Refutation by Pedantry
During the debate, Joe Biden made the sensible observation that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn’t control the Iranian security services. Rather, ultimate power is wielded by the clerical establishment with the Supreme Leader being, as the title implies, at the peak of the power structure. Michael Ledeen offers the following devastating rebuttal:
Did Biden Really Say “Theocracy,” not “Bureaucracy”? [Michael Ledeen]
Lots of keen-eared readers are telling me that. The transcript I read said “bureaucracy.” But if Biden said “theocracy” he made a grammatical mistake as well as a logical one. “Theocracy” refers to a system, not an institution. And it is incoherent to distinguish between the theocrats and Ahmadinejad, since Ahmadinejad is a theocrat. Bigtime theocrat, in fact. So Biden would be making a distinction without a difference, as we used to say in Logic 101…
So there! This has been a lesson in “pretending not to understand what the guy is saying.” If you apply this method to the word salads Palin offered up at the debate while stalling to process her note cards, you could really have fun. Like when she explained that she’s “not one to attribute every activity of man to the changes in the climate.” Me neither!
64 Responses to “Refutation by Pedantry”
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October 3rd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
I think she’s used that phrasing a couple of times – I think it means that not every action that humans take was caused by changes in the climate, right?
Kinda like saying not all Werewolves are caused by the full moon.
It’s so bassackwards – by saying it more than once, I think you either have to conclude that she’s as dumb as a sack of hammers or she really doesn’t want to go on record about Global Warming.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Ugh. Cokie Robert”s”. My bad.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Also, Mona Charen’s “son” is just as dumb as Cokie Robert and Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Oops!
One thing I’ve learned about commenting on the internet is that it’s really easy to check facts. So if I hear a word that sounds strange, and I want to make fun of someone for using it, it’s very easy to check and see if it’s a real word. These people are not only morons, they’re arrogant morons.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:07 pm
So there! This has been a lesson in “pretending not to understand what the guy is saying.”
Coming from someone who has made a minor career out of pretending not to understand what McCain is saying (”He wants a 100-year war in Iraq!”), that’s really something.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Mixner – the point that everyone is obviously making is that McCain is content with staying there for indefinite period of time, stubbornly disregarding the importance of other areas of the world and the fact we’re draining an immense amount of human and economic resources.
It’s funny to some of the blinded right-wing stick up for Palin. Everyone with an objective bone in their body clearly understands how far out of her league this all is. She is truly clueless when it comes to major issues – that’s not say she’s dumb. She just doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the world around.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
A (potential) gaffe that I haven’t heard mentioned is Biden referring to article 1 of the constitution when talking about how the constitution defines the role of the vice president:
I guess you could argue that the vice president is mentioned in article 1 as the president of the senate, and maybe he was referring to that, but the context of his statement clearly seems to suggest he was saying article 1 of the constitution defined the executive branch.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Not a hundred. A thousand. Or ten thousand. this is worth watching again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gwqEneBKUs
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:21 pm
These people are not only morons, they’re arrogant morons.
The whole Bosniak flap makes Biden’s entire argument for him. The claim is that he is intimately familiar with foreign policy issues. In fact, he’s more familiar with the issues and terminology than the pundits are.
(seriously, though, anyone who followed the issues involved in the wars in Yugoslavia should have been familiar with the term “Bosniak” as much as they should have understood the term “Kosovar.” Otherwise, it just shows that any history of punditry you might have had in Yugoslavia was just commenting on stuff you didn’t understand)
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Palin has a deeper understanding of Thermodynamics than you Poli Sci and Philosophy types. See, the fraction of work that humans can do can be no more that (1-T1/T2) and if T1 and T2 are the same, no human activity will be possible ever.
So climate change is indeed the cause of human activity.
Go back to Thermo 10 in DEAS at Harvah!
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Palin, and Dubya before her, must really shackle these National Review hacks from unleashing their inner Safires.
When Obama wins and Dubya’s out of office, I think we should expect a lot more of this meaningless verbal snobbery from the right.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Ah, Michael Ledeen, the right’s leading expert on Iran who’s never been to Iran and doesn’t speak Persian. And is dead.
Fucking fascist.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Coming from someone who has made a minor career out of pretending not to understand what McCain is saying (”He wants a 100-year war in Iraq!”), that’s really something.
Coming from someone who pulls his ‘facts’ out of his double-wide ass, that’s really something.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Mixner – the point that everyone is obviously making is that McCain is content with staying there for indefinite period of time,
Yes, one can understand why the left would be so strongly opposed to that, given their constant protests against our decades-long military presence in Europe, Korea and Japan.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Coming from someone who pulls his ‘facts’ out of his double-wide ass, that’s really something.
Did I mention that pseudo weighs 300 pounds and lives on fried roadkill?
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Yes, one can understand why the left would be so strongly opposed to that, given their constant protests against our decades-long military presence in Europe, Korea and Japan.
Mixner, the problem is that McCain’s argument makes no sense if you’re trying to spin it as “not a big deal.” What he was saying is, “We need to keep fighting in Iraq for as long as it takes until the fighting stops. And then we’ll stay forever.”
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:33 pm
As Hilzoy points out, the evidence suggests that Palin just doesn’t understand what the verb “attribute” means.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:37 pm
“Theocracy” refers to a system, not an institution.
There’s no reason ‘theocracy’ can’t function like ‘monarchy’ — capable of referring to either the system of government or the particular institution within it.
Indeed, when used in the latter way, it indicates that there are multiple centers of authority within a constitutional order, of which the branch in question is only one. Which was Biden’s point in reference to Iran.
And “Ahmadinejad’s a theocrat”? Perhaps in the sense that he believes in theocracy, but he’s not a member of the theocracy — i.e. he’s not a mullah, and doesn’t derive his power from religious credentials. Which, again, was clearly the distinction Biden was drawing. He’s not in the clique which controls the security apparatus. That’s the mullahs.
I’d say all this to Ledeen but, NRO being a winger site, there are no comments threads.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
What he was saying is, “We need to keep fighting in Iraq for as long as it takes until the fighting stops. And then we’ll stay forever.”
What Tyro is saying here is “I cannot understand plain English.”
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Palin doesn’t know what “attribute” means. She used it the same way in her “Charlie” interview.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Not the same Ryan clearly understands Iran’s government much better than Ledeen.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:50 pm
There’s no reason ‘theocracy’ can’t function like ‘monarchy’ — capable of referring to either the system of government or the particular institution within it.
Midunam. Agha-e-Ledeen, nimidunid. Ahmadinejad imam neest.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Theocrats don’t tend to be elected.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Mixner, I commend to you what Hendrik Hertzberg, who was in Manchester for the event where it happened, has to say about the hundred years comment.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:08 pm
If Mixner wants to explicate McCain’s policy, he’s got a forum.
And, of course, McCain has rejected a Korea-like use of troops in Iraq.
C’mon, Mixner, explain McCain’s Iraq position(s).
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Re: And it is incoherent to distinguish between the theocrats and Ahmadinejad, since Ahmadinejad is a theocrat.
Ahmadinejad holds no clerical rank and he is therefore no more a theocrat than Philip II of Spain was. (Like Philip, he is a religious fanatic of course). Theocrats are members of clerical establishments exercizing civil power over state and its citizens.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:09 pm
washerdryer,
I don’t know why you would commend that to me. Hertzberg’s own “rough transcript” explicitly contradicts his “paraphrase” of McCain’s remarks.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:15 pm
C’mon, Mixner, explain McCain’s Iraq position(s).
I don’t claim to know “McCain’s Iraq position.” Like Obama, McCain has been vague and ambiguous on Iraq policy. I’m attacking the “McCain wants a century-long war” nonsense, and more broadly Matthew’s long-standing habit of grossly misrepresenting McCain’s remarks on all sorts of issues.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Theocracy
1 : government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided
2 : a state governed by a theocracy
Yeah, it refers to both. This is the main reason I can read wingnut fare like Townhall and Renew America but cannot stomach The Corner. It’s like a room full of smart ass seven year olds who think it’s witty to say things like “I don’t know, Can you use the restroom?”
Oh, and those “A reader emails: Jonah, you are the most brilliant man in the world!”
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:27 pm
BFR, you’re right… she has used this backwards wording at least once in the past.
It’s really more like her saying, “Not all full moons are caused by werewolves.”
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Ok, so per the rough transcript he’s fine for staying a hundred years if Americans aren’t being killed and refuses to say how long he thinks it’s a good idea to stay if Americans are being killed, except “I understand American public opinion will not sustain a conflict where Americans continue to be sacrificed without showing them that we can succeed” (an interesting contrast to the “we’ll stay until Petraeus and Odierno say its ok” position in its own right). What’s unfair about paraphrasing that as “we’ll stay until Americans stop getting killed and then we’ll keep staying.”
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:40 pm
dryer,
Ok, so per the rough transcript he’s fine for staying a hundred years if Americans aren’t being killed
Right. Which completely contradicts Hertzberg’s assertion that McCain said he “wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed.”
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Which completely contradicts Hertzberg’s assertion that McCain said he “wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed.”
No, actually, it doesn’t. In fact, it’s exactly what McCain is saying. He wants to make sure we stay until Americans are no longer being killed. Then he wants to stay forever.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Tyro,
No, actually, it doesn’t.
Yes, actually, it does.
In fact, it’s exactly what McCain is saying. He wants to make sure we stay until Americans are no longer being killed.
Huh? What part of “That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed” don’t you understand?
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:03 pm
And “Ahmadinejad’s a theocrat”? Perhaps in the sense that he believes in theocracy, but he’s not a member of the theocracy — i.e. he’s not a mullah, and doesn’t derive his power from religious credentials. Which, again, was clearly the distinction Biden was drawing.
True enough, but also, even if Ahmadinejad were a mullah, it wouldn’t make him the leader of the country. If you give Ledeen the biggest benefit of the doubt you can come up with, it’s still the case that saying
And it is incoherent to distinguish between the theocrats and Ahmadinejad, since Ahmadinejad is a theocrat.
is exactly the same as skewering someone for saying that it’s not Nancy Pelosi but the legislature that makes our laws by retorting that
it’s incoherent to distinguish between the legislature and Pelosi, since Pelosi is a legislator.
A logician would call it the fallacy of Division. I’m content to say “boneheaded” and leave it at that.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:07 pm
What part of “That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed” don’t you understand?
Mixner, you’re missing something obvious here. Yes, the “100 years” follows the glorious date when Americans stop getting killed. But how do you think McCain proposes to get us to that day? All of the suggestions I’ve heard involve a sustained military occupation in which Americans get killed.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Yes, the “100 years” follows the glorious date when Americans stop getting killed.
No, there’s no “100 years” at all unless the killing ends. You do understand that “as long as” describes a condition that must be satisfied, don’t you? If I were to say “You can take the bus as long as it’s running,” you do understand that that means the bus must be running in order for you to be able to take it, don’t you? Or is that also too complicated for you to understand?
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
Are you clowns still wasting your breath engaging this idiot “what the definition of ‘is’ is” Mixner?
Christ, didn’t you learn over at The Atlantic? He dredges up the same shit every time, parses words in oblique ways that nobody can figure out, and makes up facts while demanding everybody else prove their’s. He’s a fucking troll.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Never thought I’d write this:
Richard Steven Hack FTW.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I sincerely doubt that Ledeen ever took Logic 101. I took it twice at two different schools—not because I earned a poor grade, but because I enjoyed the class so much. Also, I covered the same material in another class at a much better school, years later. And the thing is…I certainly don’t remember “a distinction without a difference” covered in the reading or coursework of Logic 101. It’s an English expression, not a rigorous elementary logic concept (though certainly this topic arises later in ontology and elsewhere).
Ledeen is, of course, completely wrong in his sneering assertion. As Mark S. says, the unconscious sophomorism (not to mention sophistry, that’s another topic) of The Corner bloggers is intolerable. Goldberg is their standard bearer.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:24 pm
“No, there’s no “100 years” at all unless the killing ends.”
Yes, but the killing won’t end until we leave, which McCain has made it clear that he won’t do until 100 years after the killing ends. The problem here is not semantics, it’s that McCain’s statement makes no logical sense. Unless, of course, McCain intends to leave Iraq so they stop killing us, and then re-invade and occupy for 100 years. But that doesn’t work because if we re-invade, they’ll start killing us again. It seems like the only solution is to build a mile high wall that’s 200 feet thick around the Green Zone and then hole up there for 100 years, relying on air drops for food water and supplies. Even that is questionable, because they will figure out how to shoot down those supply planes. Of course there is the Fairy Tale solution: the Iraqis magically stop killing us for one hundred years while we occupy their country. That appears to be what McCain is thinking (if he’s thinking at all). Ask the British or the Turks how likely that is to happen.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Between his creepy fascination with fascism and his experience selling weapons to the Ayatollah, Michael Ledeen is certainly someone who I wait with bated breath to hear his opinion on Iran and its leadership.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Given Mixner’s repeated use of the “magic load factor” in transportation related threads, I have to guess that he favors the Fairy Tale solution.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Mixner:
Here is a simple question. Under McCain’s stated policy, what specific factual on-the-ground conditions must obtain for him to entertain the idea of withdrawing all US troops from Iraq?
You could say, “If US troops were getting wounded and killed, then McCain would entertain withdrawing all troops.”
But isn’t that happening right now?
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Pedantry aside, Biden is quite right and knows what he is talking about. Ahmadinejad is (I believe) the first President of the IRI that is not a cleric, and breaks the theocratic mold.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Here’s a Palin line from the debate that got me feeling pretty pedantic. “America is a nation of exceptionalism”. Huh?
I assume by this she meant either a) America is an exceptional nation or b) that she endorses a theory of american exceptionalism, or both. She didn’t actually say either of these things, though:
exceptionalism n.
1. The condition of being exceptional or unique.
2. The theory or belief that something, especially a nation, does not conform to a pattern or norm.
To say that America is a nation of exceptionalism is pretty incoherent by def 1. By def 2, to say that America is a nation of exceptionalism is to say that America endorses that theory, while saying nothing about whether that theory is correct. If that’s what Palin meant, I think I agree, but I doubt very much that was her point.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:04 pm
“Ahmadinejad is (I believe) the first President of the IRI that is not a cleric”
That’s actually not true. The first two presidents, Abolhassan Banisadr and Mohammad Ali Rajai, were not clerics. The third president, Ali Khamenei was a minor cleric. Strangely, he became the Supreme Leader in a political deal that changed the laws to reduce the qualifications for the position. Khamenei isn’t an Ayatollah, but he’s granted the title for appearances. This really exemplifies Jefferson’s desire for the separation of church and state. He argued that the failure to keep them separate would destroy both religion and state.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:07 pm
The really funny thing is how the alleged misuse of vocabulary is characterized as a grammatical error. It is obvious this person doesn’t know what grammar is.
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:16 pm
McCain has given no logical explanation of what would constitute an end point to our involvement in Iraq. As the saying goes, “The purpose of war is war.” McCain has said that 100 years is fine, and his qualifications of that statement are contradictory and nonsensical. Trying to hold him to account for that, logically, is hardly a lie. Trying to fault those who want McCain to account for his positions is hardly a virtue.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:16 pm
What’s hillarious is watching Mixner carry water for someone he hates, just so he doesn’t have to wake up Nov. 6th and realize his party got beat by a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama.
This will be delicious.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Mixner’s pathetic attempts to both bring up McCain’s 100-years of bloody oppression of Iraqis while simultaneously distracting from it is fairly funny. His idiocy truly knows no bounds.
Hey Mixner, want to explain to the class when McCain’s 100 years starts? Obviously the first five have come and gone and we still haven’t started the clock.
Oh wait, Mixner doesn’t do explanations. He only demands answers to questions and ignores those put to his dumb ass.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Look, Mixner is wrong about a lot of things, and his defense of John McCain is based on repetition of talking points with no relationship to the real world, but is there any real evidence that he’s a racist? Or a “name-ist?” Do you really think Mixner’s posts would be all that different if, say, John Edwards were the Democratic nominee (mutatis mutandis)? If you’ve seen clear indications that Mixner is racist, and I’ve just missed those threads, then I would appreciate a few links to the relevant threads, but if not, I’d rather we didn’t just say Mixner opposes Obama because he’s black or whatever.
Anyway, the thing that really ticks me off about Ledeen is that not only is Biden pretty much right in his description of the situation, use of language, etc, but that the right is pretty much brazenly lying, or at least obfuscating, in their description of Iranian politics, casting Ahmedinejad as a power-mad totalitarian dictator, etc. They sift through Biden’s phrasing for a mote of inaccuracy, while studiously ignoring the beam of their own fundamental misrepresentation in their own eyes. How do these people look themselves in the mirror?
October 4th, 2008 at 12:48 am
““America is a nation of exceptionalism”. Huh?”
She can play this either way in the future. I would say that Americans are unique in their history of innovation. In that sense, we are exceptional.
But she’s talking about a much different concept. It’s a call out to the faithful. It is that We are God’s People. And We can fuck up the economy all We want, because We’ll be raptured before things get really bad.
Spare me, please. The American people are not exceptional. The only economic advantage we have now is our creativity. We should use it.
October 4th, 2008 at 12:59 am
What’s especially fun about the “attribute all of man’s actions to changes in the climate” line is that she she said the exact same thing in the Couric interview. Verbatim.
October 4th, 2008 at 8:39 am
What’s especially fun about the “attribute all of man’s actions to changes in the climate” line is that she she said the exact same thing in the Couric interview. Verbatim.
Any music teacher will recognize that: the student practiced it wrong and never corrected it. You can’t just notionally say,”I got it” and then expect to get it during the performance. You’ve got to practice it right. Over and over again.
October 4th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
VICTORY!
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