I'm back/Murphy update
Wednesday April 11, 2007
Well, brethren and sistren, I have returned. I see that the Murphy thing blew up in my absence, and that James Taranto got it all explained for us. You will notice that in my initial posting on the foofarah, I used the phrase "if it's true" three times. It sounded far-fetched, but not implausible, at least to me. Taranto says that "hatred" of Bush blinded me and others on this matter. Oh? I am happy to have had my suspicions on the Murphy matter dismissed, but seriously, it's not an act of malicious irrationality to view this administration as at least capable of abusing civil liberties and/or improperly politicizing the functions of government.
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Trotsky, They aren't capable of it if it requires getting career bureaucrats involved. And in this case, the report that generated this flurry of speculation was false. No point getting bogged down now in another Rather-esque "Fake-but-True" argument.
The real problem is that most people really can't get their minds around conditional statements (like "if it's true.") We don't educate young people to deal with "ifs." As a former English teacher, I find this utterly dismaying.
Simon,
All kinds of people manage to keep all kinds of secrets for long enough to do plenty of damage. But kindly refrain from putting words into my mouth. I thought the story was bogus from the get-go. Allow me to take the liberty of quoting myself from the other day's thread: Why would a very polite American Airlines check-in clerk know how a person gets on the no-fly list? My local U.S. attorney's 6-year-old son is also on the no-fly list. (Apparently he shares a name with an IRA terrorist of some repute.) Now, the clerk might think we've gone deep into Nixon territory and offered Murphy that explanation, but I don't have any reason to know that he's right. Of course, if the list weren't double-plus top-secret, maybe law-abiding airline passengers who get flagged wouldn't be so paranoid about it. trotsky | 04.09.07 - 11:39 am | #
trotsky, we disagree about the competence of the government to pull off any kind of significant cover up.
But I didn't mean to put any words in your mouth, nor to suggest that you had bought into this silly story. I was just refering to the general trend of the discussion, which seemed headed toward a "Fake but true" argument that I wanted out of. Apologies if my post came across as a slight directed at you.
Simon, We'll agree to disagree, then. Peace.
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