I've just spent a day or so debating blogger reaction to Scott Beauchamp's articles at The New Republic over at Asymmetrical Information. I thought I had something fairly simple to say: The right-wing reaction was cynical and didn't merit a response. None of the charges have seemed particularly answerable to me; just vague baloney intended to create a lot of heat and no light. Most of the responses seemed to miss my point entirely. I have no idea whether Beauchamp is a liar. I don't think there's any way to validate much of what he said. I summarized my point of view thus:
The significant point is that leveling ambiguous, vague, open-ended, or otherwise irresolvable questions does not constitute a serious attack, and doesn’t demand an answer.
This doesn't seem particularly radical to me. Yet, the general response seemed to be that Beauchamp, liar that he is, owed us all a proof of his claims. The only responsibility his accusers have is to "Call bullshit." There's no requirement that the accusations have any basis, or actually be answerable.
None of the charges have seemed particularly answerable to me; just vague baloney intended to create a lot of heat and no light.
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing seems like that to me. If that's the best the left can do on an anti-war argument (and their are certainly better ones to be had), they're going to put people sleep. It's depressing that right wing concerns felt they had to answer this stuff.
Actually I don't completely disagree. But, attributing this to "the left" is a bit of a stretch. TNR is hardly an anti-war mouthpiece. If I were attribute motive to the publishing of the series, I'd guess that journalistic concerns far outweighed ideology.
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