Category Archives: Lack of Evidence

Sojourner Truth

E.J.Dionne writes in today's Post:

The great opportunity this year for less scrupulous Republican strategists is that Obama is both black and a Columbia-and-Harvard-educated former professor who lived in the intellectually rarified precincts of Hyde Park in Chicago, Manhattan's Upper West Side and Cambridge, Mass. They can go after him subtly on race and overtly on elitism. They can turn the facts of Obama's life into mutually reinforcing liabilities.

As if on cue, David Brooks responds:

And the root of it is probably this: Obama has been a sojourner. He opened his book “Dreams From My Father” with a quotation from Chronicles: “For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers.”

There is a sense that because of his unique background and temperament, Obama lives apart. He put one foot in the institutions he rose through on his journey but never fully engaged. As a result, voters have trouble placing him in his context, understanding the roots and values in which he is ineluctably embedded.

Of course there is no evidence for Brooks' assertion that "voters have trouble [unsure, etc.]" other than the fact that Obama is not crushing McCain in the polls.  It seems Brooks is the one who has trouble placing Obama.  Given the vast amount of empirical data about voter preferences, Brooks would be better served seeking his explanatory story there.

But no.  Brooks would rather make observations of the very silly kind–the kind that could characterize anyone of us at any time.  For example:

And so it goes. He is a liberal, but not fully liberal. He has sometimes opposed the Chicago political establishment, but is also part of it. He spoke at a rally against the Iraq war, while distancing himself from many antiwar activists.

Isn't this the narrative that many supporters of McCain use in his favor (he bucks the party trend–he's a maverick, etc.)?  All of this to establish the point that Obama is some kind of careerist cipher, whose very success, independence, and upward mobility are signs that he doesn't really belong.  Of course Brooks has expanded the trope somewhat–by insisting that the sheer fact of living an indentifiable cariacature constitutes a virtue.

Argumentum ad dictum

I can think of the Latin for "bumper sticker" (argumentum ad scriptum bigae in posteriore?).  But Bill Kristol gives us another example in today's Times (see here for another):

But the next morning, as I drove around the Washington suburbs, I saw not one but two cars — rather nice cars, as it happens — festooned with the Obama campaign bumper sticker “got hope?” And I relapsed into moroseness.

Got hope? Are my own neighbors’ lives so bleak that they place their hopes in Barack Obama? Are they impressed by the cleverness of a political slogan that plays off a rather cheesy (sorry!) campaign to get people to drink milk?

And what is it the bumper-sticker affixers are trying to say? Do they really believe their fellow citizens who happen to prefer McCain are hopeless? After all, just because you haven’t swooned like Herr Spörl doesn’t mean you don’t hope for a better world. Don’t McCain backers also have hope — for an America that wins its wars, protects its unborn children and allows its citizens to keep more of their hard-earned income?

But what if all those “got hope?” bumper stickers spur a backlash? It might occur to undecided or swing voters that talk of hope is not a substantive plan. They might be further put off by the haughtiness of Obama’s claim to the mantle of hope. This hope restored my spirits.

Before they fell again. Later that day, I read a report of a fund-raising letter from Obama on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, arguing that “We must have a deadlock-proof Democratic majority.”

Someone once claimed that all arguments are "ad hominem."  By this he obviously didn't mean that all arguments commit the fallacy of the same name, but he meant rather that all arguments are directed at some particular person's beliefs.  Regardless, the same principles of charity would apply.

Now this isn't the worst of Kristol's argument, as it is merely a set-up for an even sillier claim [continuing directly]:

Yikes.

But then it occurred to me that one man’s “deadlock-proof” Democratic majority is another’s unchecked Democratic majority. Given the unpopularity of the current Democratic Congress, given Americans’ tendency to prefer divided government, given the voters’ repudiations of the Republicans in 2006 and of the Democrats in 1994 — isn’t the prospect of across-the-board, one-party Democratic governance more likely to move votes to McCain than to Obama?

These are all certainly reasons related in the right kind of way to the conclusion (they won't elect Obama), but Kristol is guilty of two big mistakes.  The first is a priorism–while the evidence he mentions relates to the conclusion (even though the claim about the dissatisfaction with the "democratic" congress is misleading), the availability of empirical data makes such recourse to a priori notions unnecessary.  One can, in other words, track poll data now–poll data which paints a rather different picture (so he at least ought to argue against that).  Second, the repudiation of majorities 12 years a part does not demonstrate much (it's only two instances) about American distrust of one-party rule–besides, in neither of those years were their Presidential elections.

**update: here's someone's suggestion for bumper sticker: adfixum in obice.

No one I talked to . . .

In light of the fact that this person is an academic and therefore ought to know better, this is a really abysmal premise:

WITH gestures that ranged from a wink to a sneer, most anyone you met here this week volunteered the view that Barack Obama’s visit to Europe caused unprecedented frenzy. But it’s been hard for me to find a European, aside from two Harvard-educated friends in Paris, who confessed to excitement — not just about the visit, but the prospect of an Obama presidency.

Try harder.  It's been hard for me to find anyone who voted for Bush or who thinks he has done one single thing right.

Argumentum ad linguam

David Broder reviews a conservative think tanks' "admirably well written and well researched" pamphlet about whether "whether America's national identity is eroding under the pressure of population diversity and educational slackness."  Broder, in his oddly positive review of this pamphlet, fails to see the irony in the following two claims.

First,

And so, the Bradley scholars say, "knowing what America stands for is not a genetic inheritance. It must be learned, both by the next generation and by those who come to this country. In this way, a nation founded on an idea is inherently fragile." 

And,

When it comes to the treatment of immigrants, the Bradley team sees a real threat in such things as multilingual ballots and bilingual classes. Such accommodations to the growing diversity of the population could lead to "many Americas, or even no America at all," they maintain. "Historical ignorance, civic neglect and social fragmentation might achieve what a foreign invader could not." 

Seems to me the authors are disturbed by the mechanisms of greater civic knowledge and participation.  Besides, if I remember my history rightly, both of the belligerents in American Civil War spoke English.

Blind squirrel

David Brooks lays out the case for Bush's military genius in advocating the "surge," which, by some accounts is having some success, by other measures, not very much.  Brooks's argument, however, turns out to hinge on the squirrel and nut principle: every now and then even a blind squirrel finds a nut.  He writes:

The additional fact is that Bush, who made such bad calls early in the war, made a courageous and astute decision in 2006. More than a year on, the surge has produced large, if tenuous, gains. Violence is down sharply. Daily life has improved. Iraqi security forces have been given time to become a more effective fighting force. The Iraqi government is showing signs of strength and even glimmers of impartiality. Iraq has moved from being a failed state to, as Vali Nasr of the Council on Foreign Relations has put it, merely a fragile one.

The whole episode is a reminder that history is a complicated thing. The traits that lead to disaster in certain circumstances are the very ones that come in handy in others. The people who seem so smart at some moments seem incredibly foolish in others.

The cocksure war supporters learned this humbling lesson during the dark days of 2006. And now the cocksure surge opponents, drunk on their own vindication, will get to enjoy their season of humility. They have already gone through the stages of intellectual denial. First, they simply disbelieved that the surge and the Petraeus strategy was doing any good. Then they accused people who noticed progress in Iraq of duplicity and derangement. Then they acknowledged military, but not political, progress. Lately they have skipped over to the argument that Iraq is progressing so well that the U.S. forces can quickly come home.

Never mind the parade of straw men here at the end–too many well informed people doubt that the surge has been a success by any of the proposed measures for Brooks to be so confident in their foolishness.  Now of course it turns out that even granting the success of the surge, there was no plan for afterwards.  Forget about that.  Consider that Brooks doesn't tell us how it is that can call Bush "courageous" or "astute."  To be courageous he would have had to risk something, to be astute he would have had to know something.  Even on Brooks's account he's merely lucky.  So is everyone else, of course, because "history is a complicated thing."

Stirring the pot

I don't get this:

In his March 18 remarks in Philadelphia, Mr. Obama eloquently called for a national discussion on race. But in a speech lauded for its honesty, this plea was unconvincing. Having benefited from the nation’s quieter tone, Mr. Obama must avoid stirring the racial pot, unnerving white voters for whom his race requires a leap of faith.

Why wasn't the speech "convincing"?  What is "stirring the racial pot"?  If somehow our public discourse has moved beyond Obama's race, I haven't seen it.

Vexillated

Perhaps Michael Gerson has suffered a twinge of guilt at his recent behavior (see previous posts).  Now has has stepped away from making an affirmative claims himself.  Instead, he puts such views in the mouths of the average American.  Such a person nearly always seems to confirm what the pundit himself or herself thinks.  The Average American finds all of punditry in re flag pan to be so revealing about Obama.  It just wasn't so much nonsense an obsessed press could not get past.  

The issue of the lapel flag pin is a good illustration. Obama's explanation for its absence — that it had become a "substitute" for "true patriotism" in the aftermath of Sept. 11 — is perfectly rational. For a professor at the University of Chicago. Members of the knowledge class generally find his stand against sartorial symbolism to be subtle, even courageous. Most Americans, I'm willing to bet, will find it incomprehensible after 20 additional explanations, which are bound to be required. A president is expected to be a patriotic symbol himself, not the arbiter of patriotic symbols. He is supposed to be the face-painted superfan at every home game; to wear red, white and blue boxers on special marital occasions; to get misty-eyed during the most obscure patriotic hymns.

The problem here is not that Obama is unpatriotic — a foolish, unfair, destructive charge — but that Obama has declared himself superior to an almost universal form of popular patriotism. And this sense of superiority, revealed in case after case, has political consequences, because the Obama narrative reinforces the Democratic narrative. It is now possible to imagine Obama at a cocktail party with Kerry, Al Gore and Michael Dukakis, sharing a laugh about gun-toting, Bible-thumping, flag-pin-wearing, small-town Americans.

Now that strikes me as absolutely snobby–even if he says it's snobby, it's still snobby.  What's worse is that it doesn't make any attempt to support it's broad empirical generalizations with facts about how real Americans feel about flag pins and the President "embodying" patriotism.  Perhaps–just a suggestion without empirical basis (I'm a philosopher, I don't need facts)–real Americans have had enough of that.

Taxi driver

If we have learned anything from the war on terror, it’s that individual Middle eastern taxi, livery, and car service drivers have no special insight into world affairs.  Someone on the web has kept track of how often Tom Friedman used that kind of anecdotal evidence to characterize the opinions and feelings of the entire Middle East.  Now it’s time for Richard Cohen, liberal pundit of the Washington Post.  He writes:

In the end, the photos taken at Abu Ghraib produced an explosion of
outrage. When I visited Jordan in 2005, my driver — Bassam was his
name — brought it up himself
. Just as the military’s interrogators
knew the intense shame Muslim men feel when stripped naked and viewed
by women, or when forced to wear women’s underwear on their heads, so
did Bassam deeply feel that shame himself. "We are Muslims," he said.

No offense to Bassam, but what makes Cohen think this guy represents anything more than his own view?  There is little question, by the way, that Cohen is right–he’s just not right on account of the testimony of this or of every conveyance driver he meets. 

Ingenue

The theme this week has been the shallow narrative pundit types construct to account for phenomena too complex for the few lines or the few moments they have.  These narratives are amazing both in the staying power (hey–people like stories, especially ones they can remember or those that appeal to their sense of something or other) and in their vacuousness (no way to verify them–we need the medium of the pundit to relate them to us).   Over the past two days we have discussed "liberal" columnists.  Now let’s take a look at David Brooks–grand narrativator.  Today he spins a tale about Obama.  This one, like the narratives that began to circulate in the past couple of weeks, centers on the idea that Obama is all pleasantries.  Brooks writes (my intrusions in brackets):

Barack Obama had a theory [did he?]. It was that the voters are tired of the
partisan paralysis of the past 20 years [that wasn’t his theory]. The theory was that if Obama
could inspire a grass-roots movement with a new kind of leadership, he
could ride it to the White House and end gridlock in Washington [this sounds a lot like Bush’s theory in 2000–a new kind of politics someone said once].

Obama has built his entire campaign on this theory. He’s run
against negativity and cheap-shot campaigning. He’s claimed that
there’s an “awakening” in this country — people “hungry for a different
kind of politics.” [the contextless quotations give this paragraph an air of authority]

This message has made him the front-runner [he’s the front-runner (barely)–but we can’t really say if this is why he is]. It has brought millions
of new voters into politics [evidence for this claim?]. It has given him grounds to fend off
attacks. In debate after debate, he has accused Hillary Clinton and
others of practicing the old kind of politics.
When he was under
assault in South Carolina, he rose above the barrage and made the
Clintons look sleazy [how clever of him].

Yet at different times during this election, he’s been told to get
off the white horse and start fighting. In the current issue of Time
magazine, Michael Duffy and Nancy Gibbs report on a meeting that took
place in Chicago last Labor Day. All of Obama’s experienced advisers
told him: “You gotta get down, get dirty, get tough.”

Obama refused. He argued that if he did that, the entire basis for
his campaign would evaporate. “If I gotta kneecap her,” he said, “I’m
not gonna go there.” 

The thesis of this abysmal piece is this:  Obama’s campaign is based, according to Brooks, entirely on the specious claim that a new kind of politics (i.e., being nice) will captivate people, he’s right (because it has–according to Brooks), but in order to beat the sleazy Hillary Clinton, he will have to practice the old kind of politics, and in so doing, he will become a sleaze like Hillary, and thus his message will have been contradicted and shown to be what it is, shallow tripe (so I suppose we can go back to shallow Manichean moralizing like in 2004).  

This message, I think, is a phantom of Brooks’ imagination.  Obama, like Clinton and McCain, has more to offer–he claims–than inspiration.  His words have meaning.  Besides, Obama seems to have been a rather able debater up until this point, as Brooks even acknowledges.  After all, he did make Hillary look like a sleaze, didn’t he?

While the narrative on Obama is that he’s an ingenue–Clinton is, in Brooks’ narrative, a clumsy, unappealing sleaze who will do anything to win:

Clinton can’t compete on personality, but a knife fight is her only real hope of victory

Naturally this sorry piece of writing can’t rightly be evaluated by the tools of the critical reasoner.  It makes assertions without evidence and draws  apparently contradictory conclusions.  But Brooks has to know this; I hope at least for his sake he does.  I wonder then, what’s it for?

Brainiac

Maybe writing a column every now and then is harder than it looks.  You first have to find a premise that is thoroughly grounded in conventional wisdom, and then you have to give it an ironic twist that will surprise the person for whom the conventional wisdom is regular wisdom.  That person, call him CW, might for instance, believe that ethanol was the solution to the energy problem: the only one, ever, and it will never be revised, and no new ideas will ever be entertained by anyone at anytime because that idea is awesome.  Or he might believe (at the same time) that cap-and-trade emissions policies were the complete awesome solution, with none better ever imaginable.  But, you'll point out, ethanol isn't perfect.  It will alter agriculture in massive ways without producing the kind of solution CW believed.  

But CW will always have the second, won't he? Not so.  Sebastian Mallaby tells us how.

Obama favors a cap-and-trade regime. This is indeed a good idea, and the candidates are right to back it. But a cap-and-trade system is not the silver bullet that advocates sometimes imply. The same is unfortunately true for that other popular cure-all, a carbon tax.

Oh sometimes–cousin of some–where would we be without you?  You're so vague and malleable.  And you'll stick on anything.  For we don't know who these advocates are or when they make these claims.  No matter.  We're busy showing CW how wrong he was to listen to the CW.  

Besides, some–hee hee–might think it stretches credulity to believe that anyone seriously claims that any of the things Mallaby is talking about are "cure-alls."  And just in case you find his premise as thin as April ice, you'll probably also wonder how this applies to Barack Obama, for whom this article is named–"Obama's missing ideas." 

I was wondering that as well.  But then Mallaby explains. 

So it just isn't true that we have all the good ideas we need — at least not on climate change. And it's peculiar that Obama, the brainiac Harvard grad, should dismiss the importance of fresh thinking this way: He is an intellectual, he is beloved by intellectuals, and yet he poses as an anti-intellectual. If he locks up the Democratic nomination and faces off against a brave old airman with little interest in domestic policy, he will want to encourage a debate about ideas. He has the skills to win it.

I can't fathom what Mallaby is talking about.  Who says we have all of the good ideas we need?  Besides, he hasn't in the first place shown or even attempted to show that Obama is "anti-intellectual" or "dismissive" of "fresh-thinking."  He's established–if you can call it that–that Obama "favors" one perhaps fallible approach to the energy issue.  A quick glance at Obama's website, however, will show you that he favors much else as well.

So let's recap.  Some believe incorrectly and exclusively in solutions that few would seriously believe in.  Obama embraces one of those solutions–among others–and so therefore Obama is running as a moron CW believer, not as the Braniac we know he is.