In the wake of the leaked audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur, the media is going through another round of spinning its own failure to pursue the question of Biden’s obvious mental and physical decline. That is no more evident than at CNN, which was one of the most hostile networks to such questions before Biden withdrew from the presidential race after his disastrous debate. The struggle was on full display on Friday.
CNN’s host Jake Tapper has faced withering attacks over his publication of a book investigating Biden’s decline, long after the public learned the truth during the debate. While Tapper has admitted that he could have pushed harder on the question, he has been critical of the White House staff and others who hid the truth from the media despite the fact that many were attacked on CNN for raising the issue (including by Tapper).
On Friday’s CNN’s “The Lead,” CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Pérez raised the same rationale for the performance that the White House used after the debate: Biden was tired due to performing his duties as president. Just as the White House raised how Biden was coming off an international trip before the election, Pérez noted that the interview came after the October 7 attack when Biden “had spent that entire time, obviously, on the phone and working long hours.”
“look, one of the other things that I think is key to understanding this, during this interview, the context, right, is that, you remember, he sat down for these interviews in October of, when, right after the attack by Hamas in Israel. And so, he had spent that entire time, obviously, on the phone and working long hours. And so, the big question, of course, became, a president of his age, and given the stresses of what he was going through, should he have sat down, should that have been the time for him to sit down for several hours of interviews — and they do go over two days of interviews with prosecutors — with everything that they had on the line? Clearly, Joe Biden thought that it was fine to do that. But, clearly, you can see from some of his answers that he does not have a handle on some of this. And so you could say, was it because of fatigue, or is it because of the things that you write about in your book, Jake? And so, that’s the big — I think, the big takeaway or big question that people will take away from listening to this audio.”
On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN NewsNight,” host Abby Phillip blamed not Hamas but Democrats and Hur:
“[I]f Democrats had taken seriously, which, by the way, in a way, Robert Hur kind of undersold this. He kind of threw Joe Biden a lifeline. It was an opportunity, actually, for Democrats to take it seriously, maybe change gears at that point, and maybe [give] a potential nominee more time.”
CNN Political Commentator Maria Cardona piped in that you should not forget to blame the First Lady: “I think, at the end of the day, the accountability falls with Joe Biden, and, frankly, probably, with Jill Biden too, because –.”
Phillip responded, “Yeah, that’s true, but it also falls on the Democratic Party that ostracized people who said anything about Joe Biden’s — attacking the media for even raising the issue of his age, when, clearly, it was an issue. There’s accountability there, too.”
The only lack of accountability has been for the media itself, which is again spinning its own role in dismissing these accounts.
This effort continued right up to the debate itself. CNN’s Oliver Darcy wrote, “Right-wing media figures are desperately pushing conspiracy theories about Biden ahead of the debate.”
As Joe Concha has pointed out, media outlets attacked Hur after the report to dismiss accounts of Biden’s diminishment when he was still the Democratic standard bearer. Media sources like the Atlantic followed the lead of the White House in attacking Hur for “misleading” the public on Biden’s memory.
Now, Hur is being attacked on CNN for “downplaying” the extent of the diminishment.
What is striking about these accounts is that they suggest that the media was kept in the dark and omit the fact that it was ignoring or opposing those in the media who were raising the concerns. This was an active effort to swat down such concerns until it no longer mattered after the public saw the truth. The media then investigated a story that was impossible to deny or ignore.
The public is obviously not buying it. Instead they are increasingly looking to new media and social media for their news.
Blaming Hamas or Hur is not going to work. For most viewers, it is another “Let’s Go Brandon” moment.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
“CNN’s Oliver Darcy wrote, ‘Right-wing media figures are desperately pushing conspiracy theories about Biden ahead of the debate.”
Well, whaddaya know? Here’s yet ANOTHER ‘conspiracy theory’ that was proved to be true.
I’ve lost count of how many that have, but it’s always nice to be reminded.
“Now, Hur is being attacked on CNN for “downplaying” the extent of the diminishment.”
**************************
Entirely predictable and all done according to the progressive playbook. Polite Asian Republican DOJ Lawyer understates the extent of Biden’s senility (and refuses obvious criminal charges on some very suspect grounds, i.e. “jury won’t convict,” (How do you know Svengali?) and then gets vaporized for it by the Press who applauded the decision at the time. The immensity of the Left’s profligacy never disappoints.
CNN hates the truth
Couldn’t identify it with a map and dictionary.
A doctor with outstanding credibility in the area of prostate cancer implied this morning that a U.S. President who has to be one of the most closely medically monitored throughout their presidency could not have gotten a ‘clean bill of health’ a year ago, and have developed aggressive prostate cancer within a one year period —
Which begs the question: what is the bigger scandal? Biden’s mental acuity or Biden’s hiding aggressive prostate cancer?
Tapper and CNN, the people who genuflect and carry water for democrats, desperately trying to spin what they did to create the illusion that they are actually ‘journalists’. The normal Americans – non progressives who are not infected with TDS – will never buy their spin. The left wing base will, who of course are dumber than a box of rocks, and who now see the bartender AOC as an actual presidential candidate. And the audacity of Tapper to try and sell a book about this and cash in….after being part and parcel of the Biden dementia cover up.
The Biden Media Hoax is the biggest journalism scandal since the Communist Hysteria of the 1950’s, when professional journalists abandoned all their ethics to be the first to report the latest fake horror stories from Sen. McCarthy and Roy Cohn.
The flood of fake news leading to the Iraq War was paler and less dramatic by comparison.
It is no accident that anti-Russian sentiment lay at the nub of both the 50’s and 20’s scandals.
Amazing how they lied to us and still think we should believe them.
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1924238083462963467
Disgrace. Never forget.
I never look to the mainstream media for new. I have ZERO trust in them. The only way I would watch the news is if American television does what Mexican television does and puts on an attractive weather girl. Even then I would only watch the weather. The propaganda is over the top and it’s for the sheeple democrats. Not all democrats, just the really stupid ones that actually believe Rachel Maddow is giving them unbiased information.
OT
The order of greeters was interesting as to those who greeted Pope Leo XIV today after his inauguration
Vice President JD Vance ➡️ Secretary of State Marco Rubio ➡️ Pope’s oldest brother and his wife where the Pope embraced his brother. Beautiful.
JD Vance is a convert to Catholicism and adopted the name Augustine as his Confirmation name. Thus it is eye opening that JD “Augustine” Vance greets an Augustinian religious priest, now Pope, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the theology St Augustine. Very historic times as a Catholic and American.
Come back to the Church, Jonathan Turley
“Brenden Dilley
@WarlordDilley
In order to believe the Biden cancer diagnosis, you have to first believe that Biden and his family would wilfully tell you the truth about anything.
In order for that to happen, you have to be fvcking retarded.”
^^^ 100% True ^^^^
Joe Biden is the same crooked, lying, POS, blowhard scumbag he has always been. No sympathy for this POS who sold out his country to our enemies to enrich himself and his family of degenerates. FJB and F his despicable wife too. Good riddance to the Biden Crime Family. They all belong in prison. NO SYMPATHY for this POS. None.
Trump sent his sympathies.
Obviously he is a traitor to the MAGA cult.
Time for him to go I think.
Because Trump is a good man.
There are hundreds of stories over many decades told about Trump’s kindness and generosity.
DJT never mentions any of them. But people who know Trump, know he is a good man.
Likewise, there are hundreds of stories people tell about what a POS Biden is and always was.
Clarence Thomas, for one, can tell stories about how despicable and dishonest Joe Biden actually is.
Both Biden and the fake news media paint totally false narratives about Biden being a good, decent, compassionate man. All bullshlit.
TRUTH is that Biden is NONE of these things.
Biden remains the despicable lying POS he has always been. His wife is even worse if that’s possible to be.
You need look no further than the fact that Biden disowned his own grandaughter, the poor girl (Navy) who was unfortunate enough to be sired by Biden’s absolutely despicable, lowlife, pedophile/crackhead son Hunter. It was only after this was exposed in the media did the lying, demented, crime syndicate boss Biden accept her as his granddaughter; what normal person would do such a thing?
maybe you should.
YAWN
The Hur interview pulling punches and treating old Joe with kid gloves was pathetic. Joe Biden committed CRIMES by having classified documents he had NO authority to have scattered all over his home and in his CCP-funded Penn Center. Yet this POS Biden had his corrupt DOJ go after Trump for what HE himself had been doing for decades! Biden is such a reprehensible lying POS. LOCK HIM UP. HE’s a F’ing CRIMINAL
“LOCK HIM UP. HE’s a F’ing CRIMINAL”
Biden can get his medical care in Rikers Island prison. Rot in prison you POS.
I appreciate President Trump’s appropriate response to the cancer diagnosis news. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5306739-trump-biden-prostate-cancer-diagnosis/
Trump is a traitor to the MAGA cause.
Time for him to go.
I’d sit at your feet but I’m drool intolerant.
“@LauraLoomer
Joe Biden sent J6ers with cancer to prison & denied them medication.
I’m not going to give up my dream of seeing him spend time in prison.
Biden locked cancer patients up in solitary confinement.
He set the precedent for himself.
He didn’t pardon himself.
Biden for Prison!”
^^^^ 100% agree ^^^^^ NO sympathy. FJB x a gazillion.
That is true.
“@TRHLofficial
So it seems the deep state took a career politician with dementia & cancer, staged a riot to certify his mathematically improbable election, arrested anyone who contested it, sanctioned an invasion, weaponized the courts, silenced speech, and turned the US into sodom & Gomorrah.”
^^^^ 100% ^^^^^
Stage 4. That was fast
“8 6 4 7”
James Comey perpetuates the Obama Coup D’état in America by allegedly inciting to assassinate the president.
Obama’s third term ends when the Obama-run Biden administration is voted out.
Obama’s fourth term is now impossible.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
__________________________________________________
“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
– Barack Obama
___________________
“We will stop him.”
– Peter Strzok to FBI paramour Lisa Page
_____________________________________________
“[Obama] wants to know everything we’re doing.”
– Lisa Page to FBI paramour Peter Strzok
_____________________________________________
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before 40.”
– Peter Strzok to FBI parmour Lisa Page
____________________________________________
“People on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this [Trump] server.”
– Bill Priestap
________________
“I had a discussion with the case team and we believe there to be predication to include former President of the United States Donald J. Trump as a predicated subject.”
– Timothy Thibault to John Crabb, U.S. Attorney’s Office, D.C.
__________________________________________________________________
The Obama Coup D’etat in America is the most egregious abuse of power and the most prodigious crime in American political history. The co-conspirators are:
Kevin Clinesmith, Bill Taylor, Eric Ciaramella, Rosenstein, Mueller/Team, Andrew Weissmann,
James Comey, Christopher Wray, McCabe, Strozk, Page, Laycock, Kadzic, Sally Yates,
James Baker, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Priestap, Kortan, Campbell, Sir Richard Dearlove,
Christopher Steele, Simpson, Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer, Stefan “The Walrus” Halper,
Azra Turk, Kerry, Hillary, Huma, Mills, Brennan, Gina Haspel, Clapper, Lerner, Farkas, Power,
Lynch, Rice, Jarrett, Holder, Brazile, Sessions (patsy), Nadler, Schiff, Pelosi, Obama,
Joe Biden, James E. Boasberg, Emmet Sullivan, Gen. Milley, George Soros, John McCain,
Marc Elias, Igor Danchenko, Fiona Hill, Charles H. Dolan, Jake Sullivan, Strobe Talbot,
Cody Shear, Victoria Nuland, Ray “Red Hat” Epps, Don Berlin, Kathy Ruemmler, Rodney Joffe,
Paul Vixie, L. Jean Camp, Andrew Whitney, Lisa O. Monaco, Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg,
Matthew Colangelo, Merrick Garland, Juan Merchan, Timothy Thibault et al.
ProfJT for Chief of SCOTUS!
NOW IT’S PROSTATE CANCER
So Obongo’s Biden handlers go for the sympathy vote with “prostate cancer.”
Of course. What else?
Any reputable news outlet would obtain at least three sources for a presidential level “fake” defense “story.”
This tale should have been held in queue until at least three certified physicians officially examined the patient and made this diagnosis.
In light of the just announced stage 4 metastasized prostate cancer – they did a very good job at hiding the truth . Now we need to know who knew what when and why they obfuscated his entire administration.
Well thank heaven for mifepristone. What woman in her right mind would have children or be forced to give birth to a rapists child joining her DNA with a criminal.
Goodbye
So we may arbitrarily eliminate people of any and all ages, stages, types, and descriptions?
The rapist’s family and “type” may like it just fine.
You don’t like rapist or “mixed” (exactly what does that mean?) DNA.
I have a really bad neighbor.
A woman isn’t randomly selecting. It doesn’t affect you. It’s a worse crime to have a child in your world than an early abortion is. A child born addicted to drugs to a prostitute drug addicted , homeless woman? Enjoy your next incarnation.
You mother was pro-life. Why do you worship abortion?
There are lives not worth living and there is life that’s worse than death. Isn’t it really you, your culture, society, civilization in which rape is and you have the right to tell her what she will and won’t do? Your culture caused the abortion. What will you do next? Force her to marry the rapist.
Your world is worse than death and it’s a world of opposites. Where bad is good but why? Because it’s that bad. Who made it so? Those who condemn.
DNA lasts forever. Forever as your pope curses people.
Goodbye
Job: it’s better to have been a miscarriage? Surely you must know it.
That’s the saddest thing I’ve seen in a long time. You said that “there are lives that are just not worth living.” Who are you to pass judgement on anyone? I gather that you do not believe inGod. If you do then you are forcibly rejecting the gift of life He gave you through your mother and father. As I said, sad.
Yep, it’s a really sad world. A starving woman with AIDS gives birth to a baby with AIDS. What a life. How dare you speak for God.
Worship abortion? You’re sick.
how dare YOU?
in ‘God’s’ universe, the individual counts for nothing. nature cares about mass reproduction and large litters. as was noticed by the Realists of the late 1800s, it is a cold uncaring universe.
this is the world we live in, and yes it is insufferably sad. but given the amount of suffering and death among the young, deaths in avalanches, floods and earthquakes, famines, etc, it is beyond your or my reach to claim we know better.
you invoke a starving mom as if this too is a tragic aspect of natural life. is it? why is she starving? how did she become addicted? why did she get pregnant? what accounts for the devastated landscape of her mind to make these choices? who forgave her? who offered her drugs? why the worthless parenting in her youth?
what popular social and entertainment industry influencers encouraged her choices?
anyway, neither God nor nature cares about your or my opinion. (draw?)
My gawd, Jocelyn Nungaray and you just say what?? Oh the gift of life. Maybe she conceived by those TWO men? Oh well, gods will.
Goodbye– when do you take up arms and fight it?
I agree with Pence on that horrible speech given by Trump in Abu Dhabi. This time I agree with Pence.
It’s an evil time.
She was 12 years old.
It affects a separate and sovereign human being who is demonstrating IT’S choice to live by persisting continuously and without relenting.
And here are some bonus scientific facts that prove it’s not just an organ or part of the mother.
During its early stages of development, the placenta of the unborn child secretes neurokinin B-containing phosphocoline molecules, which protects the child from detection by its mother’s immune system, because it can be interpreted as a foreign body and is subject to attack. This is because the fetus is of non-identical genetic material to the mother due to their different DNA.
Also present in the unborn child are lymphocytic suppressor cells which stop interleukin 2 (IL2) cells from signalling cytotoxic T cells to kill the child. The purpose of IL2 cells is to distinguish between self and non-self (parts of the mother and foreign parts). The lymphocytic cells would not need to inhibit the response of the cytotoxic T cells if the IL2 did not signal the feuts as a foreign body. This would not occur if it was one of her own organs because the response would not be initiated.
An organ does not have its own organs. The fetal heartbeat begins at around 22 days after fertilisation as I said earlier, and brain waves are detected at about six weeks, which means the unborn child has a heart and a brain. At seven weeks, all other organs are present, although not fully developed, which would mean not only did the mother have an organ with different DNA to her, but this organ also has its own organ systems, and so the mother has an extra heart, brain, stomach, liver, etc.
– Emma Greenland-Broadsmith
Who is it’s father? A liar, thief, rapist , murderer?
who is IT IS father. goddam.
for possession by a non-human, write ITS without the apostrophe, or you are writing IT IS.
After they them, I adopted “its”.
Who is the father? ^^
Move if your neighbor is bad. Are u 12?
You pay the costs?
Fresh out of lamp oil
Pope Leo took a swipe at Trump at his inauguration today.
Then he basically ignored JD Vance in the line of dignitaries.
Then, of all the world leaders present today, he chose to have his very first private meeting with Zelenskyy, where they exchanged gifts and spent considerable time together.
Cue the MAGA outrage and insults !!!!!
Lets see what insults you people here can up with.
I can’t wait.
That guy was impeached the minute the church went full political, rather than religious, with the affirmative action appointment of an “african” pope, according to Sunny Hostin.
Poor effort at insulting.
Lacks snark and condescension.
The racist comment is a little too subtle for MAGA world.
I rate the insult at D minus.
The mild racism saved you from an F.
Try again.
I know you can do better.
Shall we consult DNA Specialist Sunny Hostin, Einstein?
For those of you pseudo-intellectuals in Rio Linda, the point is that the church acted politically rather than religiously and lost all credibility, religious and otherwise.
I give you an F for abject and utter failure.
Next question.
Another poor effort at insulting.
You seem surprised that the Pope acted politically.
Really ????
Have you just flown in from another planet.
The Catholic Church has always been political since it inception 2,000 years ago.
The Popes have always wielded political power.
For the record, I am an atheist.
I have no interest in the religiosity or otherwise of the Pope’s speech or actions.
Leo seems like a good and decent man.
As far as I am concerned his religious beliefs are irrelevant.
The point is that he is prepared to speak out against the humanitarian crimes of the Trump administration.
And in so doing he will raise the ire of the MAGA cult, as you have so ably demonstrated.
What about the Medicis
What about child abuse, that wasn’t necessarily religious either, except, possibly, for Catholics.
An atheist by will? If God walked up to you you’d spit in his face? Atheist?
And if pigs could fly we would all be covered in pig sh!t.
Makes about as much sense as your stupid comment.
arrogant little stuffed shirt, ain’t cha? usually it’s recommended to actually say something worth hearing before looking down on us. you could say something of substance, or say something artfully. it’s fun and easy. in fact, you are free to say something intelligent at every moment you’re awake! one little mot, and everyone will see the scintillating brain you hint at.
I’m pulling up a chair.
I’m pulling up a chair– worthy comment.
The catholic ayotollah? Only you care.
How about
YAWN
Does your head spin while vomiting? HAL
A sound take on President Autopen and ‘His’ pardons.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-old-man-bidens-autopen-pardons-should-null-void
I expect to be very disappointed if this administration doesn’t follow up on these crimes.
Dear Prof Turley,
Virtually all the Democrats want to move on now. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard a thousand times. I would want to move on too .. . if I had gone to bat for ‘genocide’ Joe and his whole freakish family.
They all say: dgsnowden, get over it. Move on. Bigger fish to fry and it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Like Hitler, Trump is an existential threat to freedom, democracy, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
*Trump is way too wimpy for that, imo .. . Hitler would have never let the SCOTUS stand in his way.
Turley– “The public is obviously not buying it. Instead they are increasingly looking to new media and social media for their news.:
EXACTLY.
Free markets work
Tell communist California, where that state unconstitutionally seized the private property (now public) free-market homeowners insurance industry and destroyed it, making policies difficult if not impossible to obtain, requiring state participation in that very free market.
These —-ing communists are insane.
Private property is private, and it is not public.
Only owners have the power to “claim and exercise” dominion.
If the 5th Amendment right to private property is not absolute, the right to private property does not exist.
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
The little I’ve heard of the tapes, it seems Hur did a good job. Nothing will happen to Biden nor anyone. Negligence and people standing by doing nothing as heinous murders occur unheard of in the United States. Outside of a defensive military there’s nothing left to pay for. States can raise their own militias for interstate wars.
This must be a risk penitentiary.
Obama was running the country criminally, illicitly, illegally, and unconstitutionally.
The president, Biden, that Obama “appointed” de facto was incompetent due to the dementia he presented ubiquitously, allowing the Obama “holdover” administration to exercise full control.
The Obama Coup D’etat in America persisted from 2016 to the 8 6 4 7 act of James Comey, and continues as we write.
My comment was censored. Of course he knows what it means and yes, he’d be happy if DJT were 86ed ame as those who hated JFK.
^^ same. Those guys like Comey are dangerous people.
The news of cancer comes out pre election and it’s a scramble. No candidate. The last person BO would want is Harris. They have no candidates. Seriously, Mary Ann Williamson? Bernie Sanders?
Now Trump is doing the Saber dance. It’s every man for himself
The problem for the regime media is that their credibility has been lost with the public and many of these outlets may be in danger of getting sold off or terminated by their corporate owners. I guess my problem is the remaining blindered doofuses who continue to watch these liars and gaslighters. It bodes ill for our political future that we have 30% of the country who are so blindly partisan and emotional that they demand that they be lied to. This however is part of a pattern that started in perhaps 2000 of corrupt elites from the media to the deep state to elite Universities of institutional power being wielded against the interests of working class Americans.
Good analysis except it started earlier than 2000. I saw this starting to happen when I was in college in the late 70’s early 80’s. That Reagan defeated Carter was a genuine shock to many of my fellow students, whereas the working man and woman could see that coming a mile away.
Oldman–
Yes, I saw the same with Reagan’s win.
And I certainly agree with dpy: “The problem for the regime media is that their credibility has been lost with the public and many of these outlets may be in danger of getting sold off or terminated by their corporate owners.”
I am amazed that they expect credibility–even reverence–when they openly declare against truth and objectivity at NPR and J Schools. It’s the narrative that counts and simple truth must not interfere with the narrative. Increasingly I am seeing “you can’t hate the media enough” so that sentiment against the corporate media is growing.
Yet I suppose they are relying on Hitler’s formula, lie big and repeat, repeat, repeat and the masses will believe. It’s almost as if J Schools are secretly using Mein Kampf for an instruction manual.
“It bodes ill for our political future that we have 30% of the country who are so blindly partisan and emotional that they demand that they be lied to.”
This blindness is not always a measure of intelligence. People who lack the ability to think critically can be swayed by fast talkers. But, what worries me are those with demonstrated intelligence. As an example a professor of Pediatrics and graduate of an Ivy League school just recently said it was Trump’s fault that we don’t have enough air traffic controllers. His reason, Trump fired them all.
This is very concerning.
“As an example a professor of Pediatrics and graduate of an Ivy League school just recently said it was Trump’s fault that we don’t have enough air traffic controllers. His reason, Trump fired them all.”
In light of the drastic (probably related) declines of Ivy League schools and the medical community, as well as the statement you cited, perhaps you should reconsider what you regard as “demonstrated intelligence”.
S. Meyer–
You have touched on something that has puzzled me for years, that clearly brilliant people sometimes adopt and defend propositions that are so obviously wrong that ordinary folk just getting on with their lives see through the deception almost at once. Why?
Perhaps the mental architecture of learning creates intellectual gaps where atrocious ideas can fit in like a missing puzzle piece. Once in it is supported and sustained by a mass of knowledge that is demonstrably true though that one piece is obviously false. Evidence to the contrary is ignored or, worse, unseeable.
Doubtless there are other and better explanations, but the phenomenon is real.
But it is worth remembering that with brilliant people sometimes the obviously wrong idea is true. It turns out that Earth really is not flat and really does go round the Sun. It is a credit to the human mind that the ancient Greeks, Aristarchos and Eratosthenes figured out that we went round the Sun and [Eratosthenes] did a pretty good calculation of the Earth’s circumference.
There is much room for wonder.
” and [Eratosthenes] did a pretty good calculation of the Earth’s”
When I was writing out a check to pay for my daughter’s expensive private school, that was the exact question I asked her when she was in seventh or eighth grade. She quickly answered Eratosthenes. I just as quickly signed the check. I was sure of the answer because I was reading the book, The Discoverers.
” brilliant people sometimes the obviously wrong idea is true.
It is probably a very complex reason, but brilliant people like to convince themselves of things that serve their best interest and then close their minds. Logic tells one group there is no God and another group there is. That question cannot be proven by either side with many questions left unanswered. Do the experts debating this subject ever say they don’t know? At least the religious ones default to faith which is important. Some on the other side fail to recognize that with time their facts change.
S. Meyer,
Smart daughter! Good for you and good for her! That is truly wonderful.
My daughter couldn’t have answered that question, but she might have done okay on the Persian Wars because when she was 10 or 11 I read a little bit of Herodotus to her each night until we finished. She particularly liked the irony of Croesus acting on the Delphic prophecy that if he attacked Persia he would destroy a great empire, not realizing it was his own empire that he would destroy.
You likely are right about brilliant people being susceptible to the same self interest problems as the rest of us. Galileo was hostile to Kepler but it was Kepler whose ellipses were more nearly correct descriptions of orbits. Both Copernicus and Galileo needed the epicycles found in Ptolemy, just not as many of them.
Young, we have intelligent children, and good parenting does make a difference. But listening to some of the people on this blog, I worry their children may not reach their potential—and may end up just like them.
S. Meyer–
Yes, that is a risk, if they have children.
There are agnostics. There are curious things in the world and no one notices. Very odd
Nasseem Talib the author of “the black Swan” and Anti-fragile, explained the over supply of IYI’s Intellectual yet idiots as a consequences of not having “skin in the game”.
Regardless of your level of intelligence NOTHING improves the quality of your decisions more than benefiting if they are good and suffereing if they are not.
Anyone who does not have a stake in the results of their decisions – should not be trusted. While this is more common on the left it is not about ideology.
If you do not have a stake in the outcome – the quality of your decisions is poor.
This is also called moral hazard.
John, “If you do not have a stake in the outcome – the quality of your decisions is poor. ”
That is certainly true most of the time which makes it all the more puzzling that Democrats are demanding the return of killers and gangsters to American communities and that males be allowed in girls’ dressing rooms and be allowed to compete against them in sports. Those insane positions are visibly damaging the public perception of them and yet they persist. I don’t get it.
The fellow in a previous article , Jason Stanley , studied it as – How Propaganda Works. Haven’t read it.
There’s all kinds of psych studies done at Yale. Bizarre what we think we know and don’t.
S. Meyer,
I previously said this:
“Perhaps the mental architecture of learning creates intellectual gaps where atrocious ideas can fit in like a missing puzzle piece. Once in it is supported and sustained by a mass of knowledge that is demonstrably true though that one piece is obviously false. Evidence to the contrary is ignored or, worse, unseeable.”
It occurs to me that once one understands this it is possible to create a true architecture of ideas with a puzzle slot where one can fit a false but important piece into the slot to maintain a narrative. Or let them deduce the missing piece on their own and making it more persuasive. Little Potemkin Villages.
I 1st noticed it in the George Bush Sr. Admin.