१९ ऑक्टोबर, २०१४

How to say something perfectly dumb.

It's easy to say something dumb, but it takes something special to say something as dumb as "Not sure when @SenRandPaul became a doctor, but says Ebola can spread from a person standing 3ft away #uhmm." That, from a CBS producer named Katy Conrad, who was being sarcastic about when Rand Paul, who is a doctor, "became a doctor." Well, I think you just have to get lucky to say something that perfectly dumb.

८८ टिप्पण्या:

Skeptical Voter म्हणाले...

If saying something stupid is "getting lucky", my guess is that CBS producer Katy Conrad gets lucky a lot.

Goldenpause म्हणाले...

She is perfect for CBS: She doesn't let the facts get in the way of the liberal "narrative." And CBS news wonders why many of us hold it in utter contempt?

Charlie म्हणाले...

The Tiffany Network

Seeing Red म्हणाले...

War on wimmin for pointing that out.

phantommut म्हणाले...

If I ever see her I'll be sure to try to sneeze in her face.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

Is there any such thing as a liberal with more than two simultaneously working brain cells?

Birkel म्हणाले...

Fake but accurate?
Wrong but right?
Journalism degree > medical degree, QED.

John म्हणाले...

I don't think one has to be lucky. One just needs the sense of moral and intellectual superiority that comes with a second rate education at journalism school and a liberal mindset.

acm म्हणाले...

It's easy enough. Just spend your early years in a bubble where people are other-ized to an extreme extent, and then spend your late adolescence and early adulthood carefully seeking out and maintaining a similar bubble. If you grow up knowing that doctors are smart (true enough) and Republicans are dumb, and never, ever challenge that, then it won't even occur to you that a Republican could be a doctor. People who disagree with you aren't smart enough to be doctors!

Seeing Red म्हणाले...

One would think a booker would then have him on the show so he can dumb down the explanation for the staff as to what it took to become an eye doctor. If she were blond, she might have an out.

Otoh, young and stupid in her position isn't attractive. Who does she know?

chillblaine म्हणाले...

I love Rush and am about to go work out while listening to his podcast.

Calling Sandra Fluke a slut was stupider than Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock squared.

Seeing Red म्हणाले...

Fluke fit, but the wimmin should have handled it. Slut shame her.

Hagar म्हणाले...

Well, strictly speaking, you can get infected by a person standing three feet away, if that person is "projectile vomiting," or something on that order.

Not knowing that the Pauls have medical degrees, on the other hand, makes you marvel about the density of the CBS cocoon.

CWJ म्हणाले...

Clicked through and just as I suspected the author of that tweet is a "young producer" aka twenty something child who already knows it all.

It is sobering to remember that behind every high profile politician or media person is a flock of such children doing the day to day work.

Xmas म्हणाले...

Hagar,

Rand Paul was quoting the CDC's own definition of low risk exposure for Ebola. Being within 3 feet of an Ebola patient for longer than a casual moment counts as exposure that requires protection. (Passing in the hallway is a casual moment, sitting in the same room requires protection even if you don't touch the patient.)

अनामित म्हणाले...

Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt

A lincoln or M Twain

chickelit म्हणाले...

I think it's great that she works for CBS. She just exemplifies a stereotype. Obviously, that's the way CBS wants to be perceived.

Win-win

Hagar म्हणाले...

Understood.
If the current knowledge of Ebola is correct, you cannot get Ebola from sitting next to an infected person, if that person has not yet become sick, but if he/she has, and there is infectious material around that can be deposited on you, hell yes, you can be infected.
So, low risk, if no such material observed, but risk, and quarantine.

Michael K म्हणाले...

"Calling Sandra Fluke a slut was stupider than Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock squared."

Akin was dumb and wrong. Rush and Mourdock were correct, if un-PC. You may not realize it but there is a difference.

What Rand Paul said is the current state of knowledge but may understate the risk. The Medicins sans Frontier has lost at least 8 doctors and nurses who were wearing level 4 gear.

अनामित म्हणाले...

Hagar said...
Understood.
If the current knowledge of Ebola is correct, you cannot get Ebola from sitting next to an infected person,


No, not exactly.

If you have been exposed and infected with Ebola, your body contains live virus. at that instant, your body fluids could (barely) contain that virus and you could transmit it.

However, as time goes by linearly, your viral load (Viral load, also known as viral burden, viral titre or viral titer, is a measure of the severity of an active viral infection, and can be calculated by estimating the live amount of virus in an involved body fluid. For example, it can be given in RNA copies per millilitre of blood plasma. ) is increasing exponentially

So, yeah, it is very very very unlikely that you can transmit at the instant you become infected, and more likely later when you are symptomatic, and even more likely when your liquidified organs are dripping on the gurney.

a continuum of infection, not a step function.

do you feel lucky, punk?...

alan markus म्हणाले...

Clicked through and just as I suspected the author of that tweet is a "young producer" aka twenty something child who already knows it all.

The low-info types who think they know it all because they "get" Jon Stewart and laugh at the right time. The types who feel superior in knowledge to those who watch "Faux News", although their only source of politic knowledge is based on snarky comedy.

Jon Stewart stares at his audience and they laugh

I'm Full of Soup म्हणाले...

Katy Conrad could be the next Jen Psaki!

Hagar म्हणाले...

I could also have been near a sick person and got some material on my clothing, which I could pass on to you, without it ever touching me.

The point, in this thread, would be that these scenarios would be difficult to distinguish in soundbites suitable for the network news.

But she should have known the Pauls -- and several other congress critters - are M.D.'s.

William म्हणाले...

When did Dr. Nancy Snyderman get her degree? I notice that the news people are all closing ranks behind her. If she had worked for Fox, her career would have been over.

traditionalguy म्हणाले...

Nice expose of a Progressive doing the usual Rule by Ridicule attack on an enemy of the Left.



Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

Well, at least she is more knowledgeable than Little Ezra Klein.

Original Mike म्हणाले...

What did she have to say when someone pointed out her error?

fivewheels म्हणाले...

The obvious forefather of this tweet is Ifill's smugly ignorant "ummm," ...

Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

Original Mike,

She actually did the right thing and acknowledged her error, for which I give her credit. Most would have ignored the correction or expended another 1000 tweets arguing they were right all along despite the evidence to the contrary.

jacksonjay म्हणाले...

Well, to be fair, I couldn't find any evidence that CBS reported on Paul's recent trip to Guatemala to perform charitable surgeries. How was she supposed to know he was a real doctor? She was just not informed. Besides, she's real cute.

Lots of people, with plenty of knowledge about voting "present" and "paling around" with terroists and breaking promises, voted for Obama. Should we call them stupid? Again, to be fair, he does have a kick-ass smile.

Birkel म्हणाले...

Does anybody else wonder that all of these "mistakes" happen in one direction? It's enough me question whether the null hypothesis (The MSM is unbiased.) is statistically likely. My best guess is that mistakes are not normally distributed.

Any Leftists wish to dispute this notion?

Eric म्हणाले...

What special here is that she is ignorant of facts and ignorant of both a journalist's obligation to check facts and how to do so. CBS hits a trifecta!

Freeman Hunt म्हणाले...

There is a correlation between hubris and saying something perfectly dumb.

Jupiter म्हणाले...

"Big Mike said...
Is there any such thing as a liberal with more than two simultaneously working brain cells?"

Well, yes, actually, there is. Which I find deeply perplexing. While the hoopla about Obama's supposed intelligence always carried an asterisk, there are lots and lots of liberals with very high intelligence. For example, it is not possible for a white person to get into an Ivy League school, or teach there, without high intelligence, but most white people at Harvard are liberal or worse.

I am not sure what to make of it. For all their talk about Science, the lefties have no problem believing things that are self-evidently false, yet politically correct. Or at least, they have no problem claiming to believe such things. Where they send their kids to school is another question.

Gusty Winds म्हणाले...

Dan Rather and his producer's bias, blinded them from recognizing New Times Roman on the fake Bush docs. Perfect stupidity.

Hari म्हणाले...

It's easy to see how dumb this comment is because Senator Paul, in fact, is a doctor. But suppose he weren't. Suppose she were mocking another Republican senator (one without an Ivy league degree in something, of course) for making the exact same statement.

Under those circumstances, it would simply pass as a smug comment. But the underlying premise is that anyone who is not a doctor is not qualified to make a basic statement involving medical science.

Would she argue that senators who are not accountants should not be able to comment on matters of accounting; that senators who are not lawyers are not qualified to comment on matters of law?

The fundamental premise that a subject-specific degree confers expert status, and the lack of (an elite) degree confers ignorance is the real problem with her tweet.

chickelit म्हणाले...

The fundamental premise that a subject-specific degree confers expert status, and the lack of (an elite) degree confers ignorance is the real problem with her tweet.

The problem is that she didn't bother to notice any medical expertise. She just thought: "Rand Paul = Tea Party nutcase: must hate"

For all the ranting that lefties dish regarding degrees, education and lack thereof, it's funny when they take one step and miss the whole first rung.

chickelit म्हणाले...

Jupiter wrote: For example, it is not possible for a white person to get into an Ivy League school, or teach there, without high intelligence, but most white people at Harvard are liberal or worse.

OTOH, think of how much brand enhancement (or brand tarnishing depending on your POV) that Ted Cruz will do for Harvard. It's smart that they play both sides.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan म्हणाले...

Jupiter said...
it is not possible for a white person to get into an Ivy League school, or teach there, without high intelligence, but most white people at Harvard are liberal or worse.


Really, is there anything worse than a liberal?

Birkel म्हणाले...

A Liberal with power to exercise over others?

chickelit म्हणाले...

ARM asks: Really, is there anything worse than a liberal?

A Che-lover. Not all liberals are Che Guevara lovers.

chickelit म्हणाले...

Guevara actually had the kind of charisma which drew female adoration. The same panty-melting charm that draws young women to Syria.

No one will ever accuse Scott Walker of this sedition.

Michael Fitzgerald म्हणाले...

Looks to me like run of the mill progressive democrat ignorance. The democrat party media is full of these 20 and 30 something Vox-splaining dumbasses who are utterly ignorant, yet shamelessly arrogant.

Eric म्हणाले...

On reflection, this puts CBS in an interesting position. She has clearly revealed that she has little or no idea of what a journalist is supposed to do. Okay, what does CBS do?

JPS म्हणाले...

Jupiter:

"it is not possible for a white person to get into an Ivy League school, or teach there, without high intelligence,"

Sorry, I have to object to that. I know plenty of not-all-that-bright white people with Ivy League degrees. I think it's harder for the merely good white student to get in, relative to the good (but not outstanding) underrepresented minority, but believe me it's possible.

Back on topic: I do wish Paul had tweeted back, 1988.

Original Mike म्हणाले...

Thanks, Yancey.

Jupiter म्हणाले...

JPS said...

"I know plenty of not-all-that-bright white people with Ivy League degrees."

Well, yeah, Ted Kennedy comes to mind. Suspended for cheating on a Spanish test, for God's sake. Yo soy, tu eres was too much for Ted. But he was a legacy.

The reality is that you are not likely to get into an IL school if you are white or Asian and do not test in the top few percentiles. And you are also not likely to come out with any appreciation for or understanding of conservative thought. It simply isn't true that all liberals are stupid, even though they routinely say things that sound breath-takingly stupid to a conservative.

From my own experiences, talking with intelligent liberals, I generally find that they are simply unwilling to be cornered into discussing consequences. They prefer to discuss intentions, or really just postures. They are perfectly capable of being as selfish as necessary to reach their own goals, but they blame everything they dislike about the world on the selfishness of "rich people", a group which does not include themselves, no matter their income or possessions.


अनामित म्हणाले...

"Big Mike said...
Is there any such thing as a liberal with more than two simultaneously working brain cells?"

Nope. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, who disagrees with your opinion must be retarded. It is the only explanation for them thinking differently than you do. Because, after all, you're a conservative. And everyone knows that conservatives have all the answers to all the problems. So if someone isn't agreeing with you then they must be stupid, wrong, retarded, and dumb. Plus probably evil and immoral. After all, they aren't called "Libtards" for nothing. Each and every one of them is dumb, dumb, dumb!

tl;dr: All conservative are always smart and all liberals are always stupid. Go team, go! ra-ra-ra!

Birkel म्हणाले...

madisonIngafella:
Your snark would work better on a thread unrelated to a Liberal MSM employee demonstarting exactly what you are claiming about others.

Michael म्हणाले...

This girl once had the job of formulating questions to be asked of politicians by "news casters"

That is why the questions are like this

1. Mr. President, how does it feel to have been mocked by racists who refuse to help you create better jobs for the poor.

2. Mr. opponent, who is the under secretary of marine commerce for Iran?

CWJ म्हणाले...

madisonfella,

Wow! That was lame even for you.

What was tl;dr? Not Big Mike because you quoted him in toto.

Must have been the link. Which was not exactly "War and Peace." Indeed, Althouse's post pretty much covered the territory. The link only provided detail about the tweet author herself.

I hope you're not deeming Althouse tl;dr. If so, why comment at all?

Jupiter म्हणाले...

"And everyone knows that conservatives have all the answers to all the problems."

Actually, it is liberals who imagine that all problems have answers -- generally simple, obvious answers, that would easily be effectuated if only everyone else were as reasonable and virtuous as they are.

Conservatives are much more inclined to the view that the world and the people in it are imperfect and always will be. I suppose one could argue that we are a bit too comfortable with that situation.

अनामित म्हणाले...

Birkel (and the many different names he logs in here under) is the exception to the "All conservative are always smart" rule.

अनामित म्हणाले...

Funny how Birkel feels the need to disagree with me, even when I am agreeing with him.

That makes him stupid.

Wonder if he is actually a liberal after all? That would make sense.

Rusty म्हणाले...

Really, is there anything worse than a liberal?


A muslim extremist?
Ebola?
cancer?
Yeah. There are a few things.

Birkel म्हणाले...

madisonIngafella:
That was sad, even for you.

So now that the MSM has once again beclowned itself, can we please drop the pretense that they are anything but yellow (or perahaps red) journalists?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan म्हणाले...

Rusty said...
Really, is there anything worse than a liberal?

A muslim extremist?
Ebola?
cancer?
Yeah. There are a few things.



Ya know, at least the Muslims believe in the God of Abraham, and Ebola isn't that bad, if you know how to follow a protocol, and you can treat cancer these days. Maybe there really is nothing worse than a liberal.


Jupiter म्हणाले...

Rusty said...
Really, is there anything worse than a liberal?


A muslim extremist?
Ebola?
cancer?
Yeah. There are a few things.

Well, except that we could deal with ebola and Muslim extremists fairly easily, if it weren't for liberals. Cancer, not so much. And maybe "liberals" isn't quite the right word. Progressives, I think, are actually the problem. Liberals believe in the Bill of Rights.

The silly twat whose clownery started this thread is no "liberal. I am guessing she is a Progressive. Consider, that she was attempting to make fun of a man for doubting the wisdom of dallying within three feet of someone with a contagious disease that is usually fatal.

Rusty म्हणाले...

Maybe there really is nothing worse than a liberal.


You said it, not me.

Rusty म्हणाले...

Liberals believe in the Bill of Rights

Classic liberals do. Modern liberals don't. Certainly none on this blog do.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan म्हणाले...

Rusty said...
Liberals believe in the Bill of Rights

Classic liberals do. Modern liberals don't. Certainly none on this blog do.


Fortunately I'm a moderate.

Birkel म्हणाले...

Let's test this 'moderate' hypothesis!
First Amendment: Do you support the IRS efforts to inquire into the prayers of Tea Party members? If not, please point to past comments in which you called for civil and criminal penalties for IRS agents who violated the civil rights of US citizens.

Second Amendment: Please show the comments you have previously made supporting broad Second Amendment rights.

Ninth and Tenth Amendments: Please point to any comment you have made supporting this 20% of the Bill or Rights.

Prove how moderate you are, with links.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan म्हणाले...

Us moderates don't believe in litmus tests. We accept that true moderates have a complex range of beliefs, because they think for themselves.

Birkel म्हणाले...

You accepted the premise that 'moderates' support the Bill of Rights. That does not allow a "complex range of beliefs" because the Bill of Rights has been interpreted in very specific ways.

Try again, radical Leftist poser.

Humperdink म्हणाले...

ARM said: "Fortunately I'm a moderate."

As is President Obola. Just ask him.

chickelit म्हणाले...

AReasonableMan said...
Us moderates don't believe in litmus tests.

There are conservatives who don't believe in them either.

Being a good little chemist, I once tried to track down the political origin of the term "litmus test" link
It seems to come from the Cold War era.

Michael K म्हणाले...

"
Ya know, at least the Muslims believe in the God of Abraham, and Ebola isn't that bad, if you know how to follow a protocol, and you can treat cancer these days. Maybe there really is nothing worse than a liberal."

I wonder about your assumption about Muslims.

Ebola is escaping the "protocols."

A "liberal" is a traditional conservative who believes in the rule of law, among other things. The term is misused these days to describe fascists.

Balfegor म्हणाले...

Well, at least she didn't embarrass herself on air. Journalists regularly seem to assume everyone else is as uneducated as they are. It occasionally blows up in their faces.

Achilles म्हणाले...

AReasonableMan said...
Rusty said...
Liberals believe in the Bill of Rights

Classic liberals do. Modern liberals don't. Certainly none on this blog do.

"Fortunately I'm a moderate."

A moderate that thinks it is ok for the IRS to harass conservatives.

A moderate that thinks lying about keeping your doctors or your health care plan to get obamacare passed is ok.

A moderate that supports the no WMD in Iraq lie and continues to smear the military with it.

A moderate that thinks it is ok for the president to invoke executive privilege to block an investigation into a government program that shipped guns to Mexican cartels and resulted in the deaths of several Americans and several hundred Mexican nationals.

A moderate that thinks it is ok to bash OIF and OEF but think the Libya mission and result was A OK.

A moderate that thinks it was ok for the president to lie about the cause of Benghazi.

A moderate that thinks it was ok to throw an American citizen in jail to support the lie about the cause of Benghazi.

stlcdr म्हणाले...

So, she's a 'producer'? I would have thought that producers of any major news outlet (sic) would require quite a few years of experience in a wide range of at least related fields.

It seems putting a young cute girl (gal) in a producer role means you can pay them less: no one really worries about the facts anyway. This will surely contribute to the wage gap, I'm sure.

Of course, this may explain the dross coming out of the media, these days (acknowledging sample size n=1).

But then, I'm just a conservative, so what would I know?

Rusty म्हणाले...

"Fortunately I'm a moderate."

A moderate what? Statist?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan म्हणाले...

Achillies, you keep repeating that I have disparaged the military. This is entirely a figment of your imagination. I disagree strongly with the military strategy taken by our past and current political class. I respect the service of the individual men and women who have served, as does most Americans of the left and right.

Do you genuinely believe that we cannot debate the wisdom, or lack thereof, of a particular military strategy? Civilian control of the military means that there will always be a debate about military strategy within the country. This is a healthy thing. The alternative, a military dictatorship, is not attractive.

Rusty म्हणाले...

"Do you genuinely believe that we cannot debate the wisdom, or lack thereof, of a particular military strategy?"

As we are now discovering our decision to invade Iraq was brilliant.

"Civilian control of the military means that there will always be a debate about military strategy within the country. This is a healthy thing. The alternative, a military dictatorship, is not attractive."


Hence our second amendment

Scott M म्हणाले...

"Will do better next time"? What does that mean? She's research properly before tweeting ad hominem?

Todd म्हणाले...

Also, she is apologizing(? / sort of / maybe) for a tweet that she deleted. Hoped to shove it down the memory hole but was not quick enough. I suspect that if there was no screen grab "record", there would be no apology...

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan म्हणाले...

Rusty said...
As we are now discovering our decision to invade Iraq was brilliant.


If the goal was to strengthen the radical elements in the region and ensure permawar.

Rusty म्हणाले...

If the goal was to strengthen the radical elements in the region and ensure permawar.

That has been the result of this administrations inattention in the area.
A weak foreign policy invites the current situation.

Hyphenated American म्हणाले...

"Us moderates don't believe in litmus tests. We accept that true moderates have a complex range of beliefs, because they think for themselves. "

If you are a moderate, with a complex range of beliefs, and you think for yourself...

Can you give us one instance when you criticized or disagreed with Obama from the right?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan म्हणाले...

Hyphenated American said...
Can you give us one instance when you criticized or disagreed with Obama from the right?


I disagree strongly with the current immigration policy. It is not clear that this is from the right, I guess, since it is big business that is pushing the influx of low-wage workers.

Birkel म्हणाले...

AReasonableMan thinks big business is inherently 'right' showing a complete incomprehension of history. Businesses love regulation and big government. They love it because they are able to capture the regulators and prevent competition. They do this at the expense of average people.

Congratulations, fool. You have managed to be perfectly dumb.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan म्हणाले...

You are an idiot Birkel. The Kochs are left wing? Murdoch is left wing?

Business pursues its own interests but the Republicans have generally been more supportive of those interests than the Dems.


Hyphenated American म्हणाले...

"I disagree strongly with the current immigration policy. "

You disagree with Obama's "current immigration policy"? You want him to drop the idea of amnesty for illegals and instead deport them?
Come on, bring it, the moderate one, tell us how as a moderate you are to right of Obama.

Hyphenated American म्हणाले...

"Business pursues its own interests but the Republicans have generally been more supportive of those interests than the Dems."

That's a very primitive view.
Republicans want free market. Democrats want more government control. Businesses want more money. In many cases, businesses prefer more government regulation, since it affects small competitors more, plus they can always bribe the government for special favors. In this, democrats and big businesses are together. More power to the government in USA gives more leverage to the big business.

Birkel म्हणाले...

AReasonableMan wonders at the discipline of economics. In my mind's eye I picture a primitive looking to the heavens and making up stories about gods.

Meanwhile, the ideas of regulatory capture have been well researched. Those ideas have both descriptive and prescriptive value. And they've only been around for decades.

And I'm the idiot, says the Leftist who cannot understand that the Kochs and Murdocks represent a small slice of business. Meanwhile, the super-rich support President Obama and the Democrat Party by very wide margins.

Perfectly dumb, AReasonableMan. Perfectly.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan म्हणाले...

Birkel, by not giving any credit to your opponent you reveal yourself to be a shallow imbecile, unable to grasp or parry your opponent's argument. Well done.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan म्हणाले...

Hyphenated American said...
You want him to drop the idea of amnesty for illegals and instead deport them?


Yes.

Birkel म्हणाले...

If you attempted a point I might respond, AReasonableMan. Give it a shot.

Rusty म्हणाले...

AReasonableMan said...
You are an idiot Birkel. The Kochs are left wing? Murdoch is left wing?

Business pursues its own interests but the Republicans have generally been more supportive of those interests than the Dems.


Solyndra.