Telling a costume-store “pimp” how to run a hooker ring you know he’s not running isn’t against the law.
There is actually ample evidence – not least of which is that they were warned, and yet did nothing. The fact that they actually did invade Iraq using 9/11 as justification. And so on. Their actions, and the refusal of any high-level Bush administration official to testify to the Commission under oath, makes my position quite well-supported.
You can go on believing that the Bush Administration did absolutely everything they could have been expected to do to prevent 9/11, but that wasn’t the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission and it’s certainly not the conclusion supported by the evidence.
And the fact that none of those threats have come to fruition shows that the judgment to ignore them was correct and the threats were not credible. Unfortunately, 9/11 happened. Therefore the threat of 9/11 was, by definition, a credible one. Yet it was ignored despite ample warning – warning of an urgency and basis not present in the other threats you refer to.
Why? There’s no need to wonder, Bush himself had said so a few years before the attacks: “My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it.”
I’m not now, nor have ever been a “truther.”
I don’t believe the US government or the Bush administration in any way “facilitated” the attacks. All I’ve said, as you continue to ignore, is that the Bush Administration purposefully chose to ignore warnings of an attack that would be, they felt, a minor destructive act with few casualties that they could then exploit for much-needed political capital. (Remember how the Bush administration was floundering in the year before 9/11? Remember how they had no captial, no mandate, because it had turned out they had actually lost the 2000 election? How their legislative agenda was going absolutely nowhere? The need for capital was manifest.)
— Chet · Dec 3, 12:44 AM · #
“Did I say that you made such a claim? Anywhere?”
Oh, got me, Chet. Good point. You did not say that. Instead you were just pointing out that acorn doesn’t run prostitution rings or deal drugs, apropos of absolutely nothing at all. Silly me. It was just a complete nonsequitor.
I am so stupid for not realizing that you just said it for no reason.
Sorry. I forgot you aren’t really just arguing with me, but, as usual, your friend Strawman. Thanks for setting me straight.
“Why would any organization need a policy against ‘helping people who run prostitution rings’?”
You’d make a great CEO Chet. Wish I worked for you. What was the context that would explain such a ridiculous statement? Pure partisanship. I don’t see why you are so ashamed of what you are. The closet you’re in is invisible. It’s the dogged dishonesty that’s so disturbing. You really do seem to be lying to yourself mostly. Most partisans can at least fake arguments. Instead you rely on assertions and mischaracterization. It works when trying to accuse Bush, but the same technique fails on a webpage where the person you are libeling plainly does not say what you keep asserting.
Are you not aware that acorn is a non-partisan organization that works to get democrats elected. You seem to be ignorant that there is evidence of it or that it’s a crime.
I guess I can believe that.
Much easier to excuse advising pimps to break tax laws as part of their mission of advocacy for the oppressed. Funny where partisanship will lead you, huh?
Although you don’t even do that – your defense is incoherent. What are you saying? Everyone thought it was a joke at every location so wasted their time advising them instead of advocating? Or is your argument just the same one that conservatives in conservative-land are stupid?
Oh, I get it – you are just making more irrelevant points for no reason at all.
Yes, you are right, Chet, there ought not be a law that criminals watch cable tv. Take that Mr. Straw.
But should they steal cable, Chet? Would I be an accomplice if I showed them how or helped them cover it up?
I know the answer – not if I worked for some organization or company your authority figures told you were purely good and anti-Bush.
Chet, you betray your own deliberate ignorance and willingness to believe talking points when you try to explain ACORN’s repeated behavior as “counter-punking.” Case closed – nothing to see here, let’s talk about the conspiracies we don’t have on video instead.
Moron, I get the same talking points in the mail as you, and those were dropped after the 3rd video came out.
“You can go on believing that the Bush Administration did absolutely everything they could have been expected to do to prevent 9/11…”
Wow, you really can’t help it can you? You are simply incapable of honestly addressing what you or others actually have said.
Or do you honestly think that those who are naïve enough to think Bush did not actually want Americans to die on 9/11 therefore believe he did everything possible to prevent them?
It takes a very stupid person to think others are that dumb. Not everyone is as unfamiliar with logic as you Chet.
No one in reality thinks Bush did everything possible. Nor has any president. Do you really want Obama to do “absolutely everything” he can do in order to prevent the next attack, whether he thinks it will be at a mall, on a base, or in the air?
Either you don’t know what “absolutely everything” possible means, or you’re just saying nothing again.
If all you are saying is what the 9/11 commission said, then you are saying nothing.
Are you a big believer in the commission’s recommendations Chet? Did they go far enough for you, Mr. Security? Shouldn’t we be picking up and holding every suspicious nut? Except those dedicated to the Truth of course.
No president does everything possible, and we don’t want them to. Bush’s failure to prevent is America’s failure, and every president’s failure.
Only a cynical, soulless partisan would try to make the findings of commission all about a case against Bush.
But you want all the truther sanctimonious condemnation and sensation, because you are a mindless partisan, but without owning up to the actual paranoid arguments and assertions it requires to make the evidence more than it is, because you are a depraved coward.
Because Bush didn’t do absolutely everything, should he be tried for treason or not, asshole? Stop trying to have it both ways. Either you are saying Bush acted like every president would have and did when faced with the same intelligence reports, or you are saying his actions make him especially guilty. Is there blood on his hands or not? Can you make an accusation or are you just going to keep saying the same technically true, technically meaningless statements over and over, letting us connect the dots, Glenn Beck?
Of course, every point you make is recycled directly from truthmove.org.
I like their wording better.
Chet is not, nor has he ever been, a “truther” – he just steals and repeats all of the truthers’ same exact arguments then runs away in his tinfoil helmet, taking no responsibility. At least he’s not anonymous though.
Simply pachetic.
— consistency policeman; internal affairs division · Dec 3, 03:12 PM · #
Well, no. I’m not arguing with you. You replied to me, remember? You replied to my defense of ACORN. Why on Earth would you have assumed that my remarks about ACORN would have originally been directed at you, when to my knowledge you had not ever posted to TAS in your life hitherto?
But that’s not what it is at all. ACORN is a collection of community organizations that, jointly, advocates for voter access, neighborhood safety, affordable low-income housing, and so forth.
“Every location”? No, O’Keefe and his girlfriend were actually thrown out of most ACORN locations. It was only at a very small number of locations – less than 5 – where volunteers thought they would amuse themselves by punking O’Keefe.
Well, that depends. If someone from the cable company showed up, with Cox Cable right there on his shirt front, but he was in disguise as a cable thief with a domino mask over his face, you might very well decide that this was such a feeble attempt to set you up that you would punk the guy, and give him absurd “advice” on how to steal cable. “Well, you need to sneak in to the Cox station headquarters with a palette-load of VHS tapes, and make a copy of every show you want to see. There, that’s how you steal cable.”
Nobody except your partisan enemies would perceive that you had actually advised anyone on how to “steal cable.” Everyone would know you were joking – unless, of course, the video tapes were edited such that you appeared to be saying “Sneak into the Cox station…that’s how you steal cable.” Edit out the jokes, in other words, and you can completely change the tone of the situation. You know, like O’Keefe did to his unfortunate victims at ACORN.
Well, wait. You think Bush was warned about 9/11, but didn’t take sufficient action to prevent or investigate it? What’s the difference between our positions, then?
Do you even know what the commission concluded? I highly doubt it. You’re just sniping at me from a typical position of ignorant anonymity.
I don’t know what “truthmove.org” is. Your posts are incomprehensible gibberish. Are there actually salient points? I fail to perceive any.
Well, I wouldn’t want to be “pachetic”, now would I? Whatever that means.
— Chet · Dec 3, 08:00 PM · #