It seems that cultures tend to develop conventional ideas of political wisdom that fall below the standard of rational politics. One can argue why that is but the fact is manifest. Arianna Huffington develops a modern version of this and refers to it as zombie politics.


In case folks don't know the New York Times has done just this.

Questions to consider:

Do you agree with the general proposition that political cultures develop widely held ideas that fly in the face of the manifest evidence?

Would you call a vote for war authorization back in 2002 an example of this? Remember all the major republican candidates swear by this vote and Hillary still refuses to repudiate it.

Do you believe that vote has at least indirect implications in relation to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto?

If you accept the premise of a culture of political belief that is at odds with the evidence, how does this process of zombie politics work and share any other examples you might like to offer.

Do you agree with the general proposition that political cultures develop widely held ideas that fly in the face of the manifest evidence?

No – and I don’t believe we are “less safe” today – in fact the evidence points exactly in the other direction – regardless of the crap for liberal rags like the NYT.

Would you call a vote for war authorization back in 2002 an example of this? Remember all the major republican candidates swear by this vote and Hillary still refuses to repudiate it.

“Hillary” had good reason to vote for it – she was in the WH with Bill and saw the intel on Iraq. And if you are going to pretend no Dems like Dodd came out strong for it – forget it – they are recorded – word for word.


At odds with what “evidence”? Are you still trying to make anyone believe that there was evidence in 2002 that Saddam did NOT have WMD? If so please do all of us a favor and POST IT HERE DINGO. Can’t wait to see it and go – Oh my gosh I wish I had just read this!

Hmmmm, well at least I got one bite.


Interesting Ted that you even reject the general proposition. As to your specific point what evidence points to the fact that we are either more or less safe today? As of 9/10/01 we had had a run of 8 years of not being attacked by Jihadists on our soil. And even if we were safer how could one possibly imagine that our invasion of Iraq contributed to that?


Hillary had a good reason to vote for it, political expediency at the time. With inspectors in place, to give a questionable leader like Bush the option to go to war without congressional approval may provide the basis for blowing her election. There was simply no rational or moral reason to give him that power. People like Kennedy and Byrd appeared to understand that.


You're reverting back to your same old same old Ted. The evidence referred to in this thread if you would read it was what was shown AFTER THE INVASION. There were no WMDs found. Huffington is making the point that the folks who got it wrong are being written up as being more credible and experienced on the issue of the war on Muslim Jihadist terrorism despite their track record of blowing it and diverting from the effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As to your point, even before the invasion there was no hard evidence that Hussein had WMDs, vetted testimony from Iraqi insiders that past WMDs had been destroyed, nothing being revealed from the Inspectors and multiple folks on the inside of the administration saying that the BA had an agenda of invasion that was set to go, evidence or no evidence.

But I know Ted how like Custer you are prepared to take your last stand crying Hussein couldn't absolutely prove he DIDN'T HAVE THE WMDS. To a person of reason that simply doesn't get to first base as an argument but since you have relied on that approach ad nauseum I realize you will go to your grave believing the invasion was justified because Hussein couldn't supply, in certain instances, positive proof that a certain group of WMDs had been destroyed, even if that was what the Inspectors were there to ferrot out. Please spare us the endless copied lists of unaccounted for WMDs. You've been there done that. It's your whole play and it makes no point given the presence of the UN Inspectors.

The invasion and its rationale were insane and finding out why the media and broader culture is capable of giving candidates special credibility for buying into that insanity is part of what this thread is about; also searching out other examples of political zombie myths that were far from reality like the exaggeration and misuse of the red scare that helped get us into Vietnam.

Interesting? What is interesting is that you can ask the question with a straight face! If Gore was in you would be telling us how safe we were since we went into Iraq and routed Al Qaeda.

And 8 years “on out soil” means squat as you know. How about the embassies and the Towers etc.? Give me a break please.

Our invasion of Iraq has pulled many men and lots of AQ money there that surely would have been used elsewhere if we had just attacked Afghanistan. And PLEASE don’t tell me there are “more of them” because we attacked Iraq – and try to tell me that out wiping them and the Taliban out of Afghanistan was OK with them because that idea is ludicrous nonsense.

No organization, country, army, or group has unlimited resources. Tying them up in Iraq has spared other areas – so far.



I never said this. In fact quite the opposite is clearly true as I have posted here again and again and ……………..




EXACTLY and this is what Hillary, Dodd and numerous other Dems said he had them – but then if they had just checked with Dingo we could have avoided the War since clearly you were in the know and all the rest of us were wrong in 2002.


Ya sure – they were all nuts – Including the Dems – and just YOU had the data. - Your revisionist history is a little boring sir. And ya you don’t like my WMD posts and data because you have SQUAT to back up your point except that we ‘didn’t find it” therefore it never existed? Ya sure – and even if you are right the vast majority of intel in 2002 said the opposite soyour premise is ludicrous.

Do you agree with the general proposition that political cultures develop widely held ideas that fly in the face of the manifest evidence?

Yyeyyes! There are so many examples, where does one even begin. For example, one of the most routinely re-iterated defenses of free trade agreements is that they create manufacturing jobs for Americans by opening up markets across Central America and elsewhere. I have heard Rudy -- a man who would deny his own mother if the rooster asked him to -- repeat this claim many times.

In the economic arena, it's one of the most common false assumptions repeated at such a high level of public discourse. Anyone with a map and a protractor and a calculator can see that the benefit for free trade agreements, vis-a-vis american citizens, is definitely not job creation... that's absurd. The benefit is that we can purchase foreign goods cheaply, and therefore, our purchasing power increases.

But no one would ever defend that thesis because job creation sounds a lot better than "cheap socks" or "20 dollar DVD players for everyone."

Or the surge. let's talk seriously about the surge; the latest 'turn-around' in Iraq is besprinkled with "widely held ideas that fly in the face of the manifest evidence." I don't want to ignite the wrong debate in the wrong thread, but even the surge's defenders have to admit that a major cause of the diminished violence was an agreement reached in Al-Anbar province, which was totally outside of the reach of the Surge. There's even an argument that those Al-Anbar groups reached said agreement as a response to the 2006 midterm elections, which allegedly signaled to many Iraqis that a withdrawal was somewhere over the horizon.

Class inequity -- there's a subject that is rife with false assumptions and easily mangled statistics. That fact is that rich have become exorbitantly richer over the past twenty, twenty five years, with little trickle down benefit for the common public.
Yet my understanding, at least, is not that the middle class is a dying breed. As I understand it, the middle class is a transforming class -- the job market is changing and some of that certainly does involve people taking lower-paid or less desirable jobs, not to mention many careers are becoming a poor man's lot: journalism, for example. Concurrently, opportunity is opening up in the less desirable, less high-pay fields of education and health services; and furthermore, that what's "dying" about the middle class is that our opportunities to climb into that higher class are more ephemeral as the gap between middle class widens. Or, as a bar-back friend of mine in New Orleans once said, "If you're not going to be seriously career-driven, and maybe even if you are, the service industry is the place to be."

But at a democratic debate that thought gets boiled down to "middle americans are watching their dreams slipping away," which is partially true, but also a clumsy way to put it. If your 'dream' is to live quietly live off a moderate income and buy cheap DVD players, the Bush administration has been a rock of security. That's at least, how I understand it. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

Would you call a vote for war authorization back in 2002 an example of this? Remember all the major republican candidates swear by this vote and Hillary still refuses to repudiate it.

Well, there were plenty of false assumptions in that vote, and I'll list a few here:
.- the we could transform the middle east by transforming one country (the reverse domino effect)
- that we would be greeted as liberators
- that oil would go down in price
- that the sunni and shia would form a cohesive federal government.
- that the biggest threat would come from Baathist insurgents.

Nothing is more karma-validating than watching Hillary struggle behind a former state senator who had the guts (and the political position) to question some of the false assumptions behind the Iraq war. She didn't question any of these premises at a time when she was one of the few politicians in America in a position to really help America think this war through She could have raised some delicate questions, sent out some press releases and everyone would have listened on name recognition alone. 20/20 would have done an interview, CNN would have brought camera crews to a press conference, Barbara Walters could have asked her "why do you think the administration is poorly prepared for the aftermath of this war?" She could have made a difference.

Not only did she vote for the war -- fine if you believe its the right thing to do -- but she quietly slipped out of the whole legislative process save the final vote. She could have been a leader and demanded to see that the occupation was planned for, and the intelligence was sound ( which she didn't even read). She could have come in front of the American people and explained her concerns.

That's such an idiotic comment I don't know what to say other than everybody doesn't operate at your level of partisanship.


Cover your eyes and seal your ears, I'm going to tell you just that. We were manufacturing Jihadists and destabilizing countries throughout the ME with our Iraq invasion-occupation. Not to mention that money from Iraq has been going to Al Qaeda headquarters and Iraq has been used as a training ground for jihadist actions in other areas.


That's beyond funny, that's kink style Orwell - "shooting myself in the foot kept my enemies from shooting me in the head."

Just a little final note. Your belief that anything Hillary endorsed is a slam dunk is touching for a rock ribbed Republican.


Additionally it detaches the war from the ultimate problem which is not apparently getting any closer to a solution, namely a political settlement between the contending parties..
Nor does it convey the tragic fact that they never wanted Al Qaeda around in the first place but our invasion forced their hand as a temporarily necessary expediency. Additionally it ignores the fact that the folks who are now being excluded represent maybe 5% of the combatants. Finally it turns its head from the obvious point that whatever government ends up holding power is going to have a Shiite majority and be nominally in the Iranian camp with many of the restrictions of Sharia which Hussein hadn't allowed.


On this one I'm not sure where I see the smoking gun cultural error you are counter posing to. Your general proposition is that the middle class is down sizing and that seems to me to be part of a conventional broader discussion. I don't think your qualifications would shock anyone.

If I were to look for something more fundamental it would be that there is no economics that questions unlimited growth. What's wrong with a more or less steady state economy linked to a steady state population linked to a steady environment. That's bringing things more in line with nature.


- I might add the war would pay for itself through oil revenues.
- That a "democratic" election would unify the country and make them good clients.
- That they could be turned into a model of privatization, most notably their oil.
- Israel would be less threatened in the region.
- That we could pull it off quickly with a minimal occupying force and be withdrawing troops in 3 months.
- That we would find the WMDs that the UN Inspectors couldn't find.

And there was no particularly rational reason to believe any of these things.


The funny thing is Hillary has been the standard that the war apologists, like Ted, most readily invoke. For my money I think in large part she voted out of political expediency. Her state was the target of 911 and she couldn't look weak.