A reader writes, in re: Plan for More Bullshit:
Cogent summary of the press while entertainingly funny. The bottom graphic in that item is a nice comment, too, on why you occasionally look at people like Wilhelm Jerger.
Have you noticed a fundamental change in Bush? Rove and Cheney aren’t pulling his strings anymore, I think. He’s actually speaking for himself!
Blushing, we replied: Thanks.
As to the Bullshitter-in-Chief and Cheney Boy, they are said to be on the outs lately. That’s what’s being played by supposedly informed sources. And maybe they’re right. For our part, we haven’t noticed any change in the Bullshitter. He’s the same asshole he always seemed to be. We think, despite reports for public consumption to the contrary, he still has to be dragged kicking and screaming toward reality. That’s our totally unsourced take on him, without benefit of expert opinion.* For us, he’s still a four-letter word working on a two-cylinder brain. It also happens to be Paul Krugman’s opinion, which is a nice coincidence. (Of the grandiosely titled “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” Krugman writes: “It’s an embarrassing piece of work.”)
*This reminds us: Expert opinion is highly overrated anyway. According to a captivating review of Philip Tetlock’s new book, “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?” which we overlooked earlier this week:
The accuracy of an expert’s predictions actually has an inverse relationship to his or her self-confidence, renown, and, beyond a certain point, depth of knowledge. People who follow current events by reading the papers and newsmagazines regularly can guess what is likely to happen about as accurately as the specialists whom the papers quote.
That’s one reason why we heartily endorse Krugman’s remarks in his TimesSelect video bio (available only to subscribers, unfortunately) that his columns, even when they’re about economics or related fields in which he’s an acknowledged expert, are based on nothing more than his reading of publicly available information — newspapers, published reports, academic studies, and so on — rather than on the gathering and reporting of “insider stuff.” It’s not that he discounts such columns or the need for them. It’s just that it’s not what he does.
— Tireless Staff of Thousands
