The Ten-Year-Old is reading Bush at War. I need to skim it and find some meeting, and then point out that Woodward makes X look like a genius in that meeting and everyone else look like a doofus, and then ask her how that might come to be so...
Assessing the reliability of sources is a very important skill to learn early.
UPDATE: Pages 82-85 will do very nicely. Woodward source Card thinks Wolfowitz is "just banging a drum, not providing additional information or new arguments." Woodward source Powell talks sense about Musharraf's dilemma, and says "let's get Afghanistan now. if we do that, we will have increased our ability to go after Iraq--if we can prove Iraq had a role." Woodward source Card tells us that Bush gets Card to slap Wolfowitz down for speaking out of turn.
As we know now, all totally misleading. For Wolfowitz won, and Iraq was added to the Bush menu even without any evidence that Saddam Hussein played a role in 911.
UPDATE: God, Woodward is a turkey! "Musharraf is taking a tremendous risk, [George W. Bush] said. We need to make it worth his while. We should help him.... Put together a package of support for Pakistan, he directed." And Woodward doesn't follow up: never asks where Pakistan's expanded textile export quota is.
Posted by DeLong at February 17, 2004 08:32 PM | TrackBack
Question: how old were you before you learned that not everything in print is true?
Posted by: Alan on February 17, 2004 08:45 PMI was 14 when I first read Bobby Woodward's first "exclusive". It was in the Montgomery County Sentinel and his article disclosed "confidential" ratings of all the county high school prinicpals.
I realized back in 1969 somebody with an agenda needed a hack to get something in print and Bobby was the useful tool to do it.
Bobby has been a useful tool for all manner of politicians for the lat 35 years.
Posted by: Wanderer on February 17, 2004 08:53 PMWanderer: I'm feeling my age......I dimly remember a furor over that article. I didn't know it was Woodward.
Brad:
I'm making a guess that your kids weren't hearing "Goodnight Moon" and "My Little Pony" in their cribs....what did you read them....Plato's Republic? The Collected Works of Shakespeare? The Tao of Physics?
As long as this post has turned to literature, a suggestion for modification to the Platonic dialogs relating to current macro topics: try Aristophanic dialogs (as in Aristopanes) or better yet Plautonic dialogs (as in Plautus). Livelier, chance to work in more jokes, and more consistent with your Clown Show theme.
I wish my parents had given me policy analyses and discussions of the veracity of sources when I was a wee lad.
Do we dare ask what's next on the reading list? Bush's war for reelection?
Posted by: Balta on February 17, 2004 10:22 PMBot Preznit like Turkee!
Posted by: Stirling Newberry on February 17, 2004 10:43 PMHmmm, I don't know... Isn't ten kind of young to be exposed to pornography? :-)
Speaking of gullibility and the ability to win at the what's-wrong-with-this-picture picture game, below is a Yahoo news piece that says that it was independents and Republicans who gave Edwards his close finish in Wisconsin. (though I guess this should really go under the "Is This a Joke?" post).
Several questions come to mind:
1. Is this a mistaken report?
2. Is this a sinister GOP plot to rig the primaries?
Assuming the answer so far is "no"...
3. Why should the very people who the pundits say will be most turned off by Edward's paleo-whatever class warfare be the ones who voted for him?
Other questions come to mind:
4. Would Woodward be able to do a story on this if it were not a plot (since only in that case could he find the mastermind to spoonfeed a story to him)?
5. If this is a bellweather for something or other, is it evidence that we should not be surprized that all sorts of people have the capacity to see through tall tales and make a good call on the true situation?
6. If 3 and 5 are true, should we stop and think before we label ten year olds, NASCAR dads, Repubs, Dems, rightwingers, leftwingers, even neoclassical economists as being impervious to reason and unable to change their minds?
I hope 1 and 2 are NOT true. But I have often found myself disabused of wild notions at this site, so maybe some one has the true story.
By the way, I am not for Edwards in particular, I just find it surprizing that if these voter blocks were turning against Bush, that they would vote for Edwards rather than Kerry. I'm not a big Edwards fan, so maybe if they have figured things out, they are running to far to the other side! But I won't complain too much.
Wisconsin election story:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040218/ap_on_el_pr/democrats&cid=694&ncid=716
Democratic Race Down to Kerry, Edwards
...
Edwards finished far better than pre-primary polls suggested he would, his surge fueled by the highest Republican turnout of the primary season and voters who made up their minds in the last week. His deepest support was in the GOP suburbs of Milwaukee.
"That's been happening in other primaries too," Edwards said in an interview. "Republicans who would consider voting Democratic and independents are the people we have to win over to win the general election. That's why I'm the best candidate to take on George Bush."
Posted by: jml on February 18, 2004 01:12 AMThere was once a brave young reporter who helped break the story that brought down a half-crazed president who was trying to subvert the constitution . . . I wonder what happened to that guy . . .
Posted by: rea on February 18, 2004 04:09 AMSame off topic thread as talking about Edwards appealing to Republicans (probably some knee-jerk pro-Southernism in there).
Same thing happened between the rich and poor. The wealthier voters went for Edwards, while Kerry did better among the poorer.
Sounds like the same thing as the way the New England and Great Lakes states vote Democrat, and yet pay more in taxes than they get in Fed money, vice versa for the South and Mountain states (except Florida, Texas and Nevada).
Heh...
Democrats want to guess what people want and give it to them.
Republicans want bombs and to kill the people with them.
"There was once a brave young reporter who helped break the story that brought down a half-crazed president who was trying to subvert the constitution . . . I wonder what happened to that guy . . ."
Posted by: rea on February 18, 2004 04:09 AM
Rea, that was long ago, and in another country. And that 'brave young reporter' is no longer young, or brave, or a reporter.
Barry
Posted by: Barry on February 18, 2004 05:56 AM"We need to make it worth his while. We should help him.... Put together a package of support for Pakistan, he directed."
Right, so be sure also to turn a blind eye to Pakistan's far-flung nuclear proliferation activities for as long as possible.
Posted by: BobNJ on February 18, 2004 06:12 AMI don't find the cross-over Republican story far fetched. I think that the Republicans have decided that Kerry is going to be their opponent. That's why we got the "intern" story last week. That is why the Jane Fonda picture was floating around etc. Another manifestation of this is the idea of taking Kerry down a peg in Wisconsin's open primary. These people didn't want Edwards to win, they wanted Kerry to lose. It's all good from their perspective. Personally I think it is a mistake. I think that keeping the nomination process competative at least through super tuesday benefits the democrats. But I don't think that is the was these people see things.
Posted by: SW on February 18, 2004 06:23 AM"...New England and Great Lakes states vote Democrat, and yet pay more in taxes than they get in Fed money"
New York, New Jersey.... Please can anyone here direct me to a URL that lists which of the states win and which lose? I've come across it now and then - NM was the biggest winner - but I'm not hitting it today.
Posted by: Fast Pete on February 18, 2004 06:23 AMYou don't need no stinking URL. The formula is quite simple. Bush states get more than they send (and cry about taxes). Gore states send more than they receive (and bloody well like it!)
Posted by: SW on February 18, 2004 06:43 AMhttp://www.taxfoundation.org/sr124.pdf
Posted by: Diogenes on February 18, 2004 07:43 AMEdwards is inevitable. You heard it here first.
Posted by: zizka / John Emerson on February 18, 2004 10:36 AMBrad - how do you get a 10-Y.O. interested in such a diverse reading list? First it was the chemistry, now it's Woodward...
I wan't your secret so I can start using it on my son before his first birthday (next Sunday).
Posted by: jfwells on February 18, 2004 11:59 AMSorry that I took this thread away from its roots temporarily. Most think Repubs for Edwards is a plot. I'm disabused once again.
So... an Innovative Policy Suggestion: Ten year olds who can see through Woodward's gossip column/movie of the week reporting should get to vote. Sound good?
What is the ten year old's verdict?
Posted by: jml on February 18, 2004 02:11 PMI think this all could be explained by Homer Simpson's three rules for getting through life.
Ask your 10-year old to think about the book in those terms. She does know those three rules, doesn't she?
---------quote----------
Of the four pilots I spoke to who flew with Bush in the Texas days, Fred Bradley knew him best. They had met before going off to the year-long ordeal of pilot school, and entered the 111th at about the same time. Both were junior lieutenants without a lot of flying experience. But the inexperience didn't prevent Bush — along with Bradley — from going to their squadron leaders to see if they could get into a program called "Palace Alert." "There were four of us lieutenants at the time, and we were all fairly close. Two of them had more flight time than the president and me, said Bradley." All four volunteered for Vietnam (Bradley doesn't remember whether he and Bush actually signed paperwork, but he specifically remembers both Bush and himself trying to get into the Palace Alert Vietnam program.) Bush and Bradley were turned away, and the two more senior pilots went to Vietnam.
Joe Glavin, another member of Dubya's squadron said, "There were always a core of the guys who were the "in guys" and [Bush] was in the middle of it...George's difference was that we all knew that his daddy was rich and that he was smarter than the rest of us." Smarter? "I don't understand where [people saying Dubya is a dummy] comes from." Glavin explained that because their squadron was an active duty squadron, they always had two aircraft — armed and fueled — standing on the taxiway on what is called "plus five" alert. From the time the horn blows, until the time the aircraft was wheels-up on takeoff had to be five minutes or less.
Glavin said, "When we had to sit alerts, there were two pilots, and two crew chiefs that sat out in the alert barn. George was like everybody else, except while George was over in a corner reading somebody's autobiography, the rest of us were watching Hee Haw."
Glavin remembers Bush as a pilot who had learned good judgment, not a Hollywood hot dog. He told me of one night when the two were on alert and were scrambled to run a practice intercept over the Gulf of Mexico. Bush went out long and high, and turned back at supersonic speed. Glavin also went supersonic and then his radio failed. At that point, the two F-102s were approaching each other at a combined speed of about 1,800 miles an hour. At 20 miles — about 45 seconds before the paths would cross — Bush broke off the intercept. "We went to debrief with the controller and the controller said to George, why'd you break off the intercept? George said something to the effect of '[here] we're coming at each other at 1,800 miles an hour and he doesn't have a radio and you expect me to just sit there?' He said, 'we're not doin' that.'"
------------endquote----------
http://www.nationalreview.com/babbin/babbin200402190855.asp
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on February 19, 2004 11:24 AMwow. Another Suskind in the making.
Well almost--just a few documents short I suppose.
Wait...you have some photos!!! Wonderful!!
Just post them and All will be well. Let's get beyond this anecdotal crap.
Everybody's waiting for your photos Patrick...well?