That's Rich

Koan of the day: When jackasses are braying in their echo chamber, do they make any sense at all? Kos and other podpeople follow on Frank Rich’s NYT article “Swift-boating Cindy Sheehan” (and no, I’m not providing them any linkage—the asinine brays can be found easily with Google if you so wish) and are joined in their echo chamber by such as the poor benighted soul who commented on a post of mine below. What none of these jackasses (and I use the term not as a pejorative but as a simple descriptive; after all, do not they nearly one and all claim a jackass as their mascot?) pause to consider is that their use of the term “swift-boating” to describe their contempt of the tactic of actually displaying verifiable facts and on-the-record statements by Cindy Sheehan to discredit her reveals their contempt of any facts that contradict their predetermined viewpoints. “Swift-boating” as viewed by anyone who actually read the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth materials, viewed/listened to their ads and then dug into the supporting documentation and its background is a term of reasoned argument, not vile invective, as all the little Frank Riches of the Loony Left suppose.  Rather than being character assassination, as Rich and the herd he runs in assert, examining the actual words and deeds of an individual that tend to refute their own current public statements is simply good argument. Let’s  consider for a second the record of actual character assassination.  Rich portrays the marshalling of facts concerning Cindy Sheehan’s behavior by those who question her motives and actions as a conspiracy to assassinate her character emanating from Karl Rove.  But where’s his evidence? He begins by begging the question of Rovian machinations in character assassination, commits an error (or two) of construction along the way and then simply engages in blatant ad hominem attacks on Karl Rove and President Bush. (For any leftists visiting, get a good text book on logic and have someone read and explain the section on common fallacies of argument to you. No. Have them read and explain more slowly.) Now, that’s character assassination. Rich doesn’t even marshall any facts. He has no witnesses to the supposed Rovian marching orders, no documentary evidence whatsoever; he just makes them up as he goes along. That is, to suit his malicious purposes, he writes lies. (Must be lies, otherwise he’d cite some actual verifiable facts to support his statements.) He knows he can get away with this cos any defense to his lies will be portrayed by his fellow Mass Media Podpeople as evidence that “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”—even when the only smoke is what Rich and his fellow Mass Media Podpeople are blowing. The really sad thing is that Rich can get away with this within his own lil herd of non-critical thinkers, cos, well, none of them seem to be able maintain the remotest relationship with logic or argument from fact or reason. Hence the echo chamber effect where one braying pod-jackass starts, another follows and soon the whole herd is braying in unison: “The Eeeeeevil Karl Rove is making his minions say bad things about Mother Sheehan!  Heee-Waaaaahhhhh!” *Yawn* Ya know, it was bad enough when I had to put up with 7th grade hormone-lobotomized students who couldn’t (or more often simply wouldn’t) think their way out of the cul-de-sacs they marched themselves into with their “speech-challenged piscine*” ways.  Putting up with such stupid behavior in supposed adults is beyond me.  I simply won’t do it.  As soon as someone adequately demonstrates that they are beyond reason, I feel safe in not listening to them any more, except for occasional times stopping by to see if their medication’s been properly moderated, yet. Life’s too short to listen to people who have proven themselves to be self-made idiots.  (Their podmasters may have handed them their very own self-lobotomy kits, but they didn’t have to use them.)   *Yeh: Dumb Bass.