Garbage in Garbage out

This whole Lindsay Graham appointment thing is just another case of "it's good news for Republicans" run amock and it's just being repeated.

In the Senate, you can discharge something from a committee with a motion and a vote. It's a debatable motion so you need cloture, but you need that anyway to get the nominee through.

Jay Nordlinger did not say "only morally good people admire GWB." Try again, it's only like three sentences.

I just linked to the National Review post re: only good people like Bush. I'm sorry, but that's not what it said at all. Read it again. Seriously. I'm no fan of Bush, but you are way, way off the mark. I suspect it reflects a belief of yours that only morally reprehensible people like Bush.

And Jay makes fun of you here, Mori:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2MxNmM5YjhkZmRjM2FmMzk3MTI5YmFhMWE1YzdiNjI=

What Tom and Jeff said. But then you knew you were misrepresenting Nordlinger said when you wrote that.

Oh my. The most charitable action is to avert one's eyes from this one.

Mori there is way an honest person could misinterpret Nordlinger that way. You knew that wasn't anything close to what he said, you just flat lied and you know it.

Mori, this is embarrassing. It is bad enough that Nordlinger did not say

If X admires Bush then X is morally good.

If X does not admire Bush, then X is not morally good,

That's our Mori! I note also that, starting with MMFA, the Dems are very eager to oppose any attempts to point out that having hundreds or thousands of potential flu carriers enter the U.S. each day is not a good idea. Those yakkers who go overboard aren't helping, but it's almost impossible to find a Dem pointing out that checking visitors at airports makes no sense if we're just going to allow anyone to walk across the border. They obviously care more about getting votes than protecting the U.S.

Oooh, they've got you now, Mori! Nordlinger didn't say "only morally good people admire Bush"; what he actually said was "the better the person, the more positive he is about George W. Bush. ... This is particularly true of those who know something about tyranny, and the need to resist it.” Your accurate paraphrase is teh suck! I guess 'those who know something about tyranny and the need to resist it' does not actually equal morally good, though I'd be hard pressed to know what Nordlinger actually meant if that's not what he meant.

Hey, righties? You know how you guys are *forever* pulling out that Pauline Kael quote from 1972 ("I don't know how McGovern didn't win… I don't know anyone who didn't vote for him") to mock the out-of-touchness of liberals? This quote from Nordlinger: "Most of the people I admire most, admire the 43rd president"--same damn thing. He left office with approval ratings in the 20s. They're still there. Get used to it.

liberals sure lie a bunch over the dumbest things. and then we get greg in here to help this one dumb liar not be exposed as one. Stop lying already libs, not everything is worth lying about. She made one stupid lying post on her dopey blog, just leave it at that.

Since this post has received an extraordinary amount of attention, I feel compelled to address the issue at hand. What Nordlinger said that captured my attention was, "In my experience — and I’m just generalizing here — the better the person, the more positive he is about George W. Bush." Now, if I'm guilty of anything here, it's using "only" instead of "mostly" in paraphrasing his comments. My intention had less to do with bashing the premise of the post than it did with using it to make a point about the Right's continued embrace of George Bush despite the failure of that administration. But this aspect of my comment has attracted zero attention.

Besides, what conclusion should I have drawn from a post titled, "Knowing a Good Man When You See One?" Jonathan Chait called this a a "litmus test of the soul," and that's how I read it as well. If we're to accept, as Nordlinger says, that "I don’t believe that only morally good people admire Bush; I’m sure some real snakes admire him" then what was the point of bringing up the connection between "better" people and being "positive" about George Bush in the first place? Is banal commentary the new rage?

Of course I know Nordlinger doesn't believe that everybody who is good likes Bush. And of course I don't believe, as one commentator put it, that "it reflects a belief of yours that only morally reprehensible people like Bush." Was I being snarky by paraphrasing Nordlinger the way I did? Yes. But what I'd really like to know what conclusion I'm supposed to draw from his original comments, and that's why I chose to pick on him today.

He actually went to the trouble of putting in his post this:

"(Please note that I said “most of the people,” not “all of the people.”)"

It's sad he even had to put that bit in there but it sure looks like he was right to, judging by your attempt to screw him here.

You didn't "paraphrase", you deliberately distorted. I think that's about an end of it unless you want to backpedal some more.

Marvel at The Corner's Jay Nordlinger as he asserts that only morally good people admire the 43rd president and ask yourself how deluded you have to be to think that 74 percent of the country are moral degenerates because they rightly concluded that George Bush was national catastrophe.

The dishonesty of "[Nordlinger] asserts that only morally good people admire the 43rd president" is less striking to me than the stupidity of infering from this that Nordlinger "think[s] that 74 percent of the country are moral degenerates because they rightly concluded that George Bush was national catastrophe."

Let me repeat. "If A, then B" does not imply "If not A, then not B".

Mori, you didn't paraphrase. You lied.

To paraphrase, means to condense while keeping the original meaning. You deliberately changed the meaning in a dishonest fashion.

You are a liar.

Only morally reprehensible people can like Bush.

Good people don't approve of torture, no matter how much time you spend at church, no matter how many hours you spend handing out soup at homeless shelters, no matter how much random BS you do to convince yourself that you're a great guy. Good people don't think slicing peoples dicks up with a scalpel is ok, and only evil people will stand by a man who allows that to happen.

You made your beds, now you have to fucking live in it you evil mother fuckers.

That isn't to say no evil people didn't support bush. Even some evil people aren't that fucking evil.

I have found if one is interested in actually communicating real, useful information, then it usually helps to actually try to understand the people one is communicating with. Or reading.

What we have here is a person willfully misinterpreting the obvious meaning of what is on the screen: Jay Nordlinger has found that people of notable moral worth, especially those who have lived under genuinely tyrannical regimes, who have also Bush II happen to like him. Even if they don't necessarily agree with him all the time.

It's obvious that's what he was saying. It also seems, to me, largely uncontroversial.

I am not familiar with your other work, Ms. Dinauer. But if this sort of adolescent preening and jejune partisan hackery is typical, and you get paid a living wage for it, then I am jealous.

I don't usually bother correcting typos in blog comments, but this affects meaning:

Should be "...who have also MET Bush II..."

Thanks, and I look forward to learning if this is typical of Ms. Dinauer.

I see you've attempted to set a new standard in rhetorical integrity.

Is Mori the plural of Moron?

This is a group blog, so inquiring minds want to know.

You all stand by people who torture innocent people. You stand by people who murdered innocent people. you think those people should come back home and become teachers, cops, and government officials.

You don't get to make moral or ethical accusations. nothing you say can, or should, be taken seriously. I don't care what someone else has done, you aren't able to criticize them. Actions have consequences. You decided that you didn't care about good, decency, or your own humanity. You don't get to engage in this pathetic sophistry.

you're monsters. This is like Jeffrey dDalmer getting outraged at an incident of jay-walking.

haha, you tell 'em soulite!

WHEN MORI LIED NOBODY DIED!