Friday, November 04, 2005

Tony Snow's Recap

I like Tony Snow, and often listen to him on my drive to work. He is far more polite, and never as perpetually enraged as Limbaugh, Hannity, Randi Rhodes, et.al. Here, he does a really good recap of the issues of the Plame kerfluffle. What is really good though, is his use of the term "the manipulation of ignorance." The Democrats of late, seemed to be so intent on the destruction of any chance that Bush has for re-election, that they seem to have lost their collective minds.
What I annot figure out, is the idea that Bush and Cheney managed to change intelligence. I thought that teh Senate Committee on Intelligence interviewed 250 analysts, and not one said they were pressured, cajoled or even urged to change their findings. How can Bush be accused of manipulating intelligence, when almost everyone agreed with the basic premise? Now, some, such as Mr. Chait above, seem to say that Bush ignored evidence that tended to disprove his assertion about WMDs. Probably true, but so what? Every issue will have someone who disagrees with what the majority believes for whatever reason. Does this mean that they have an instant veto over every issue?
Even assuming that they were able to present their evidence in a coherent fashion, the problem is that they were arguing a negative. Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence.

1 comment:

The Viceroy's Fuguestate said...

The manipulation of ignorance is what makes democrats a truly frightening group. I like to call it their "svengali like powers over public perception."