SUBSCRIBE NOW WELCOME BACK. Do you want to continue reading where you left off? New Republic subscribers can pick up where they left off no matter which device they were previously using. SUBSCRIBE NOW

Go Home Paul Ryan And The Conservative Misinformation Feedback Loop

JONATHAN CHAIT APRIL 3, 2010

Paul Ryan And The Conservative Misinformation Feedback Loop

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

A couple days ago, Paul Ryan delivered a speech on the sinister history of what he called "progressivist" thought. In the speech, he quoted Barney Frank as having said, "We are trying to increase the role of government on every front." It struck as odd that I'd never heard this before. A quick search shows that it's been circulating among fringe-right website for months now.

It's also clearly misleading. Frank was in a discussion of regulatory reform, in which Ralph Nader was accusing him of timidity, especially with regard to regulating derivatives. Frank, in response, stated "We are trying in every front to increase the role of government in the regulatory area." In other words, he was not confessing to a plan to expand government in every area. Now, you could interpret that line to mean he was confessing a plan to expand government in every regulatory area, but both the context of the discussion and the absence of widespread regulation in other facets would militate against even this, more modest interpretation. It's a great example of the conservative misinformation feedback loop in action.

Here's the Frank video:

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Show all 44 comments

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

44 comments

The right-wing blogosphere and TV and radio outlets make for the equivalent of an hermetically sealed chamber. Nothing gets in and what gets out is not just nonsense but as Jeremy Bentham once wrote, is "nonsense on stilts." No wonder that intellectually honest conservatives like David Frum and Bruce Bartlett are immediately declared persona non grata in today's conservative movement.

- liberal reformer

April 3, 2010 at 11:29am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Honestly, can these people not ever read a complete sentence?

- cspencef

April 3, 2010 at 12:13pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Look, this type of verbal prestidigitation is (an admittedly distasteful) part of politics. Think about how Bill Clinton has taken to referring to the Contract With America as the Contract ON America. Every time he does it, I chuckle. Also, think of how Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy treated Robert Bork during his Supreme Court hearings. I am sincerely thankful that Bork never made it onto the Court, but his ideas were interpolated and extrapolated to death. Biden, Kennedy, and others clearly believed that, in that case, the ends justified the means. Same goes for Republicans now. I'm biased, so it's natural for me to believe that the Right is more guilty of this type of behavior than Democrats, and the words of Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer, and others have reinforced my reasons to think so. However, to think that this type of behavior is the sole province of the Right is delusional. By the way, Ryan's words are patty cake compared to what FDR tolerated. Republicans during his era engaged in a whisper campaign, noting that he was in a wheel chair because he had been crippled by syphilis.

- propjoe

April 3, 2010 at 12:27pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

PropJoe: there is a difference between interpolating and extrapolating with a live witness of Bork's pugnaciousness, and misquoting someone in a speech. After all, constitutional interpretation is necessarily an act of extrapolation - without it Roe would not exist (and, just for the record, while I find Bork distasteful, I do think Roe was badly reasoned). And in fact, Citizen's United, Gore v. Bush and the rest are all acts of extrapolation, for neither situation could have been or was contemplated by the drafters of the Constitution. It is, accordingly, perfectly appropriate to interpolate - to death, if you will - a doofus like Bork about the idiotic consequences of his Originalist philosophy. It is never appropriate to leave out the operative limitation of a sentence. And, while extreme leftists are prone to this, by and large liberals and "progressives" have too much intellectual honest - simply by virtue of being liberals - to do anything of the kind.

- icarusr

April 4, 2010 at 9:36am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

icarusr: I certainly agree that it is never appropriate to deliberately misinterpret a quotation. I just think that you might be a tad too convinced of the virtue of liberals. Put people into a corner when the stakes are high, and they will stretch the truth. (Not to sound too much like Yoda...) Also, and (again) I am not defending Bork, Kennedy's Robert Bork's America speech was something more than scholarly constitutional interpretation or a piece of Socratic reasoning. It was taking Bork's ideas and conflating them with Armageddon in order to make a point: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens." That is not the same as deliberately misquoting someone, but it's not an example of virtuous fair play either. That's all I'm saying.

- propjoe

April 4, 2010 at 11:05am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

PropJoe: It is objectively verifiable that Bork opposed, vehemently, all liberal constitutional developments this side of Lochner and Plessy, which basically means almost the entire jurisprudence of the Supreme Court from 1954 to 1976 that outlawed all the practices listed in Kennedy's speech. What Kennedy was describing was the world that existed, not so long ago - a world, not Armageddon but a living breathing world, that liberal non-Originalist jurisprudence that Bork opposed broke apart. Take it another way, even today, even with the great liberal advances in society, you can see, objectively, that in the face of the liberal jurisprudence that Bork opposed, and that could well have been overturned if a Republican were in the White House today, teaching evolution is being banned in parts of the country; even with Miranda, rogue police does break down citizens' doors; conservatives have no compunctions censoring artists; and if you are at death's door in a late pregnancy and need a late-term abortion, there is exactly one doctor left in the entire United States who still performs them. And Tancredo, lately of the US Congress, is talking about literacy tests - not even a subtle hint of return to Jim Crow. And, frankly, I am not at all certain that a court composed of Scalia, Alito and Bork would not support Tancredo. I do not claim "virtuous fair play" on the part of liberals, especially in politics - that would be suicidal faced with the oiks on the other side. Some exaggeration, some rhetorical flourish, some demonisation, is necessary in politics. What I am saying is that there is a qualitative difference between that kind of give and take, and the routine falsification of the public record by conservatives.

- icarusr

April 4, 2010 at 11:41am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Some exaggeration, some rhetorical flourish, some demonisation, is necessary in politics. What I am saying is that there is a qualitative difference between that kind of give and take, and the routine falsification of the public record by conservatives." A point well made and well taken. Cheers.

- propjoe

April 4, 2010 at 4:48pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

What I am saying is that there is a qualitative difference between that kind of give and take, and the routine falsification of the public record by conservatives.
Sorry, I have found no real difference in the routine falsification done by either side in attempt to force reality to conform to their ideology: "Israel is a white colonial settler state." "Only 2% of rape charges are false." "Women are paid only 70% of what men are paid." "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

- TNR.Reader

April 4, 2010 at 9:39pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

That's some bunch of apples and pears, tnr.r -- the first comment is a political assertion, the second and third are statistical claims, and the last is simply a subjective comment by a judge speaking outside of court which can neither be proven nor disproved. That said, the third claim you cite is certainly wrong, and provably so (it took me about 15 seconds to get to the relevant DOL page, which has figures for 2008): "The median weekly earnings of women who were full-time wage and salary workers was $638, or 80 percent of men’s $798. When comparing the median weekly earnings of persons aged 16 to 24, young women earned 91 percent of what young men earned ($420 and $461, respectively)." So yes, if someone claimed that women earn 70% of men's earnings, they would be wrong. But they wouldn't be so wrong as to be making a completely wild assertion. They would be wrong on the empirical data, but right on the content of the claim (= that women's median earnings in the U.S. are still short of men's by a sizeable %).

- ironyroad

April 4, 2010 at 11:16pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Irony, classifying the comments is irrelevant; they are stock fare of much of the left, and are no less falsification than the stock arguments of the right. Comparing absolute earnings of men and women - without normalisation by hours worked or qualifications or other variables - is as absurd as using the respective absolute incomes of Jewish and gentile Americans to assert that Jews are paid only a fraction of what gentiles are paid. For a through debunking of the gender gap myth, see the works of Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and Warren Farrell. http://www.iwf.org/campus/show/18948.html

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 1:42am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

PropJoe

That is not the same as deliberately misquoting someone, but it's not an example of virtuous fair play either. That's all I'm saying.
Far worse went on behind the scenes. Commentary has documented the blackmail the left applied to minority professionals about to testify for conservative nominees (Bork, Thomas), including threats to destroy careers. The left is just as fond of misinformation, smear tactics, and personal destruction, as the right.

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 1:53am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

TNR.R: "Comparing absolute earnings of men and women - without normalisation by hours worked or qualifications or other variables - is as absurd as using the respective absolute incomes of Jewish and gentile Americans to assert that Jews are paid only a fraction of what gentiles are paid." I think your reference is to median earnings, not absolute earnings. But please take it up with the Department of Labor, as I'm sure they could explain it in more detail. I'm not great with statistics.

- ironyroad

April 5, 2010 at 2:33am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Good lord. Tnr.reader isn't comparing apples and pears, but apples and seven. none of the examples given (debatable factual claims that can be verified and debated) are not the same as taking what someone said and cutting out words to make them say something different than what they actually said.

- miceelf

April 5, 2010 at 9:26am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

No, irony, you still do not understand. Read your words more carefully: Your source considred "the median weekly earnings". Weekly earnings is an absolute number, un-normalised by hours, job category, etc. Again, read Sowell. No reason for me to duplicate the analysis here. But you and Mice have just proved my original contention - that the left, as much as the right, recycles fabricated facts ("misinformation feedback loop") to support a near-religious dedication to ideology. Jonathan Chait, any comment? NB. In case you deem a full book (as Sowell's or Farrell's) too much to read, here's a synopsis of the results when normalised rather than absolute wages are considered: http://www.swifteconomics.com/2009/09/21/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-the-wage-gap/

In 1982, never-married women earned 91% of what never-married men did. (12) In 1971, never-married-women in their thirties earned slightly more than never-married men (13). Today, among men and women living alone from the age of 21-35, there is no wage gap. (14) Among college-educated men and women between 40 and 64 who have never married, men made an average of $40,000 a year and women made an average of $47,000! (15)

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 11:09am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

From "Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics: The Wage Gap" at http://www.swifteconomics.com/2009/09/21/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics-the-wage-gap/

In 1982, never-married women earned 91% of what never-married men did. (12) In 1971, never-married-women in their thirties earned slightly more than never-married men (13). Today, among men and women living alone from the age of 21-35, there is no wage gap. (14) Among college-educated men and women between 40 and 64 who have never married, men made an average of $40,000 a year and women made an average of $47,000! (15)

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 11:15am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Again, TNR. Reader, that's debatable, but it is NOT the same as saying "TNR.Reader says, above, 'the right recylcles fabricated facts.'"

- miceelf

April 5, 2010 at 11:18am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Irony: take it up with the Department of Labor Irony, I'm not sure you understand statistics as compiled by the Department of Labor, which is straightforward about the numbers it uses but not so straightforward about their mis-use and mis-interpretation, nor about the dubious "adjustments" applied. Most notable in this arena (as well-desribed by the Post's Crudele) are the DOL's misuse of - a "birth-death" model to inflate job statistcs - incomplete measures of unemployment (use of U-3 rather than U-6 as the "official" number) to understate unemployment.

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 11:25am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Mice, you're missing the forest for the trees. There are just as many liars on the left as the right; both sides recycle fabricated "facts" to support their quasi-religious infatuation with an ideology; and both sides form an echo chamber resulting in "confirmation bias." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias Irony, here are two more well-known examples of DoL manipulation of statistics: - Its estimates of "core inflation" omit food and energy - It adjusts the statistics for ostensible increase in "product quality". In other words, if a new car cost $20k last year and $21k this year, the DoL may count no inflation because product quality has increased - "you're getting more for your money."

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 11:37am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Trying to determine which side of the political spectrum is more willing to rely on misleading rhetoric seems kind of silly. However it might be interesting to find some structural forces at work. On the right, talk radio and direct mail have been major actors. On the left, I think you really saw this in the netroots internet phenomenon reacting to Bush. In both cases, there was a technological process for delivering this sort of "red meat" to a political base, which becomes self-sustaining. You see this obviously with FOX, and MSNBC trying to do the same on the left. Then there is the more tricky business of looking at other, more subtle structures. Demographics might be interesting to explore. Then there's the philosophy itself - what it means to be a conservative or liberal, and how each might lead one into a willingness to buy into misleading rhetoric. There seems to be a strong element of personality type that will take a hard - and sloppy - stance no matter what political movement they find themselves in. Altemeyer and others look at this when they argue for an Authoritarian model of the psyche. Yet separating out personality from political movement is difficult. I think though the strongest factor at work might be either side's feeling of struggle, whether revanchist or simple political determination. Fundamentalist Christians have always couched things in apocalyptic terms. Marxist revolutionaries have their classless, multicultural, etc. utopia. Philosophy, whether religious or political, has a very specific role to play and is dependent upon historical variables. For instance, gay rights is a major motivator for Christian fundamentalists, yet changing social mores have lessened their sense of urgency. The fall of communism dealt a major blow to Marxist thought, at least for those who would view communism as a viable Marxist enterprise. Groups are highly affected by current politics. In the 90's there was mass rebellion against Clinton, in the 00's it was Bush. In the end conservatism seems much more confident in its view of itself as a sort of current utopia. If the liberals just went away the perfect order we've achieved would be fully realized. Thus state of perpetual defensiveness and revanchism seems to exist. The only thing standing in the way of maximum liberty is big government. Such a broad claim invites broad rhetoric, opening the door to error. Progressives have their own peeves with conservatism, but are less defined by it. Whereas in the past progressives were defined by a dogmatic opposition to business, most have now come to view it as something to embrace, albeit with caution. There is a structural point of philosophical nuance here that hinders hyperbole, a sure sign of misinformation.

- elirector

April 5, 2010 at 1:05pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

TNR: given that you presented your examples in response to my post, I should have replied immediately. As it happens, I have enjoyed reading the back and forth. Might I make four observations. First, three of your four examples of "falsification of the public record" related to women. Reflect on that. Second, there is nothing inherently "false" about Sotomayor's comment. The Palin woman thinks her ignorance and her ability breed gives her a special edge to the rest of the Commonwealth; Joe the Plumber considers that his brash and boorish lack of education is somehow grounds for public platform; Sotomayor thinks that wisdom and the experience of being in a minority helps her understand disadvantage better. This is not "falsification of the public record." No less a man than the Father of Conservatism, Edmund Burke, relied on personal experience and background to support his claim to authority: "I was not, like his Grace of Bedford, swaddled, and rocked, and dandled into a legislator ... At every step of my progress in life, (for in every step was I traversed and opposed,) and at every turnpike I met, I was obliged to show my passport, and again and again to prove my sole title to the honour of being useful to my country ... I had no arts but manly arts. On them I have stood, and please, God, in spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, to the last gasp will I stand." God forbid that a Latina makes a similar observation ... Third, your example of DoL "manipulation of statistics" about product quality undermines your claim to understand statistics - or numbers, or economics, or anything, really. Unless you are running a Soviet system, productivity has two components: quantity and quality. If you produce the same amount of goods but at a better quality, keeping costs constant, your productivity has increased. This is a definitional issue in economics. In a similar vein, where you have an iron ingot that rises in price, you have inflation; where you have a better worked steel with higher carbon context and fewer crystaline imperfections, you have, the higher price does not suggest a devaluation of the currency (inflation) but an increase in the quality of the workmanship. Fourth, the issue is the nature of the manipulation and fabrication of the information. That you can actually dissect and challenge DoL statistics based on the underlying assumptions confirms, rather than negates, the accuracy of the statistics (and all statistics depend on underlying assumptions). The problem with conservatism today is not that they manipulate, but that they make up and actively distort facts and figures. Therein lies the qualitative difference.

- icarusr

April 5, 2010 at 1:33pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Irony, I'm not sure you understand statistics as compiled by the Department of Labor, which is straightforward about the numbers it uses but not so straightforward about their mis-use and mis-interpretation" Reader, I already admitted I don't understand statistics. I do understand the concept of the median however, and I don't see how someone who claimed that the median earnings of females in the U.S. were about 80% of the earnings of males, and used DOL figures to support his assertion, would be at fault. Hence, while conceding that your third example (women earn about 70%) is indeed wrong, it's not so wrong as to be a gross falsification. If your counter-argument is that there is no earnings gap whatsoever, then all I can say is, good luck with that! And, of course, I'd like to remind you that your original list of "false" statements undercuts your credibility.

- ironyroad

April 5, 2010 at 1:52pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Elirector, you've made a very intelligent post. Irony, you're right - you don't understand statistics. I'll try here for a third time to explai it to you: Saying "women earn less than men" doesn't tell us anything. My neighbour earns less than I - as well he shoud, since he works fewer hours. Sowell and others showed what is atcually fairly obvious: - on the average, women work fewer hours (outside the home) than men - on the average, women work at safer jobs than men - on the average, women work at less physically demanding jobs than men - on the average, women work at more flexible jobs than men - in professional work, women work more at "soft" jobs and less at technological jobs - when statistics are calculated which take into account hours, danger, technology, and continuity in the profesion, the wage gap disappears. In other words, for the same work, hours, and background, women are paid the same (and, in some analyses, more) than men. Interestingly, those who insist upon the wage gap pay no attention to the wealth gap, which by some measures have women holding the majority of the country's individual wealth. And, of course, I'd like to remind you that your original list of "false" statements undercuts your credibility. Credibility with whom? With the raving loony-leftists many here appear to be? I'm a political independent, and your knee-jerk rejection of my list of leftst myths only proves my point about both sides falsifying reality in their own echo-chamber. Icarus (symbolism?) First, three of your four examples of "falsification of the public record" related to women. Reflect on that. No; once again a TNR reader has displayed loony-left bias. Three of my four examples related to feminist myths, not to women. In fact, a host of women (from those of the WSJ editorial board to the IWF to Kathleen Parkinson to conservative women generally) would agree with me. The split is not male-female but liberal-conservative. But that doesn't seem to prevent you from charging sexism - a typical leftst cop-out. Second, there is nothing inherently "false" about Sotomayor's comment. It is a nauseatingly racist statement which should have disqualfied her from the bench. As an example, much of the Venezuelan comunity in the USA are well-off uper-crust in flight from Chavez. They have never been poor or suffered a day in their lives. It is questionable whether they have learnt "the wisdom of hard knocks" as much as has a poor white "redneck". Yet Sotomayor assumed so. That's racist and sexist. Sotomayor typifies the left's racist and misandrist obsession with identity politics. Further, even had she said simply that a judge of a poor background would make better decsions than one of a rich background, she'd be wrong. America's founding fathers were mostly well-off. Finally, even wealth and hard knocks have lttle to do with the law. If a poor man dents a rich man's fender, even a judge of poor upbringing must decide the poor man owes the rich man the exact same compensation as if the roles were reversed (given the exact same fender). Third, your example of DoL "manipulation of statistics" about product quality undermines your claim to understand statistics - or numbers, or economics, or anything, really. I have a statistics degree. But don't let that stop you in your typical leftist resort to ad hom. As for your assertions you have missed the fact that the DoL incorporation of the "soft," subjective quality component is based less on objectity and more on the political need (ordered from above) to enable manipulation of the result. The problem with conservatism today is not that they manipulate, but that they make up and actively distort facts and figures So does the left, as my 2% and 70% examples show; there was not one person here who either understood the source of the statistics, or questioned them; loyal leftists all, just as impervious to reality as the right. By the way, I'm not conservative.

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 2:28pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

For those not wanting to crawl into long statistcal analyses (such as Sowell's), here are some of the points in brief: Crudele on DoL mis-representation: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2004/10/beware_the_birt.html About the DoL's manipulation of the CPI, search for "cost of living" in this page: http://www.financialarmageddon.com/2009/04/

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 2:48pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Another summary of DoL's political manipulation of the CPI and other stats: http://www.shadowstats.com/article/evidence_of_manipulation

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 3:03pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

TNR - I'll confess to not having the foggiest idea what you are on about. If you do possess a statistics degree, one would hope that you would have latched onto Irony's specific use of "median" . Unless you are disagreeing with the DoL data, then yes, women earn less than men in the median. All of your points are true as to external contributing factors that lead to this. However whether these factors indicate a genuine preference for the types of work that women can/do seek or remaining bias against them is a completely different discussion, and the degree of the latter is normally the context under which these statistics come up. I am unaware of many liberals, whether at the same level as Paul Ryan, or in general who view this as evidence that a woman is going to get paid less than a man for doing the same job; this is illegal and is what made the Ledbetter case so egregious. And just for kicks, check out which side of the political spectrum was more than happy to leave the inequality in place, and which side did something to redress what was clearly a wrong. Were you to find a democratic member of congress that claimed that the DoL statistics shows that a woman is going to get paid less than a man for the same work you might have a point. And back to the main point of the post, which is that a GOP member of congress was caught deliberately distorting a comment by a Democrat to completely change it's intent, and commenting on how this is a regular occurrence - do you have examples Democratic members of congress uttering your other "liberal falsehoods"?

- Nari224

April 5, 2010 at 3:13pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"And back to the main point of the post, which is that a GOP member of congress was caught deliberately distorting a comment by a Democrat to completely change it's intent, and commenting on how this is a regular occurrence - do you have examples Democratic members of congress uttering your other "liberal falsehoods"?" Sorry, do your own research; all 4 myths are quite standard across the left. Kennedy and Abzug used a number of them repeatedly. I have to admit being shocked by the extent to which posters here are inclined to find nits feeding their myths about right-wing evil and left-wing saint-hood. You sound quite nearly like a batch of propagandists from the Nation.

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 3:27pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Reader: "there was not one person here who either understood the source of the statistics, or questioned them; loyal leftists all, just as impervious to reality as the right." Yes there was -- me, for one! I queried the statement about 70% female/male wage discrepancy and checked it with the DOL figures. I found that it was indeed wrong, and that the figure for the median difference for 2008 was 80%. Curiously, it was only after that that you discovered a secret conspiracy in the DOL to distort the facts. Convenient, eh? Your credibility was undermined by the lack of meaning or coherence in your assemblage of statements, as discussed above in several posts.

- ironyroad

April 5, 2010 at 3:34pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Nari "yes, women earn less than men in the median" Your statement is an implied lie because it is widely mis-interpreted to mean "earn less than men for the same job". The same misuse would lead one to conclude society discriminates in favour of Asians. What you have not understood is that "median" (like mean or variance or other concept) refers to a specific statistic (metric) - in this case, a useless one, the absololute wage income un-normalised by hours, job type, experience, etc. The median of a useless statistic remains a useless number. The more useful "median" would be the median HOURLY wage of male-vs-female in same SPECIFIC job type x for the SAME number of years - which, when calcuated, shows women earing as much as men or more.

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 3:34pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Irony: "there was not one person here who either understood the source of the statistics, or questioned them; loyal leftists all, just as impervious to ctreality as the right."" I'm not sure whether you deliberately misunderstood. I meant question the left's repeated use of the 2% and 70% statistics. You certainly have not questioned the left's bogus statistics; rather, you have over and over indicated yur quasi-religious belief in these myths - a mirror-image of the right's belief in its own myths. You have, in fact, proved my point. As for yur nit about 70% vs 80%, the actual figures cited vary. The Times likes 79%. I just read a continuing legl ed docuent citing 70%. You have again missed the forest for the trees. "Curiously, it was only after that that you discovered a secret conspiracy in the DOL to distort the facts. Convenient, eh?" Dol's stats are politically manipulated. If you are too naive or gullible or innumerate (or blindly loony-left) to follow up the erferences I've already given, I can do no more for you. Your type of logical error is known as an "appeal to authority" - except that in this case you chose a demonstrably politicised authority, the DoL.

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 3:42pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

PS to Irony: Google "wage women 70%" and you'll find millions of hits. The left has used the same figure for decades. Each of these, for example: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/women-cut-pay-gap-to-earn-70-of-male-wages-1553485.html http://www.womensenews.org/story/commentary/000703/wage-gap-working-mothers-may-cost-billions http://www.blackhillsportal.com/npps/story.cfm?id=1582

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 3:50pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

TNR: "Your type of logical error is known as an "appeal to authority" - except that in this case you chose a demonstrably politicised authority, the DoL." I am not sure were to begin to respond to your comments, but this last line was telling. The logical fallacy of authority relates to ideas, not facts (and statistics, within certain bounds, are considered "facts". So while it is not good logic to say that "History is at an end because Francis Fukuyama declared it so in 1992", it is perfectly appropriate to cite to the Fukuyama article for facts that may have been contained therein - such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the success of Desert Storm and so on (and any other facts that Fukuyama might have dug up in support of his thesis.) In the same vein, while you might argue with the accuracy of the data the DoL has, reference to them does not engage the logical fallacy of authority: it is not logically false to rely on statistics developed by an entity that is entrusted to develop and maintain those statistics. Incidentally, in this respect, your reliance on the editorial board of the WSJ on "feminist" myths is the best example of "logical fallacy of authority" I have ever seen in these pages. Your response to my comments began with, "No; once again a TNR reader has displayed loony-left bias." And then you complained about ad hominems when I questioned your mastery of statistics. Pot; kettle; sticks and stones and all that. In any event, I simply pointed out that in your attempt at, ahem, discrediting the left, you managed to pick out three out of four points that related to women - whether they are feminist myths does not change the fact that rape, pay equity and Sotomayor's comment relate to women as women. You could have chosen any number of examples of leftist perfidy, but your choice of "feminist myths" when no one was talking about feminists or women or whatever was telling. Let me turn to your continued insistence that everyone here is missing the forest for the trees. Well, a forest is made up of trees and if you don't pay attention to the trees, you might easily run into one like that other paragon of Republican virtue, Sonny Bono, and get yourself killed. Be that as it may, you cited specific examples and others responded. It is you who has diverted the debate into an idiotic statistical analysis of political manipulation of data by the DoL. Here is the thing: even granting you're right about the statistics does not make your point for you. After all, those of us poor souls who, unlike you, do not have a degree in statistics (tree alert) but who have to use the stuff for our work (because we are economists and law professors and litigators and writers, and sometimes all in one) have to rely on some source for the statistics we use. Irony's point is that unless we are all going to go mad trying to redo all the statistics that the Government of the United States produces, we are entitled to rely on these statistics and cite them in our work. EVEN IF the underlying statistics are incorrect, citing them, with ten percent plus or minus, is not "falsification of the public record". Let me, in closing, turn to your diatribe - for I cannot characterise it otherwise - against Sotomayor. You specifically note: "Sotomayor typifies the left's racist and misandrist obsession with identity politics." Even if that were the case, this still does not actually support your point, does it. In fact, nothing you wrote about judges and the law and the Founding Fathers - and, frankly, I suggest you stick to statistics, for evidently you know nothing of law, lawyers, judges or the Founding Fathers, and I can judge (pace yourself) because I am a law professor - actually supports the point about liberals "falsifying the public record." For, "obsession with identify politics", or even racism or misandry (nice touch, that), does not necessarily mean you are taking something and presenting it as something it is not, and something you know it is not. All of the crap you have written about Sotomayor and Venezuelans simply amount to a difference of *opinion* and *perspective* about the nature and value of identity in judging. If I said Scalia is a freaking moron because of his idiotic beliefs in the sanctity of the single cell conception or his fantastical ideas about originalism, I am not falsifying the public record; I am merely expressing a view that you could agree or disagree with. Now, if I said that Clarence Thomas writes cogent and well-argued judicial opinions, you are entitled to charge me with falsifying the public record, for that is manifestly not the case.

- icarusr

April 5, 2010 at 4:19pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

TNR.R - I'm sorry, exactly what is your point? To be clear, the post that you responded to is a Republican member of Congress deliberately distorting a statement made by someone else, in a fashion that is clearly beyond what is normally accepted in due course for debate. However for some reason we are debating statements that are surely made by some, and misrepresented by others, but are irrelevant to the original post and, I'll wager, not representative of the views of many of the frequent posters here who can defend their position. You are waving a very broad brush in response to a very specific observation. And sorry, but I don't care to do my own research - if you are making a claim, normally the onus is upon the claimant to provide some evidence. As for the articles that you did post, they, like me, agree with you that women (in the median) earn less than men *precisely for the factors that you list*. Did you read articles before linking to them? The problem that exists is that roughly 50% of our population can expect to earn less than men due to a factor that they had no control over. And median or population samples are what policy is generally based on rather than individual cases. Now in an ideal, sexless world where men and women are treated equally this would not be the case. Obviously out in the real world there are some innate differences, so the question is whether the differences are purely due to these difference or other factors, some of which are amenable to legislation. The womansnews article did note that the wage gap is almost gone amongst younger workers, and is more pronounced for older workers. And this makes sense; a woman entering the workforce today has considerably more options, support and means of legal redress than one 50 years ago did. Ergo, in general, women earn less than men. No-one is claiming that this is for the same job, which as I noted, is illegal, and last time a real case of this occured, the GOP ignored it and the liberals intervened! What is your point of contention here?

- Nari224

April 5, 2010 at 4:20pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Re your PS to Irony, it is the singular trait of a closed and unimaginative mind to fixate on an issue and miss the whole point of the discussion.

- icarusr

April 5, 2010 at 4:21pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Apologies - I don't care to do my own research into your claims that are made without evidence.

- Nari224

April 5, 2010 at 4:26pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"I'm not sure whether you deliberately misunderstood. I meant question the left's repeated use of the 2% and 70% statistics." I know you did -- that's what funny, in sort of a cruel way. But, moving right along, I don't really grasp what this whole debate we've been having is about, reader. Once again, I'm AGREEING with you that the 70% claim is wrong, and if anybody makes that claim you can happily (a) tell them so, and (b) refer them to the DOL figures to be corrected if they don't believe you. So, what's the problem? It's a bit baffling.

- ironyroad

April 5, 2010 at 5:07pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

For the sceptics, here are a few more mainstream-media synopses of farcical DoL stats: The DoL jobs count (birth-death) farce: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/how_nation_true_jobless_rate_is_N4E6MjtfhnMcCi537pucaJ http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2004/10/beware_the_birt.html The DoL unemployment rate farce: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/bronx_cheer_for_the_unemployment_6C1GdORHoKjsvdrlffu7SN http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/doctor_note_required_to_read_this_xUd1QgPrRNwN7MXlX9BkKP

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 6:20pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Icarus it is the singular trait of a closed and unimaginative mind to fixate on an issue and miss the whole point of the discussion Which is precisely what has been done here - the issue is not any specific feminist myth, but the fact that the left propagates as many myths as the right, in an analogous "misinformation feedback loop". Re appeal to authority - Irony is holding up DoL as a ultimate authority. The fallacy holds. Nari You've a closed mind. So closed, in fact, that you may have just determined me to vote Republican next time. I must commend everyone here for proving my points - the liberal mind is as closed as the conservative, as immune to reality, and as addicted to falsification.

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 6:27pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Re appeal to authority - Irony is holding up DoL as a ultimate authority. The fallacy holds." Dude, I'm merely saying that the DOL figures serve to CONFIRM that the third citation you list is indeed wrong (= a fallacy), so I'm wondering why you're attacking the DOL the whole time.'

- ironyroad

April 5, 2010 at 6:34pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Icarus, are you argung that women are paid less than men, or are not? Much of the left insists they are, using bogus "facts." Some here have (quite unbelievably) denied that the left could ever be guilty of such mis-representation as Ryan. But the proof is easy. Look at any comments Democrats Jim Moran or James Traficant or Cynthia McKinney have ever made about AIPAC or Israel. Also interesting that there seems to have been little attention here to my poits about the left's myths about Israel or about the ostensible 2% false rape rate.

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 6:56pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

For the sceptics, here are a few more synopses of farcical DoL stats (reposted due to format probelms above): The DoL unemployment rate farce: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/bronx_cheer_for_the_unemployment_6C1GdORHoKjsvdrlffu7SN http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/doctor_note_required_to_read_this_xUd1QgPrRNwN7MXlX9BkKP The DoL jobs count (birth-death) farce: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/how_nation_true_jobless_rate_is_N4E6MjtfhnMcCi537pucaJ http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2004/10/beware_the_birt.html

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 7:08pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

The true irony (not a moniker) is that, as an independent, I see both parties as too often incompetent and almost as often outrightly dishonest. Neither party has a monopoly on sainthood, on evil, on dishonesty, or on distortions to fit ideology. If the point here is simply that Ryan misquoted, either intentionally, or unintentionally as a result of living in a conservative echo chamber, then that's probably true. But the conservatives have no monopoly on distortions or taking material out of context, having filed false ethics charges against Gingrich, and having threatened black academics who were to testify in favour of Bork/Thomas. As for competence, Obama has done well with healthcare, but has set Mideast progress back half a century to "proximity talks" - and reneged on enough agreements to convince the Israeli public not to trust US security guarantees. Thinking either party honest or competent is simply naive (or rigidly partisan).

- TNR.Reader

April 5, 2010 at 9:51pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

TNR.r I wholeheartedly applaud your stated intention to vote. However I will confess to some surprise that someone would freely admit that they would base one of their most important civic duties not on something as old fashioned as an analysis of the issues, but rather on comments made on an anonymous blog of a left leaning political journal. It is also ironic that you have chosen the party that, based on their actions when last in power, are most likely to change what is not true today (a woman will earn less than men for doing the same job), the missppreciation of which appears to greatly concern you, into something that is true! I agree with you that there are people who either intentionally or unintentionally misrepresent what the DoL median statistics mean. They are wrong. Based on the sample of evidence that you have brought to the discussion, they are also pretty rare. However, it is still not clear to me how this is analogous to Ryan's apparent deliberate misrepresentation of Frank's words.

- Nari224

April 5, 2010 at 10:13pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

PropJoe summarised the matter succinctly: "Look, this type of verbal prestidigitation is (an admittedly distasteful) part of politics." He also correctly pointed out that it's not confined to one party. His astute comments were principally ignored, a clear indication that I shoud not have bothered with rigid, fanatical ideologues.

- TNR.Reader

April 6, 2010 at 3:07am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

TNR: perhaps unwittingly (for much of what you write is witless), by quoting an earlier post of PropJoe and ignoring his later comment, you have proved precisely the point we all have been trying to make: conservatives' utter disdain for what is the public record and their, and your, ability to tell a bold-faced distortion while posing in sanctimonious smugness. For, in respect of the same passage of my post that YOU found problematic (and that launched your idiotic posts), PropJoe said: "A point well made and well taken. Cheers." This is not some other passage of my post; it is the same one. This is not some other PropJoe, it is the same one. He did make the point you refer to in your last post, but then he agreed with my comment. You ignore his agreement and refer to the earlier post. This is intellectual dishonesty, to be sure, but moronic dishonesty because ... well because everyone can read the thread and see how you have distorted the record. Your last post stands for the very proposition that you have been arguing against. Classic.

- icarusr

April 6, 2010 at 9:53am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

SHARE HIGHLIGHT

0 CHARACTERS SELECTED

TWEET THIS

POST TO TUMBLR

SHARE ON FACEBOOK

Close