Rachel Maddow and Tom Ridge
And
Iraq
And
Sincere Belief vs. Responsible Belief
Maddow often annoys me, but I also often think she's pretty damn good.
Her interview with Tom Ridge was, well, pretty damn good.
She was obviously more than a little uncomfortable sitting there and saying to him, repeatedly and to his face, that he bore some responsibility for the disastrous actions of the Bush/Cheney administration. Hell, I'm not at all sure I could have done that, but Maddow did it. She was not loving it, she was not motivated by blood lust, she obviously would rather have been doing something else, but she did the job admirably.
Ridge, for his part, argued--obviously in all honesty--that he did not believe that any of the principals in the Bush administration would have taken us to war with Iraq if (and here I must, sadly, paraphrase) they did not sincerely believe that it was in the best interest of the nation.
Maddow replied that this was, in essence, rather frightening, because it sounded as if Ridge had not acknowledged what is obviously to, well, basically everybody other than American Republicans: that the invasion of Iraq was a foregone conclusion, and that intelligence was interpreted in light of that fore-ordained and unchangeable end.
One important thing here is that Maddow and Ridge can both be right--but Maddow's points are actually the important ones. I don't think any serious person really believes that Bush, Cheney, or anyone else in the administration did not sincerely believe that we ought to invade Iraq.
We should, I believe, all be able to agree on the following to things:
(1) Their belief was sincere.
(2) Their belief was false.
However, it is neither the sincerity nor the truth of their beliefs that ought to be at issue. Rather, what ought to be at issue is the responsibility of their beliefs. The fact that I have a sincerely held, yet irresponsibly acquired, belief does not insulate me from criticism for my actions.
The problem is that they acquired their sincere beliefs first, then interpreted the intelligence in light of those sincere beliefs. Consequently, they took the nation into a disastrous war that objective and responsible decision-makers would not have taken us into.
(The pathetic Democrats were, of course, complicitous, but that's a different godawful story.)
Finally, Ridge made another error by asserting that, if democracy ultimately works out in Iraq, we will assess the decision to go to war differently. Actually, he's right that we will, but wrong that we should. Most people just look to results, accidental though they may be. And, of course, the Republican noise machine will go into hyperdrive if democracy takes hold in Iraq. And let's hope things do work out that way, painful and awful though it will be for American politics. But largely accidental good consequences of stupid actions do not make the actions rational. And even if things ultimately work out in Iraq, it will still have been a monumentally stupid decision. But a stupid decision that turns out well is a damn sight better than a stupid decision that turns out badly... So we can always hope for that..
No real conclusion.
Good job Rachel Maddow.
And
Iraq
And
Sincere Belief vs. Responsible Belief
Maddow often annoys me, but I also often think she's pretty damn good.
Her interview with Tom Ridge was, well, pretty damn good.
She was obviously more than a little uncomfortable sitting there and saying to him, repeatedly and to his face, that he bore some responsibility for the disastrous actions of the Bush/Cheney administration. Hell, I'm not at all sure I could have done that, but Maddow did it. She was not loving it, she was not motivated by blood lust, she obviously would rather have been doing something else, but she did the job admirably.
Ridge, for his part, argued--obviously in all honesty--that he did not believe that any of the principals in the Bush administration would have taken us to war with Iraq if (and here I must, sadly, paraphrase) they did not sincerely believe that it was in the best interest of the nation.
Maddow replied that this was, in essence, rather frightening, because it sounded as if Ridge had not acknowledged what is obviously to, well, basically everybody other than American Republicans: that the invasion of Iraq was a foregone conclusion, and that intelligence was interpreted in light of that fore-ordained and unchangeable end.
One important thing here is that Maddow and Ridge can both be right--but Maddow's points are actually the important ones. I don't think any serious person really believes that Bush, Cheney, or anyone else in the administration did not sincerely believe that we ought to invade Iraq.
We should, I believe, all be able to agree on the following to things:
(1) Their belief was sincere.
(2) Their belief was false.
However, it is neither the sincerity nor the truth of their beliefs that ought to be at issue. Rather, what ought to be at issue is the responsibility of their beliefs. The fact that I have a sincerely held, yet irresponsibly acquired, belief does not insulate me from criticism for my actions.
The problem is that they acquired their sincere beliefs first, then interpreted the intelligence in light of those sincere beliefs. Consequently, they took the nation into a disastrous war that objective and responsible decision-makers would not have taken us into.
(The pathetic Democrats were, of course, complicitous, but that's a different godawful story.)
Finally, Ridge made another error by asserting that, if democracy ultimately works out in Iraq, we will assess the decision to go to war differently. Actually, he's right that we will, but wrong that we should. Most people just look to results, accidental though they may be. And, of course, the Republican noise machine will go into hyperdrive if democracy takes hold in Iraq. And let's hope things do work out that way, painful and awful though it will be for American politics. But largely accidental good consequences of stupid actions do not make the actions rational. And even if things ultimately work out in Iraq, it will still have been a monumentally stupid decision. But a stupid decision that turns out well is a damn sight better than a stupid decision that turns out badly... So we can always hope for that..
No real conclusion.
Good job Rachel Maddow.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:40 PM
5 Comments:
Maddow often annoys me, but I also often think she's pretty damn good.
Yes, she's the best of that MSNBC bunch, which is faint praise, but I wonder about our premise. [Premiss?] Method?
It is said of Churchill---even by his admirers---that he was wrong about most things but right about the Most Important Thing [of his time, Hitler, and earlier than the rest].
And Churchill was an officeholder, not a mere pundit, a distinction I will continue to insist upon.
But even though I'm sneaking the FauxNews types in here under cover of Maddow, the point remains the same---If a fella or a gal is right, they're right. God save us from the soggy and "acceptable" middle. I think this was the point of establishing freedom of the press, of speech, etc.
As for the folly of Iraq, again we'll never know if it fanned the flames of bin Laden's declaration of global jihad [that 9-11 thing], or called the cannon fodder of its adherents to an Alpha Whiskey Romeo [Allah's Waiting Room] in Iraq instead of some other self-annihilating mischief.
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache%3AHEdGo4ukXL8J%3Awww.supertrap.com%2FST_Downloads_files%2FArmy%2520Slang.pdf+allah%27s+waiting+room&hl=en&gl=us&pli=1
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, per the previous. I expect no epistemological common ground. [Not just you & I, WS. This is bigger than the both of us.]
Sorry for wee-weeing out all over your right margin, WS. Usually these URLs behave.
Alpha Whisky Romeo is probative. When you want to die and earn your 72 virgins, it don't make no nevermind how you get martyred. Any ol' martyrdom will do. They probably should have put in an incentive program, like you get 144 if you pull off a really great massacre.
Winston--
it wouldn't surprise me at all if democracy were to break out in Iraq, eventually. And I will be surprised if it doesn't break out in Iran within the decad; it's certainly broken out in other dictatorships in recent memory.
Democracy in country X was caused by event Y is about as huge Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc as it gets.
A plausible counter-factual claim that there would already be democracy in Iran if the US hadn't invaded Iran in 2003. It's no less convincing than a hypothetical positive outcome in Iraq would be a predictable result of the invasion.
-mac
W.S.:You've been body-snatched by William Clifford. Could be worse I suppose.
mac--
Absolutely. I think that eventual democracy in Iraq is a virtual certainty.
G--
Have you ever noticed how similar Clifford's "Ethics of Belief" paper is to Peirce's "Fixation of Belief"? (They were published the same year, incidentally.) Must have been something in the water.
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