or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
•
"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
November 30, 2004
The Art of the Fallback Position
I've always enjoyed watching America's political class engaging in the art of the fallback position. This art involves taking a position, and then when that's proven false, immediately falling back to another position that vindicates you. The greatest practitioners of the art sometimes execute the fallback nine or ten times without breaking a sweat, and (most importantly) without ever really admitting their previous positions were wrong.
For instance, regarding Iraq and WMD, it went like this:
1. Iraq has terrifying WMD.
2. Iraq doesn't have terrifying WMD because they were moved to Syria.
3. Iraq doesn't have terrifying WMD and they weren't moved to Syria, but it's not our fault because everyone thought they had WMD.
4. Iraq doesn't have terrifying WMD and they weren't moved to Syria and not everyone thought they had WMD, but we were fooled because even Saddam thought they had WMD.
5. Iraq doesn't have terrifying WMD and they weren't moved to Syria and not everyone thought they had WMD and Saddam didn't think they had WMD, but Iraq would have had them after two seconds if we'd turned our backs.
6. Michael Moore ate the WMD.
In this article, we can admire the artistry of the same people regarding global warming. They have now (after heavy incoming fire) abandoned positions #1 and #2 on the list below, and fallen back to a position somewhere between #3 and #4. I assume fairly soon they'll fall back to #5, until we get the real excitement of #6.
1. There is no global warming.
2. There is global warming, but it isn't caused by man.
3. There is global warming, and it's caused by man, but not so much so as to get all upset about it.
4. There is global warming, and it's caused by man, but it's not worth getting upset about because parts of it will actually be GOOD!
5. There is global warming, and it's caused by man, and it's worth getting upset about but it's too late to do anything about it now.
6. Let's invade Siberia since we can't grow food anymore in the US.
Posted at November 30, 2004 07:41 PM | TrackBack
How true. It made me laugh because when I see it in writing like that it seems even more ridiculous. 51% of the country was too blind to notice it. You gotta admit it's funny in a 'How sad and pathetic' sort of way.
Posted by: PrincessEvilina at December 1, 2004 12:12 AMUnfortunately, most people are content with getting all of their information third-hand.
So, when some talking head on Faux News says "Global Warming is a 'theory' promoted by the LIBERAL Scientist Coalition," you can bet your sweet bippy that the majority of neanderthals will think "Global Warming = Liberals = Socialists = increase taxes to save tree huggers = bad!" Instead of critically thinking about the issue and maybe doing a minimal amount of research (hell, just a simple Google), they swallow that crap like it was the gospel.
Well, maybe one reason why ShrubCo wants to cut the National Science Foundation's funding is to minimize the number of critical thinkers who might stir up trouble. One of the core things you learn on your way towards earning a BS is how to think. We can't have that. You might look behind the curtain.
"Intellectual activity is a danger to the building of character" -- Joseph Goebbels
Posted by: Bry at December 1, 2004 03:07 AMIt's about a million miles beyond scary, and to use the word "Orwellian" re: "Global warming is good for man!" just won't work. Black is white and up is down, and even those analogies won't work anymore...my rhetorical question is this: at what point do the billions of people who live on a planet being destroyed by thousands, maybe hundreds of people, rise up in a way that isn't happy or nice and DEMAND that those motherfuckers do the right thing OR ELSE?
Just wondering.
Posted by: Robespierre Jefferson at December 1, 2004 03:47 PMThe Bart Simpson fall-back zen poem:
I didn't do it.
Nobody saw me.
You can't prove a thing.
Only, it's up to 27 or 28 fallbacks now for the answer to Why We Are Up To Our Ass In Iraqi Alligators.
Going through those is hard work. Hard, hard work.
Posted by: Duh at December 5, 2004 08:09 PM
