Thursday, October 06, 2011

Sullivan, Palin, and Trig

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I came out facepalming pretty early on the whole Sullivan/Trig thing...but not because the evidence was conclusively against the Trig Weirdness theory, rather just because it seemed so unlikely, prima facie, to be true, and was likely to be bad for liberals in the crucial 2008 election.

I don't follow this story very closely, but it's been clear to me for a long time that Sullivan is right--on the basis of what we know, there is a non-trivial chance that something very weird and as-yet undisclosed went on. Personally, I'm not interested enough to focus on it, and Palin is largely a has-been, so I'm more than willing to let it fade away and let the facts remain unknown. But it is not obligatory to do so, and Sullivan is not crazy for maintaining his position. Most everyone else is all like "Oh, come on, the Trig Weirdness theory is just too prima facie unlikely, and it's too unseemly for serious folks to get involved with; just let it die." Sound advice, perhaps...but it's not obligatory for Sullivan to do so. He's being reasonable about this, even if I myself would probably be too embarrassed to keep pursuing the whole crazy mess.

So, though there are plenty of other issues that show Palin to be a weirdo, and although there is probably no good reason to keep criticizing her--anyone who does not realize by now that she's a mean-spirited, superficial, ignorant idiot is probably immune to evidence--it's neither morally nor epistemically impermissible to note that the case is not close on the Trig Weirdness theory.

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