Baloney, before 1982 it was six years, in 1982 the commitment for officers was extended to eight years.

Senator Kerry signed up for the Navy as a Reservist in 1966. At that time the commitment was 6 years. He should have received his honorable discharge in 1972?

Please let me see a copy of it, or barring that please sign SF180 as President Bush did.

“It appears to me that the willingness to discount one’s own thought is as much a factor as the ability to do so.”

Agreed, and you raise an important point. My personal bias in tackling issues is right-brained, and I had taken the Mr. Spock approach: “If you’re smart enough to recognize and understand the problem, then, having done so, the only logical thing to do is to deal with it.” I had assumed the willingness, and you’re right, willingness can’t be assumed.Which may be the crux of the whole argument. In the Rosen discussions you’ll find posters who either don’t recognize the bias problem, or mischaracterize it. When we say, “You (the press) are not telling the whole story,” they hear, “You’re not telling the story the way we (the complainers) want you to.” Which leads to… My passage which you quote started out as a (lame) attempt at riffing on some of the arguments I’ve been reading at Rosen’s site and elsewhere. It obliquely addresses the (IMO) fallback position of the media mavens: “Alright, after arguing for years that we were being objective, and after being repeatedly caught out, now we’ll agree that we’re not objective, and in fact this is a good thing, so why try to do anything about it?” (Rosen himself dismisses the objective approach to reporting as “the view from nowhere,” and argues against it.) I see this as an attempt to confuse having a viewpoint (as Roger noted above, “Who isn’t partisan?”) with using viewpoint as an excuse for failing to tell the whole story.On scientific truths, I’ll have to think some more. I’ll agree that scientific truth is today far less accessible to the interested layman than it was 200 years ago. Hence we wind up relying on “experts,” and those “experts” may have axes to grind. (Which is nothing new, but our world experience gives us few tools for judging the validity of ideas of sub-atomic physics or long-term environmental modeling, for example.) Perhaps our increasing reliance on intermediaries is making “scientific” truths more “political” (like Kyoto?)?On political truth, I think you’ve nailed it. (I can feel the populist within stir when confronted with the “bland smile of superiority” of your VPR exec.) Fortunately, elections do a pretty good job of determining whether perceived reality corresponds with the real thing.

The last refuge of the scoundrels in the MSM is this retreat into their ‘victimhood’. There is nothing they begrudge worse than that the web DOES offer a hefty voice to critics of mainstream journalists. Lord, it’s been a long time coming. The monopolistic bullies at the NYT have had six decades or more of forcing their slanted accounts on the public without any significant means for the bullied to reply. To the MSM, it is better to give than receive – particularly when they exclusively own the megaphone.

Game’s up, Mr. Rutenberg, your golden throne has been usurped by the real world. Couldn’t have happened soon enough. How does it feel to take it once in a while, after a lifetime of corrosively biased dishing it out? Oh, pobrecito.

If conservative bloggers were nutcases (like the left), they would be ignored.

Just honestly tell us what’s happening. Tell us who’s who, don’t go shopping for “facts”, and above all, do not write the story on the way to the ballpark.

We aren’t stupid, stop treating us that way.

Glad to see a reporter here. We like reporters, there should be more of them.

It’s the “journalists” that we have a problem with.

Thanks for your kind words.

Thomas Drew

ErrÔøΩ Thomas, the second sentence is true, but the Soviet Union’s fall had nothing to do the loss of the will defend itself. They fell because they were totalitarian, oppressive dictatorship denying basic freedoms to its citizens, with centrally controlled economy that was incapable producing value and devoid of innovation.

It’s interesting to me for the mixture of reasons you give. I think the causes of vast historical events are probably imponderables, but allow me to note that you have combined moral–read “metaphysical” themes (“totalitarian, oppressive dictatorship denying basic freedoms to its citizens”) with pragmatic ones (“centrally controlled economy, incapable of producing value”). I’m not sure which side “devoid of innovation should” go on.

The first set is a little Johanthan Edwards: Those miscreants deserved their fate, and there is a force of nature which will see to them. The second set does not partake of such a myth (if I may use the word). When discussing politics, I’d rather stick to the pragmatic. It keeps us more responsible, and more free.

Old Grouch:

Thanks for your response too, and the reference to the Jay Rosen article, which I’ll have to read more carefully.

I don’t buy the argument that bias can’t be overcome. “I’m biased, you’re biased, everybody’s biased, nothing is true, nothing is real, it’s all in the viewpoint…” Sorry. It’s all too sophisticated for me. I can tell the difference between a reporter and an advocate, and I believe anyone with a modicum of intelligence should be able to recognize his own biases and set them aside. The result may not be perfect accuracy, but it would be one heckuva lot better than what I’m getting now.

I think you are too optimistic if you believe that intelligence will enable anyone to see his own biases and set them aside. I doubt that sheer IQ is much of a factor in this. It appears to me that the willingness to discount one’s own thought is as much a factor as the ability to do so. Powerful interests reduce that willingness, and hardly anyone–I’d say no one, not even a blogger–is immune.

Earlier in your comment I think you are conflating two questions: (1) can bias be overcome? and (2) whether it can or not, is nothing true or real? and another two: the difference between (1) scientific truth, essentially without meaning or moral content and (2) political truth, with moral and mythical meanings we invest in it, and disinvest, and reinvest every day.

Even if we do not see a thing (unvarnished truth, in either realm), it does not follow the thing is not there; our incapacity does not change the reality. But in politics there is a sense in which consensus is the only truth; we live with it for a while, and change it with the same authority, none but our own, with which we created it. (When the politics and science get confused, you get the Kyoto Agreement: a real monstrosity.)

Odd as it may seem, I think we can talk about truth in politics with more assurance than we can in science, because we–we in the aggregate, that is–have all the power, for better and worse. To do so, we have to maintain a sense of common cause with each other, in the sense of trying to get it right–which only means trying to make it workable, livable, not needing revision too radically or too often.

It is when some people arrogate to themselves the role of speaking from a higher plane than ordinary mortals that common cause breaks down and I get very queasy. If we allow that there is a truth for some preternaturally perspicacious folks to discuss–even if we count ourselves among them–then I think we are in real danger. The quaint medieval vice of hubris, not a failure of intelligence, is what I fear more, for then we begin to write others off, in the same way we rightly object to being written off by our “professional” superiors. We become the thing we very properly loathed.

This leaves quite clear the very important distinction between a reporter and an advocate, which I agree a reader can discern pretty readily. If reporters would stick to their brief, I agree, things would be a heckuva lot better. But don’t get me started on them.

I hope this isn’t too confused. I’ve just been enjoying caviar and lox on endive leaves, with a very nice Sauvignon Blanc from my neighborhood. Pity we can’t share it; it’d make us all glad and strong, fill us with that common cause we need so much.

Thomas Drew

Terrific post. There’s enough material there to help launch a volume or two and you’ve high-lighted some important areas. Very nice and nicely framed.