The Onion seemed to come to roughly the same conclusion.

I do look forward to the point when the subset of the population who feels that Obama is the messiah realizes they have elected a politician.

That thing in the Onion is pretty funny. As far as Brian the messiah, this is my favorite scene, and I think it might be an even better expression of the phenomenon that’s bothering you. You might have to just avert your eyes from all the Obama euphoria—things might not change much until he’s actually in office and has to start making compromises and mistakes.

Yes he does have his work cut out for him. The punch line for Obama could have been: “The good news is that you won the election. The bad news? You won the election.”

The LieStoppers forum turns out to be a pretty good one-stop shop for anti-Obama nuttiness, but it’s definitely worth noting that there’s a range of opinions over there, and some resistance to the crazier ones.

However, I will not respond to the substance of his remarks here because I don’t want to abuse reharmonizer’s hospitality by having an off-topic dialogue. If it’s all right with Prof. Gustafson, I will send an email to him on the subject raised in our tete-a-tete about the American legal system.

I’ll leave it to Gus to take up the question of email. But you’re welcome to reply in this comment thread. There’s not a big on-topic discussion, as you can see.

I’d say the real problem with the culture wars is how the time and effort spent on them displaces discussion of other issues. The battles suck the oxygen out of the room lowering the over all IQ. I realize that telling people what to care about can be a fruitless exercise but when I think of issues like abortion, which have dragged on for generations, I can’t help but to think both sides have made their positions crystal clear.

When I think back to the last debate the only issue I thought either candidate had a clear win on was the free trade deal with Columbia. Unfortunately I’d guess that less than a third of the viewing audience knew what either candidate was talking about. But they knew who Joe the plumber is. When people use the culture wars as a frame of reference the effects are even worse than those that spring from ignorance. During the recent war in Georgia public opinion seemed to neatly divide up along political lines. The left screamed it was Bush’s fault (he told Georgia not to invade) and the right wanted to reignite the cold war. It was a situation that didn’t lend itself to either side scoring points, but both sure tried.

I’m pretty sure I’m with you on this. I think the thing about Georgia, as you describe it (I have to admit I tuned out on that one), is rabid partisanship that’s not cultural in the way that, say, abortion is, or gun control. But the reflexes seem to be pretty much the same, and complicated problems with a host of non-political components—practical, logistical, scientific, diplomatic, etc.—are simplified or set aside as folks grab whatever looks good as a club to beat the other side with. It does get old.

Because of the same reflexes, I think, the issues surrounding sexual assault, the justice system, and higher education were very poorly served by all the attention to the lacrosse case. The typical and routine aspects that ultimately have the most effect on the most people, usually involving imperfect tradeoffs and always depending on imperfect people, all that was of little use compared to the exceptional and outrageous things that could be reduced to black and white. It’s a pretty depressing record.

I’m sorry to see that the potbangers at Liestoppers bought into the story, but maybe that’s one of the reasons I’ve never commented (and hardly ever visited) over there.

As for the assurance that abuses are not commonplace—what I said was that the Lacrosse Hoax “should be [a case] for deeply investigating the many, many flawed cases–most against people without the means to adequately defend themselves.” For example—these: http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/Browse-Profiles.php

Here’s how my bullshit detector worked: First, I always have doubts about a story of a type that I’ve never known (not merely “heard”) to have happened before.

Here are the facts as the woman presented them:

1. She says she was robbed at an ATM. Ok, I’ve known of that to happen, so the story is plausible.
2. She says the robber, after noticing a “McCain” sticker on her car, then beat and mutilated her. Hmmm, sounds doubtful, but there was a recent story about a NYC man who attacked a number of old ladies who were carrying McCain signs. So now I think the story is more likely than not to be false.
3. She says the robber used a knife to carve the letter “B” (supposedly for “Barack”) into her face. Ok, now the bullshit detector is officially screaming. Besides the fact that I’ve never heard — much less known — of a similar politically-motivated mutilation, there’s the problem of how the robber could carve any recognizable letter while the victim was conscious and therefore no doubt struggling mightily. At this point I was as convinced of the falsity of the woman’s story as I had been 2 1/2 years ago of the falsity of the Lacrosse story.
4. Then I saw a picture of her and all doubt was removed because the “B” was drawn backward, as though she did it to herself in a mirror.

Now she has confessed. I hope she’s charged with a false police report. I can think of some fitting punishments, but that’s because I’m so “politically-incorrect”.

Speaking of politically-incorrect, I never expected that I would report on this blog on a comment of mine that KC censored, but here it is:

KC has recently reported on the book by Crystal Mangum, employing the scathing style that we in the DiW commentariat have all come to love. As a comment to this blog entry, just to rib him, I wrote “Can’t we all get along?” and suggested that perhaps he and Crystal should get together to co-host a rally for Obama.

To my surprise, he refused to publish my little comment. He may have lost his sense of humor. Now that I think of it, I haven’t met many professors with the gift of self-deprecating irony.

RRH

This doesn’t strike me as a case that required any special knack for bullshit detecting. It seems like the kind of thing that any sensible person would reserve judgment on for a few news cycles, at least, especially in the middle of all the election craziness. It’s not the lack of a bs detector as much as the opposite—a desire to believe—that would lead people (like these) to buy this story right away. Though I guess the habit of carefully thinking through the specifics could balance out that desire.

As to the comment, I guess it might count as off-topic, but lots of off-topic humor gets through (and as I learned a while ago, some on-topic replies don’t get published). I don’t think he has much of a gift for irony even if it isn’t self-deprecating.

I made a perfect score on the test. The test is one that can be passed by most high school seniors. Recently a history professor (so he says) bragged to me that he got 90% of the 60 questions correct. I didn’t tell him my score but I recall thinking that I would judge his performance, rather than laudatory as he did, as grounds for denial of tenure.

Anyway, to my point: I’ve met two types of “stupid people”. The first are the “ignorant-stupid”. These are people who are ignorant of facts (such as are on the civics test). The second type are the “misinformed-stupid”. These are people who think they know a lot of facts, but much of what they “know” just isn’t true.

In my experience, the “ignorant-stupid” more often than not tend to be on the Right politically while the “misinformed-stupid” are on the Left. Think here of Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.

Finally, as an aside, I am sorry to see that Prof. Gustafson seems to have fallen prey to the “fallback metanarrative” of the Group of 88. That is, that the Lacrosse Case is emblematic of the American legal system — specifically, that such abuses as occurred in the Lacrosse Case are “commonplace”. Let me assure Prof. Gustafson: They are not.

As I said, I don’t find the word “stupid” very useful. For Mill it seems to have been an inability (or unwillingness) to think for oneself. The usual usage of the word refers more to poor reasoning skills than being uninformed or misinformed. Of course poor reasoning skills can lead to being mis/uninformed. So can lack of curiousity. Maybe stupidity and lack of curiosity are the same thing. Anyway, I think it’s practically automatic that one side of the political spectrum sees the other side as “misinformed-stupid.”

It’s ironic that Reade Seligmann is the point person for the “fallback narrative” of the so-called “Group of 88.” Is that just the inevitable result of a Duke (mis)education? And who in the 88 has fallen back on that narrative?

Your comments make it appear as though Mangum is deserving of something more than she received. You also disount the comments (and writings) of AG Roy Cooper.

This is only part of Mike’s comment—the rest took up a thread that I’d already called an end to. But on this one point, all I meant was that I see little of value in what’s been written about her, pro or con, especially in the blogosphere. That’s what struck me when she got her degree from NCCU . I’m sure there have been exceptions, including Cooper, who was writing in a professional capacity.

Things are different now that she’s published a book—I don’t know how different because I haven’t looked into it. I certainly won’t fault anyone for criticizing what’s in it—that’s the deal you make when you publish a book.

Talk about a leading question! I’ll pass on that one, thank you.

I should probably have said that the lacrosse scandal, not case, is a pretty good microcosm of American culture-war politics. Taking a stand on the case (on issues of law and law enforcement) is one thing, making the case into a cause and loading it down with rhetoric is another. The latter took no dedication to truth-telling or integrity.