Your Very Professional Media At Work

In a NYT article spinning on behalf of Jeremiah Wright's Krazy Konspiratorial Kondemnation of America, the NYT asserted that his suspicions about injecting AIDS into the black community weren't necessarily all that wacky, because, hey, the United States did attack other countries with biological warfare.

They've now corrected the story to admit there is no evidence of this. I'd have preferred them to say, flatly, it didn't happen, rather than using such weasel words to suggest the case is still open.

But how in the hell did this assertion make it past the multiple layers of painstaking editorial oversight and fact-checking?

The main annoyance of debating an unhinged partisan is that, if any premise is helpful to their argument, he asserts it must be true. After all, he knows he's right, he knows his cause is right, therefore he knows his argument is right, and therefore, QED, and necessary premise for proving his argument must be true. It's a "fact" because it must be a fact.

This is something everyone encounters on a daily basis. (Or a weekly or monthly basis, if you're more fortunate.)

But it speaks volumes that the NYT, with its multiple layers of painstaking blahbettyblah, now resorts to the same Partisan's Little Helper technique of just dreaming up a helpful premise and asserting, without evidence, that it is true precisely because it is helpful.

Reality-based community.

Layers.

posted by Ace at 07:50 PM

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