Clinton Comes Down with a Case of 'The Gores'

re: Clinton Comes Down with a Case of 'The Gores'

Maggie22 — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:50:00 GMT

Your point is right. But I think the meme of Hillary as one with a dicey relationship to the truth connects with reality in important ways. This is the woman who is seriously arguing that it would be undemocratic to NOT seat the delegations of MI and FL despite the fact that both contests are manifestly undemocratic. To take such a position would seem to require having the sort of character that has a complete disregard for truth or the integrity of human reason. She does this on many other issues as well. It is too bad that it takes the proven case of prevarication about a minor point as in the Bosnia issue to drive home the larger truth which is that Clinton is willing to flog arguments she cannot possibly believe to carry real weight if it's politically expedient to do so. My fear about your reporting here is that it would serve to innoculate her against the true charge which is that she routinely substitutes rhetorical flourishes in support of rationalizations that are degrading to true reason. It's part of the debasement of our political culture -- and since journalists only feel safe challenging factual misstatements rather than the integrity of a logical position, it's the sort of thing that is allowed to play out on its own.

re: Clinton Comes Down with a Case of 'The Gores'

Andrew Romano — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:15:13 GMT

Hey Maggie,

Did you happen to see my item on the Popular Vote Fallacy? http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/04/04/the-popular-vote-fallacy.aspx

Think it falls squarely into the category of challenging "the integrity of a logical position" and pointing out an example of "substitut[ing] rhetorical flourishes in support of rationalizations that are degrading to true reason."

Really appreciate your comments, as always.

Andrew

re: Clinton Comes Down with a Case of 'The Gores'

Maggie22 — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:19:16 GMT

Yes, I did! That was good. And you're right again -- that sort of vetting does happen sometimes. Though given that popular vote is now almost universally accepted as a measure of something important, I think that more pieces like that might be helpful. I must admit, it's the Fl-MI position that bothers me more than anything. Granted, most people see that it's patently absurd to even consider counting MI, because Obama wasn't on the ballot. But FL is still well past the bogus line -- the contest was not advertized as counting, which means that 'counting' it disenfranchises all the voters who stayed home on the grounds that it didn't count. And the non-campaigning is not trivial. It's the essence of democratic process, since without it, results would be based on things like which candidate is most familiar to the voters. In any case, not only is Clinton's position on this absurd, she's flogged it so much that I fear she is seriously poisoning the well in those states for Obama in the fall. And I really don't understand why she hasn't been called out on it the way she got called out on Bosnia. Everyone knows that the Bosnia story didn't happen. But is it as widely understood that it would be anti-democratic to seat MI and FL as is? And has anybody raised the character question involved in putting forward such an absurd self-serving argument in the first place? Cause seriously, democracy is a fragile thing -- to demagog with it in this way is just not good.

Anyway, keep up the good work! Your perspective on things is always interesting.