> if Rummy
> said, Does 2+2=4? You bet! I'd add it up myself to
> check. If you approack these prevaricating sleazebags
> in any other way, you need education, treatment, or help.
Oh, I think you're exaggerating just a teensy bit, aren't you? 2+2=4? Of course they're sleazebags when it comes to foreign/military/economic policy, but I suppose they're as good with the addition tables as anyone.
The problem with the usual epistemological approach that committed political people take is that once they've decided that a person like Bush or Rummy (or, from the right, Chomsky or the like) is not "politically correct," they automatically take the position that every single thing that person says is absolutely false. This makes things very simple, and simplicity is what political activism requires if you're going to be effective, but the world is not quite so cartoonish. Even a Bush or a Rummy is a complex human being, with all the mixed-up, variegated motives and propensities that all humans have.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that 99% of what the Bushies say is BS. The other 1% of the time, just by accident, perhaps, they say something that turns out to be right. You can bet that their defenders will pounce on that 1% and cry, "See? See? What do you say about that?!" And the leftists who have been crying that the Bushies are 100% wrong won't have an answer, unless they admit that they have been over-simplifying things all along.
OTOH, a Chomsky, let's say, is 99% right. His opponents will seize on the 1%, and embarrass the left with that.
But if one puts all of the shadings and qualifications into characterizing one's political opponents that strict fidelity to truth requires, then your political effectiveness goes out the window, because you bore everyone stiff -- both your friends and your opponents -- and you can't issue a thrilling call to the barricades anymore.
That's the tragedy of politics -- you can go with truth or effectiveness, but not both. Maybe I'm just getting too old for the political game; I think I should just stick to keeping company with my favorites, Shakespeare, Dickens, Faulkner, and Joyce, who could adequately depict human beings in all three dimensions.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ When I was a little boy, I had but a little wit, 'Tis a long time ago, and I have no more yet; Nor ever ever shall, until that I die, For the longer I live the more fool am I. -- Wit and Mirth, an Antidote against Melancholy (1684)