Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Addressing Byron York's confusion

everyone is wrong except me and my friends.

not.

as i said in response to the excellent post from GG above:

i think there is a fallacy at work with the labelling of left and right that parallels quite well the fallacy of "swearing means it isn't true".

there is a strong tendency to dismiss arguments by mainstream reporters and pundits because of the "fever swamp" nature of the blogosphere, an atmosphere rife with "hate mail" and "language you wouldn't want your children to use" etc. The Washington post kerfuffle was a great example, but there are others. sometimes this semantic issue crosses over into the real world in amazing ways--i'm constantly stunned that we've seen literally millions of words written about whether or not V Plame sent J Wilson on his trip and that's nepotism. every time i see this, i think, "so was joe wilson not an expert on niger? did he not know people there? was he not qualified?" if my wife recommends me for a job for which i am qualified, it doesn't meet the definition of nepotism.

we keep being told semantics, labels, and signifiers are more important than facts that are verifiable and established. and it makes me crazy.

it even ties into my whole "post-modernity used to be on the left but has moved with horrifying consequences to the right" meme, but that's a post for another day.