[Dean's World] Dave Price: Glenn Reynolds, Christine Rosen, and Unintentional Irony

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Price:
Glenn Reynolds, Christine Rosen, and Unintentional Irony
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1150827553.shtml


   Via [1]Glenn, I noted this [2]this review of his book[3] An Army of
   Davids by Christine Rosen from TNR, which I thought I should comment
   on.
   First off we get the usual complaint that blogs don't have the layers
   of fact-checking, etc., that MSM have and are thus inferior. That
   argument was never strong and has been pretty well debunked by the
   simple observations that 1) blogs correct in real-time via reader
   feedback, 2) credibility is a bloggers' stock-in-trade, and 3) MSM get
   things wrong all the time anyway.
   Rosen then misstates Instapundit's laconic news/opinion aggregation
   and argument-by-proxy as "vacuity," a category error if I've ever seen
   one. This is like complaining that your car lacks a mizzenmast and
   tends to take on water in heavy seas. Later, she says "Reynolds's
   terse, almost meaningless commentary may make him the reductio ad
   absurdum of the blogosphere's worst tendencies." No, Christine, your
   distortions and inability to comprehend Glenn's argument-by-proxy
   style may make you the reductio ad absurdum of the MSM's worst
   tendencies.
   Next we get complaints that AOD's predictions of technologic advance
   are overly optimistic -- amusingly, this comes on the same day as
   [4]IBM's announcement of a revolutionary 300Ghz transistor, two orders
   of magnitude times faster than current versions. OK, so Rosen's not a
   fan of Sinularitarianism or transhumanists. Fair enough, though her
   sniffing dismissal of them lacks much substance, and thus smacks of
   some sort of hitherto unknown Luddo-elitism.
   This part is outright deceptive, though:

     Or he'll carp, "Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, is just dumb"--a
     point that may be perfectly true but probably requires some
     explanation or proof beyond the simple assertion.

   Pretty rare I see assertions like that from Glenn absent explanatory
   context. And in fact, searching that phrase, I find [5]this entry:

     Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, is just [6]dumb.

   The word "dumb" is actually linked to the explanation. It's dishonest
   of Rosen to claim he provided no proof or explanation. Where were the
   vaunted "editors and peer review," the indispensable "superego
   checking the authorial id" she champions in her piece?
   It's always amusing when an article provides it's own rebuttal.

References

   1. http://instapundit.com/archives/030984.php
   2. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060626&s=rosen062606
   3. http://armyofdavids.com/
   4. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060620/tc_nm/ibm_dc_1
   5. http://instapundit.com/archives/029931.php
   6. http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/04/how_dumb_is_pel.html