Anonymous Op-Ed from the NYT

[Cow Poke]

Nonsense! “The New York Times is an American newspaper based in New York City with worldwide influence and readership. Founded in 1851, the paper has won 125 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. The New York Times is ranked 17th in the world by circulation.” Cited Wiki.

Bob Woodward is also the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize.

Nonsense!!! Just because they both received awards does not mean they cannot fall from grace.

And I used THREE exclamation marks, so I'm more correct than you!!!

[Cow Poke]

Why would they admit it? Any insider should say 'no' if asked until the whole thing blows over and they can come out/be revealed afterwards, much like Deepthroat. Not that I'm assuming yet that it is either Pence or Coats, but to expect whoever it was to say 'yes it was me, i'll pack my bags' is utterly absurd.

Which, again, brings up the question - if they're actually working behind the scenes to "save America", why did they raise their hand in the first place? Why not just continue to plot and connive?

[Roy]

Which, again, brings up the question - if they're actually working behind the scenes to "save America", why did they raise their hand in the first place? Why not just continue to plot and connive?

Pour encourager les autres?

(Yes, I know the context is vastly different)

[Cow Poke]

Pour encourager les autres?

(Yes, I know the context is vastly different)

It is, but I amen'd it anyway.

[Starlight]

Liberals ARE dumb.

I have you in the running for stupidest TWebber, so I'll obviously take your view under advisement.

Just look at you.

I have a PhD and have published peer-reviewed papers in more than one field, so considered as the sample-size-of-1 for liberalism, I would tend to say that liberals are abnormally bright.

Selective tolerance, selective diversity, selective hate, selective discrimination, and selective free speech.

Is this the new conservative mantra about your views? Frankly I don't think US conservative standards on most of those reach a standard I would call "selective"... more like absolute intolerance, completely against diversity, unrelenting hate and anger and fear, full discrimination, and a pathological need for safe spaces from other views.

You're a disgrace.

Methinks the projection is strong with this one. The entire world is gobsmacked by the disgrace on display for all to see that is the current state of US conservatism, and I'm the disgrace. Riiiigggghhhttt.

[EvoUK]

So, some lies are ok. Unless they're told by the current president. A floating bar. Nice.

As mentioned, I do not see them as heroes. They appear to merely be republicans covering their asses, so I am not interested in defending them - I merely pointed out that of course they wouldn't hold their hand up when asked as it defeats the purpose. Given that, however, I do not see the similarity in lies you mention.

[Cow Poke]

I have a PhD and have published peer-reviewed papers in more than one field, so considered as the sample-size-of-1 for liberalism, I would tend to say that liberals are abnormally bright.

My wife works every day with PhDs who have published peer-reviewed papers, and some of them are dumber than a sack of hammers.

Liberals are the brightest when they're going down in flames.

[Starlight]

Which, again, brings up the question - if they're actually working behind the scenes to "save America", why did they raise their hand in the first place? Why not just continue to plot and connive?

The op-ed writer mentions and praises John McCain, so was presumably inspired by John McCain's death and the things said at his funeral, to take up some of the cause of McCain in terms of public conservative push-back against the current administration.

The writer may also have reason to believe that the status quo is unstable and will not last much longer in any case (either that he will be fired from his position, or has knowledge that Mueller is about to do something precipitous).

On the whole I personally agree with you that the wiser course would have been to keep their mouth shut and buckle down and do their best to work to save America (in their own minds at least). But not everyone is you or I and other people have their own priorities. And when we are dealing with politicians (the op-ed has the style of a career politician) their lifelong instincts and ego are nagging at them that the public absolutely has to know about how great they are and all the good they are doing as that's most of the point of being great and doing that good in the first place (in their minds at least).

[rogue06]

My wife works every day with PhDs who have published peer-reviewed papers, and some of them are dumber than a sack of hammers.

Liberals are the brightest when they're going down in flames.

A lot of PhDs are brilliant in their respective fields of expertise but that doesn't somehow magically translate into being brilliant in all subjects. I notice how pseudoscientific websites, if they have anyone that has a doctorate, always prominently display that PhD next to anything they write even if it happens to be something not even remotely related to the topic they wrote about. They are counting on people assuming they must be an expert because of their degree even if what they said was so laughably ill-informed that even a half way competent Middle Schooler could pick it apart since the errors are so blatant.

[Starlight]

My wife works every day with PhDs who have published peer-reviewed papers, and some of them are dumber than a sack of hammers.

Since I have no reason to believe your wife is any smarter than a sack of hammers, I've hardly any reason to trust her evaluation.

But I do note in your post once again the general US conservative tendency to attack any external measure of evaluation which tends to regularly appear in this forum. Fact-checkers? Biased! Universities? Diploma mills! Mainstream media? Liberal trump haters! PhDs? Dumber than a sack of hammers! Science? A scam for getting grant money! So by arranging for there to never be any possible valid source of external authority about basic facts in the world or measurement or evaluation of anything at all, US conservatives can then live in their happy little bubble where the things on Fox / Breitbart / their favorite conservative news source and/or what their pastor says / what they think the bible says ARE the truth and there can never be any possible challenge to those because there simply are no other sources of facts in their view.

[Starlight]

A lot of PhDs are brilliant in their respective fields of expertise but that doesn't somehow magically translate into being brilliant in all subjects.

Absolutely. That's why I'm not posting on a forum about pop music or movie actors or celebrities or fashion or cars or sports, because the amount I know about those combined subjects could hardly fill a page.

As it happens I'm a bit of a polymath at the more geeky subjects and do have an unusually large number of geek-related fields of expertise, but I wouldn't want to brag, and you'd bring up yet again the random poster you once interacted with somewhere on the internet who once claimed to have 5 PhDs among a long long series of other improbable things, and I don't particularly want to read that irrelevant anecdote yet again.

[mossrose]

As mentioned, I do not see them as heroes. They appear to merely be republicans covering their asses, so I am not interested in defending them - I merely pointed out that of course they wouldn't hold their hand up when asked as it defeats the purpose. Given that, however, I do not see the similarity in lies you mention.

Of course you don't. Because according to most unbelievers, there are degrees of wrong-doing. So there are degrees of lying. And sexual immorality. Etc.

Never mind. I've made my point and don't care to get involved in this pointless thread.

[Roy]

Since I have no reason to believe your wife is any smarter than a sack of hammers, I've hardly any reason to trust her evaluation.

She married CP. This may be evidence one way or another.

[Cow Poke]

She married CP. This may be evidence one way or another.

It is evidence of God's incredible grace.

[Cow Poke]

A lot of PhDs are brilliant in their respective fields of expertise but that doesn't somehow magically translate into being brilliant in all subjects. I notice how pseudoscientific websites, if they have anyone that has a doctorate, always prominently display that PhD next to anything they write even if it happens to be something not even remotely related to the topic they wrote about. They are counting on people assuming they must be an expert because of their degree even if what they said was so laughably ill-informed that even a half way competent Middle Schooler could pick it apart since the errors are so blatant.

EGGzackly - and in a court of law, if you can get somebody with some letters behind his name to testify to something -- even if it has nothing whatsoever to do with his field of study - it's supposed to wow the jurors and make points.

Just because somebody sat in the right chairs in the right rooms and kissed the butts of other PhDs doesn't mean they're actually intelligent. And some of the PhDs my wife works with are even now complaining that the whole system has been "dumbed down" to where just about anybody can get a PhD.

When they complain that, my wife confesses thinking in her head, "well, YOU got a PhD, so, yeah....."


And, remember, Starlight gets his "intelligence" on what's going on in the US from a guy who rounds up mobs of anarchists to dispense chaos and disorder.