“National Treasures” Get Quite the Discount Deal

You can be worshipped for weighing in on issues outside your wheelhouse — and have no idea what the hell you’re talking about. Of course, you could ascertain the truth by simply following your own standards:

But why bother when you can completely abandon them and still be seen as some kind of saint-like Sherlock Holmes.

On the Discount Deal

You can have all these fancy quotes to float (with an army of apostles flooding the internet with ’em everyday) — and the second someone scrutinizes his record, you get to change the rules.

180 — how fitting

Well whad’ya know — Sowell’s saying what I’m saying in the highlighted lines below.

Somehow he forgot to follow his own rules on the war.

“Compared to what?”

People who talk glibly about “intelligence failure” act as if intelligence agencies that are doing their job right would know everything.

— Thomas Sowell

D.O.E’s standard is to spin a tube at 20% above 90,000 RPM before failure — so 48,000 short is a pretty loose definition of “rough indication.”

And since the entire point of testing should be to replicate the conditions of centrifuges, one would think that the full-blown testing would be performed before the N.I.E. was completed.

— Richard W. Memmer: Act II

Between Sowell’s words and mine

Which ones strike you as glib?

On the biggest and most costly lie in modern history, a Maverick was needed most. By himself, he could not have shaped the decisions in those dead set on going to war.

But he could have been the catalyst for the kind of debate that such decisions should demand.

And now he can be the catalyst to turn the tide.

As we live in a culture that wallows in the delight of “DESTROY”: It would never enter your minds that there’s a higher purpose in play here:

To claim that Iraq WMD wasn’t a lie should be like saying we didn’t land on the moon. In denying that reality, half the country helped create a culture where denying reality is now the norm:

On both sides . . .

Anyone entering this discussion with sincerity — would come away realizing that there is no debate, and there never was.

They just made it up . . .

Which guy looks like he’s on point?

Sowell’s 2-minute read is 752 words — not one of which addresses the tubes that took us to war. Compare his piece to my 7-part series that’s 2 hours and 40 minutes (with props on display, no less).

This mountain of information was publicly available before he wrote that article — and not one word about it.

How do you reconcile that?

I’m not smart enough to be a nuclear scientist — but I’m smart enough to interview one. When I drove up to the University of Virginia to meet with Dr. Houston Wood — on my iPad I was packin’ pictures and structured inquiry like nothing you’ve ever seen.

I’d never done any journalism, but I was striving for the best of what it’s supposed to be.

My Prime Directive

No leading questions
If this man wants to talk — scrap the script and keep my mouth shut

Because of that — I obtained information that nobody else did.

My grades wouldn’t cut it for the intelligence community — but I could ask key questions to Colin Powell’s chief of intelligence at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR).

With a little help, I managed to make it through physics in college — but I couldn’t be a physicist. I could correspond with the one who wrote extensively on the subject matter though.

I could believe what liars claimed on intelligence investigations — or I could read the reports and make up my own mind.

I could do all that & much more

And then be belittled by people who didn’t do anything but gleefully get in the way — torturing the truth without mercy.

Then tell me how he was wrong about one thing that he has no expertise in.

So lemme get this straight

A layperson with limited resources and no connections:

Can do countless hours of research & writing
Interview a world-renowned nuclear scientist
Correspond with Colin Powell’s chief of intelligence — along with a key physicist
Spend $15,000 of his own money to write & produce the most detailed documentary ever done on WMD (taking both parties to task for it)

Qualifying me to exhaustively explain how half the country could not be more wrong on this issue of world-altering consequence.

And in response: I’m practically spit on for abiding by the very priciples you peddle: By people who couldn’t craft a sound argument on the subject to save their lives.

But it’s all good that Sowell cranked out this crap that any Iraq War cheerleading jackass could issue in chain-letter lies — topped off with smug sloganeering.

After all — he doesn’t have any expertise on it.

As a distinguished scholar once said: “The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie.”

— Thomas Sowell: Desperate and Ugly in Florida

George W. Bush was one of the last to say so. Yet he alone is accused of lying.

— Thomas Sowell: Weapons of Crass Obstruction

I don’t play those games, Mr. Sowell . . .

They all lied

Some circles call that evidence — I call it cowardice

Even at a glance

You should know that Sowell’s piece is not the stuff of substance.

By Sowell’s status and by his own ethics — he had a huge responsibility.

But even if you take his responsibility off the table, the very basis of “Hard to Imagine” — is that he would have something to say about world-altering lies and ineptitude for the ages.

So on top of having no idea what you’re talking about — you don’t even understand the most basic tenets of the person you put on a pedestal for those principles.

It’s just a fancy quote to float

Like all the others in his arsenal of imagery . . .

Repeat slogans: “Everybody believed Iraq had WMD”
Question people’s motives: Bush hater, Bush basher, Bush Derangement Syndrome, Plamegate & plenty more. Adding to the arsenal of childish crap to continue the tradition: Snowflake, Libtard, Libturd, Cupcake, TDS, Demon-crat, Democrat Party
Bold assertions: Russians said so, British said so, Bill Clinton said so, Leaders of both parties said so . . .

No coherent argument, Repeat slogans, Vent their emotions, Question people’s motives, Bold assertions . . .

Looking through your feed you obviously hate Thomas Sowell I take it. How about Henry Ford? Do you hate him as well?

Even if I did

What would my “hatred” have to do with the price of tea in China — or THIS?

You’re instantly forgiven for being “wrong” — when you don’t even have to admit when you’re wrong
An army of believers belittle anyone who questions their beloved Sowell — while they promote the principles I followed to find he didn’t
You only look at evidence that works in your favor — following the facts only when they go in the direction you desire
You can flagrantly fail to follow your own standards on matters of world-altering magnitude — then people who didn’t follow the facts any more than you did, will instantly absolve you with membership in the “everybody got it wrong” club
Then you can turn on a dime to pounce on people for refusing to examine the evidence — and copy & paste some more fancy quotes to float for good measure
I point you to my 7-part, 2 hours and 40 minutes doc — that distills a story that demanded a massive amount of effort, thought, research, and writing: And you tap a Tweet with a talking point or two — thinking you can inform me.
I do all the work, you do nothing and consider nothing — then blame me for failing to convince you
And as the Discount Deal knows no low: What do we have for the guy who put these manufactured lies on a silver platter?

You couldn’t carry Sowell’s jockstrap!

These guys were selling you snake oil and I’m telling you the truth. Your standards could not be any lower for them — while not of this world for me.

Remember What the Dormouse Said

There’s a thing about Sowell that isn’t often mentioned . . . he can step completely outside of the race thing and just express himself about just stuff — which is not the usual.

Sowell has a habit of headlines oozing in partisan pettiness. On two of the biggest events in history — Sowell seems pretty tribal to me.

Desperate and Ugly in Florida

And I find it interesting that with Sowell — one reason some people today would find it hard to go with him is that he doesn’t write with that tribalist sense.

Weapons of Crass Obstruction

He’s trying to be purely objective and there’s nothing in him of — here’s what we down here think. Here’s what we’ve been through.

Weapons of Political Destruction

It’s not seasoned with any of that — he’s just trying to have a white lab coat on and look at the facts.

— John McWhorter

Hard to Imagine

And Damn Disappointing to Boot . . .

It’s bad enough I gotta deal with unyielding yahoos who yearn to praise Sowell as if he’s some kind of saint-like Sherlock Holmes. But to see people I respected fall into the same trap — enabling their “National Treasure” and the echo chamber around him: Good grief!

The crude, dirty “brutes” of the land of the Houyhnhnms in Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift. The Yahoos are irrational people and represent the worst side of humanity. By contrast, the wise and gentle Houyhnhnms, their masters, are rational horses and represent humanity at its best.

The likes of Loury & McWhorter see themselves as Houyhnhnms — as if they’re immune to irrational behavior in defense of their interests.