CommentsDisplaying FosterDulles's 10 most recent comments.

• Does Raw Video of NPR Expose Reveal Questionable Editing & Tactics?

  March 15, 2011 at 6:00pm

  In reply to NickDeringer.

  You need to be critical of everyone, not just individuals whose ideology you disagree with. James O‘Keefe’s work has been of consistently poor quality in terms of methodology and he hasn‘t yet released a video that wasn’t on very shaky ethical grounds. You can‘t just make the assumption that it’s good or reliable reporting just because it confirms what you already believe. That’s not how evidence works.

• Does Raw Video of NPR Expose Reveal Questionable Editing & Tactics?

  March 15, 2011 at 4:41pm

  In reply to Gonzo.

  He didn’t resign. He took another job several months ago and left to assume that post. The timing was coincidence.

  Even then, your post is an example of what’s known as a “post hoc, ergo propter hoc” fallacy – the belief that because two events are connected in time that they must necessarily be related, or that the former was the cause of the latter. Not always the case. It also doesn’t establish his guilt. As I explained above, they aren’t connected, and, as the unedited version of the video demonstrates above, there‘s a good argument to be made that he’s not guilty. Now the question becomes: who are you going to believe, James O’Keefe or your lying eyes?

• Does Raw Video of NPR Expose Reveal Questionable Editing & Tactics?

  March 15, 2011 at 4:34pm

  In reply to mikenleeds.

  Mikenleeds – that’s incredibly fuzzy logic. If I had it in my mind that the folks who publish dictionaries are dangerous perverts hoping to corrupt the minds of the young, and to prove it I went to a dictionary and deleted all the words except “penis,” that wouldn‘t mean that I’d proved the folks over at Merriam Webster are perverts. It means that I’ve altered the record in order to make a point which I had already predetermined. This doesn’t get me closer to “the truth” – in fact, it puts me much farther away.

  There are such things are relevant contexts. I think it‘s well documented above that O’Keefe was purposefully falsifying the record to slander NPR and its executives. The unedited version of the video (by its *un*edited nature) gives you an approximation of “the truth.” A maliciously edited one obtained under false pretenses only provides you with whatever distortion you happen to believe at the moment. Further it erodes any credibility you may hope to maintain when making your argument and provides anyone else you’re talking to with the sense that your efforts are completely lacking in any sort of ethical compass and are not to be trusted, thus weakening your position in the long run.