House of Eratosthenes

So what was my fan mail all about, anyway? It was about that horse’s ass Keith Olbermann and his latest rant against President Bush, which I needed to watch just in case I forgot the lessons of my youth…namely, how stunningly useless criticism-for-criticism’s-sake-alone can be. How little criticism, by itself, really says when it’s offered without an accompanying solution. How much volume and heat it can generate, how righteously indignant it can sound — and why intelligent, effective leaders rarely listen to it, in situations where it’s delivered without a plan.

Oh, every snippy paragraph makes the Bush-hating anti-war hippy giggle like a giddy schoolgirl, and insofar as that criteria applies, it’s “good.” But what is to be made of this? Olbermann refuses to tell us. Instead, he tells us what we are not supposed to make of it…

Yesterday at a fundraiser for an Arizona Congressman, Mr. Bush claimed, quote, “177 of the opposition party said ‘You know, we don’t think we ought to be listening to the conversations of terrorists.”

The hell they did.

177 Democrats opposed the President’s seizure of another part of the Constitution.

Not even the White House press office could actually name a single Democrat who had ever said the government shouldn’t be listening to the conversations of terrorists.

Having defined exactly what kind of deception and skulduggery it is in which he thinks the President is engaged, Olbermann then pursues a windy screed, repeatedly referring to the administration’s “lies.”

President Bush may have been referring to a vote that took place in the House late last month on supporting his warrantless wiretap program. I do not know of any other method our country has of “listening to the conversations of terrorists.” I don’t know of any other means of doing this, I don’t think Olbermann knows, and I don’t think the 177 know.

So President Bush’s interpretation has merit, at least with me. That’s a matter of opinion. But it’s a legitimate opinion to have.

Olbermann’s entire windy epistle rests on a fundamental premise: If you have that opinion, then you have placed words in someone else’s mouth, and therefore you are a “liar.” Well…isn’t Olbermann, then, exactly what he calls others? The 177 Democrats want terrorists to conduct their conversations in secret, at least from us — OR — the Democrats have some other method in mind that will protect the Constitution in all the ways they have in mind and at the same time go ahead an intercept those conversations. They want President Bush to stop OR they have a better way in mind to do what he’s trying to do.

Both of those may not apply; and one, or the other, must. Logically, this is inescapable. So which is it.

Well, Olbermann says I’m a liar if I infer Option A instead of Option B. There is no factual evidence of which I’m aware — none, whatsoever — that would support Option B. None. Olbermann named — none. The 177, so far as I know, named — none.

But if I pursue Occam’s Razor, Olby says I’m a liar.

Fuck him. Craven hypocrite.

Unbelievably, writing for ZDNet, Jeff Cohen argues that “strong criticism of an extremist presidency hardly makes Olbermann a leftist.” That’s a meme being repeated in a great many places, and it shows the truism that a vast pattern of re-echoing, does little to make a point meritorious. Olby is pursuing the “nailing jello to a tree” defense, the Bart Simpson type of “I never said that” thinking — which, even if you happen to agree with it, is a pretty far cry from what we need here.

I mean, just use common sense here. When you need to get something done, “Federal Express” style — ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, HAVE TO — what the fuck good is it to have a whole bunch of nattering nabobs calling out “don’t do it this way don’t do it that way”…and then when you say “you don’t seem to want me to get it done” angrily lash back with the “I never said that” defense?

I mean it’s a great way of thinking when you want to obstruct things. But do you do your own stuff this way? Unclog a stopped-up drain? Drive down a winding road on a foggy day? Figure out what pesticide to use in your garden? Scrape old paint off your house, and buy a bucket of newer stuff for the next coat? Bleed your car’s brakes?

Anything, where you need to figure out a) the state of affairs as they really exist; and b) what to do about them. How useful is it to have someone snarkily challenge you to figure out what they’re trying to say, and deliberately make it as difficult as nailing jello to a tree, to pin them down on it? HOW, in the Butthole of Premenstrual Ganesh, does this silly, snippy intellectual exercise get us any closer to where we need to be?

Olbermann went on to quote the President saying “If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party…it sounds like they think the best way to protect the American people is � wait until we’re attacked again. [emphasis mine]” Further on down in the transcript, Olbermann refers to this as “slander.”

Why do people keep calling this sportscaster brave? Why do they repeatedly credit him with “speaking truth to power”? He’s a hypocrite, plain and simple. All he’s doing, is jumping to extravagant, poorly-supported conclusions about the intent behind what others are saying…and denying the President exactly that same privilege, calling him a liar for doing so.

Keith Olbermann is exactly what he calls others. Exactly. The only difference is, when President Bush talks about how he interprets the vote cast by the 177, he’s posing an argument based on logic and common sense: If you don’t intercept the conversations this way, then how? And no answer forthcoming, you’re opposed to…exactly what he said you’re opposed to. And in drawing his inference that some liberals want no action to be taken until the country is attacked again, he’s providing his personal interpretation; his words allow for a reasonable, different, interpretation by other people. He’s talking about what it means to him. His opinion.

Olbermann, on the other hand, is passing judgment, allowing for no dissenting viewpoint, none whatsoever. A liar is whoever Olbermann says is a liar. He pretends that the facts support his thesis…and they simply don’t. What they support, is that Olbermann is guilty of hypocrisy, and we’re engaged in a situation in which better-quality thinking is absolutely necessary, or else our continuing existence is subject to random chance.

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Jello, Nail, TreeSunday, October 8th, 2006

Jello, Nail, Tree
Sunday, October 8th, 2006