Klarinet Archive - Posting 000532.txt from 2004/06

From: Jeremy A Schiffer <schiffer@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: [kl] The Bush Junta
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 21:14:15 -0400

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004, Bill Hausmann wrote:

> At 12:41 PM 6/30/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>
> If you figure that questioning the guy's motives, ability, and logic to be ad
> hominem, then I guess so. (I read it days ago, too.)

Um, Bill, that IS the definition of 'ad hominem' according to most
sources. From dictionary.com (sorry, I already left work, and can't access
the OED from home) "The phrase now chiefly describes an argument based on
the failings of an adversary rather than on the merits of the case: 'Ad
hominem attacks on one's opponent are a tried-and-true strategy for people
who have a case that is weak'. Ninety percent of the Panel finds this
sentence acceptable [meaning that the usage is correct]."

And here's what Hitchens says about Moore and the film (from
villagevoice.com - Richard Goldstein):

"Dishonest . . . demagogic . . . a piece of crap . . . an exercise in
facile crowd pleasing . . . a sinister exercise in moral frivolity . . . a
spectacle of abject political cowardice . . . a big lie [sustained] by a
dizzying succession of smaller falsehoods beefed up by wilder and (if
possible) yet more contradictory claims . . . loaded bias against the work
of the mind . . . so flat-out phony that 'fact-checking' is beside the
point." As for Moore himself, Hitchens calls him "a silly and shady man"
and "one of the great soggy blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten
culture."

Sure looks like intelligent discourse to me!

>> Additionally, if you follow the link (and read it) for
>> the article where Richard Clarke supposedly took full responsibility for
>> the post-9/11 Saudi flights (the one area where the facts are in dispute),
>> you discover quickly that Clarke didn't say what Hitchens claims he said.
>> Even the headline on that story is rather misleading, given what it says
>> several paragraphs in.
>
> Clarke's exact words were, "I take responsibility for it. I don't think it
> was a mistake, and I'd do it again." and "It didn't get any higher than me.
> On 9-11, 9-12 and 9-13, many things didn't get any higher than me. I decided
> it in consultation with the FBI." Only later did he try to weasel out of
> those statements.

You have the timeline backwards. The "I take responsibility" line was
given for the first time, according to that article, on May 24th of this
year. He had previously claimed, in *sworn testimony* in March, that "'The
request came to me, and I refused to approve it,' Clarke testified. 'I
suggested that it be routed to the FBI and that the FBI look at the names
of the individuals who were going to be on the passenger manifest and that
they approve it or not. I spoke with the - at the time - No. 2 person in
the FBI, Dale Watson, and asked him to deal with this issue. The FBI then
approved ... the flight.'"

The fact is, no one knows what the facts are (or if they do, they're not
talking). But Hitchens was being a little less than honest in his usage of
the quotes...

> What is NOT in the movie is just as important as what IS. Can you play
> Mozart leaving out the rests and just playing the notes? Leaving OUT truth
> that contradicts your point is just as much lying as making up stuff.

A lie of commission versus a lie of ommission, if you'd like to be precise
about it. I agree with your point in the abstract - anyone with a passing
familiarity of formal logic would have to agree.

However, in this case, Hitchens is yammering about the lack of context
that Moore provides in regards to the Baathist history of violence and
repression in Iraq. But who cares? Perhaps Moore didn't go into extreme
detail about Iraqi history because it's NOT RELEVANT to 9/11 and the
Bush/Bin Laden family entanglements? If you've read a fair amount of
Hitchens' work, it all starts to look the same, since he grinds the same
axe over and over and over again. He doesn't as much accuse Moore of
leaving out contradictory evidence as he excoriates him for not broadening
the context of the film, an utterly irrelevant point if there ever was
such a thing.

-jeremy

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