Facing the reality of the Bush Administration's misunderstanding of the issues, and the facts, would require heavily ideologically driven sites like Instapundit to reconsider their own belief driven orientation. Or at least consider the possibility that belief is helping to shape interpretation of the facts, more so than the idea that facts are helping to shape belief.
One easy way to ignore the realities of the Bush Administration's heavily authoritarian, overly secretive, fiscally reckless, globally myopic and misfocused, constitutionally impinging, corporate favoring, environmentally destructive tenure is to mock the claim to any ties between the conditions that we face today, and the approaches and policies of the Bush Administration for most of this decade.
Thus today we see this little sardonic gem from Instapundit:
November 19, 2009For the record, the "Eggo" Shortage is due to "interruptions in production at two of the four plants that make them." One plant was shut down for an undisclosed period by a n...historic amounts of rain in the area. At another plant, its largest, several production lines are closed down for repairs.
I BLAME THE FAILED POLICIES OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: Kellogg Co. warns of nationwide Eggo shortage.
Posted at by Glenn Reynolds at 10:20 am
Perhaps Reynold's creepy sarcasm is based on the idea that bad storms played a role;one of the things that leading scientists have been saying for over two decades is that increasing the concentration of heat trapping molecules in the atmosphere will lead to more volatile weather patterns; and of course, the Bush Administration, as well as Congress while it was in office, largely ignored the issue of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Or perhaps it is based on pure air.
Either way, it evinces an unwillingness to look objectively at facts which conflict with a predetermined, and largely ideological mindset. And one of the best ways to do this is to find ways to mock what in fact needs to be looked at, and see in others the very practices that are being engaged in by oneself.
As an example of the latter, Glenn Reynold's on Instapundit also put up this extraordinary, and rather ironic, post:
DAVID HARSANYI ON SARAH PALIN: “All you haters out there force me to root for her.” “The widely read blogger and purveyor of all truth, Andrew Sullivan, was impelled to blog 17 times on the subject of Palin on the same day Americans learned that the Obama administration awarded $6.7 billion in stimulus money to non-existent congressional districts — which did not merit a single mention. To see what is in front of one’s nose demands a constant struggle, I guess.”Apart from capturing the over reliance upon crude and misleading stereotpyes, and one or two other points, Harsanyi's article in the Denver Post is sheer idiocy, from the very beginning, to the very end. It is no wonder that Instapundit linked to it.
As for the "impelled" to write about Palin point, instapundit is promoting a Denver Post column which actually makes the argument that because Andrew Sullivan, who is not "CNN" but a blogger, chooses to write about Palin rather than a stimulus funding accouting snafu, must be unable to see things right in front of his nose.
This is a specious stretch, to say the least. And it was promoted by non other than a law professsor. (But then here's an even stronger example of Instapundit's law professor logic.)
So by this line of reasoning one could bring up the many hundreds of key stories that famous blogger Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit chooses not to write on each day, and thus argue this shows that Reynold's can not see what is in front of his nose, every day, hour after hour after hour? After all, we are not talking about one story here, but a constant stream of them, completely missed, by Instapundit. Every day. And Instapundit has dozens of little posts, so it does act more like a news source, than the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan, who is a true blogger in the sense that he writes columns, and covers more limited, select topics, rather than the scattershot approach that Instapundit takes. And still Instapundit puts up almost nothing on this site which cuts against its excessive ideological orientation.
(With respect to the second part of this extraordinary post by Instanpundit, a reference to Megan McArdle writing yesterday in the Atlantic on this same general topic, see here.)
