When Judgments Tell You More About the Person Doing The Judging Than It Does About The Subject-Matter

So, normally we look to certain people--experts, informed laypersons, or just people other than ourselves--to get their perspective on subjects of interest. If it's a controversial matter about which we aren't certain, it's informative to access the judgments of others--and the more expertise they have in the matter, the better.

However, as we understand the matter at issue better, and as it becomes clearer to us which answer is actually correct, the less helpful the other--expert and quasi-expert--judgments become. In fact there comes a point in this process at which the experts' (and quasi-experts') judgments tell us more about those putative experts (and quasi-experts) than they tell us about the matter at hand.

If someone who claims expertise in meteorology tells me it's going to rain in a week, then that's valuable (though defeasible) information about the weather a week from now. But if the thunder is crashing and the clouds are rolling in, and the alleged meteorologist is still telling me it isn't going to rain...well, this probably tells me more about him than it does about the weather. And if we're standing in a downpour and he's insisting that it isn't raining, then I know everything I need to know about his degree of expertise. His denial that it's raining when it demonstrably is doesn't give me reason to conclude that it isn't; it gives me reason to conclude that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

We've hit such a point with the denizens of the Corner and their ilk--the Bill Kristols and Charles Krauthammers of the world. The facts at hand--about Barack Obama, John McCain, and George W. Bush--are clear enough. That the Cornerites et. al. continue to insist that black is white, night is day, ignorance is strength, Obama is a radical or whatever...well this does convey important information, but not about Obama, McCain, and Bush.

There are tough calls and there are easy ones. The tough calls are, well, tough. I tend to disagree with the Cornerites, Kristols and Krauthammers of the world, but I usually try to hear them out and think hard about their points. But when the easy calls roll around, and they continue to blast out the same strident, partisan, blinkered bullshit that they always do...well, it becomes clearer and clearer that they are not people to be taken seriously.