Today’s Media

…reporting World War II. Strategy Page has given me a bunch of satirical essay ideas today:

HUNDREDS OF SAILORS STILL TRAPPED UNDERWATER

Victims’ Families: Pearl Rescue Efforts “Disgraceful”

WHISTLEBLOWER REVEALS SUPERBOMB PLANS

Catholic Bishops Condemn Secret “Manhattan Project”

FDR WITH MISTRESS IN DEATH ROOM

Warm Springs Scandal

Today’s Media

…reporting World War II. Strategy Page has given me a bunch of satirical essay ideas today:

HUNDREDS OF SAILORS STILL TRAPPED UNDERWATER

Victims’ Families: Pearl Rescue Efforts “Disgraceful”

WHISTLEBLOWER REVEALS SUPERBOMB PLANS

Catholic Bishops Condemn Secret “Manhattan Project”

FDR WITH MISTRESS IN DEATH ROOM

Warm Springs Scandal

Today’s Media

…reporting World War II. Strategy Page has given me a bunch of satirical essay ideas today:

HUNDREDS OF SAILORS STILL TRAPPED UNDERWATER

Victims’ Families: Pearl Rescue Efforts “Disgraceful”

WHISTLEBLOWER REVEALS SUPERBOMB PLANS

Catholic Bishops Condemn Secret “Manhattan Project”

FDR WITH MISTRESS IN DEATH ROOM

Warm Springs Scandal

Swinging Both Ways

When Jim McGreevey declared that he was a “gay American,” I declared him a bisexual American, with much disagreement in my comments section (though Tammy Bruce agreed with me). Well, now it turns out that his “boyfriend” (who claims to be straight) says that I was right:

Through lawyers, Cipel had threatened to sue McGreevey for sexual harassment shortly before and after McGreevey’s resignation. A lawsuit was never filed.

“I think McGreevey had no choice. There was a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. And he didn’t know what to do, and his advisers told him, ‘come out first,’ and he would be perceived as the victim” and thereby gain control of the story, Cipel said.

While he said McGreevey did make sexual advances toward him on several occasions, Cipel said the former governor also frequently spoke about heterosexual encounters, including sex with prostitutes on trips to Germany and the Dominican Republic.

“I believe that Jim McGreevey is bisexual,” Cipel said.

Color me unsurprised.

Groupthink

FreeAlabamistan writes about the cult of the media.

Why are we watching AP repeat the same basic mistake that CBS committed with Dan Rather’s fake-but-accurate National Guard debacle?

Two words: “Everybody knows.” Anyone who has studied anthropology, sociology or mass psychology understands how false beliefs can become conventional wisdom within groups if (a) high-status individuals within the group advocate the belief, and (b) there is no one inside the group to dispute the false belief.

That, in short, is the herd-mentality explanation of why liberal bias pervades the MSM. It’s also the explanation of the Heaven’s Gate cult (whose members acted on the belief that they must commit suicide in order to be taken aboard a cosmic mothership traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet). Where group membership is dependent upon shared belief, where skepticism of key beliefs is viewed as disloyalty to the group, and where non-believers are stigmatized, marginalized and excluded, the truth or falsehood of group beliefs is moot. Logic and evidence, so far as they might undermine belief, are unwelcome. This is how it becomes possible for groups to act upon false beliefs.

It’s one of those stories too good to fact check, because they want so badly to believe anything bad about Iraq (read: bad about Bush).

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!