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i think the argument i posted above was clear enough. i do not feel any need to add to it.
but i'll summarize what i was trying to say.
it refers to the way levels of claims are woven together in the national review text cited at the beginning of the thread.
it assumes that argument by interpretation of a text is a legitimate mode of proceeding. whether it is the mode that folk like best for aesthetic reasons is not really my problem. the mode in itself is legitimate.
the text as it stands functions as a kind of fact. pulling apart mixed levels of argument is one of many many ways in which that article can be attacked.
another would be to question the value of a national review hatchet piece in general.
another would be to cite r.g. burkett's involvement with such fine organizations as the swift boat veterans in order to undermine the credulity a reader might otherwise accord his book, which is the central touchstone one which the writer's project sits.
yet another would be to say that the audience for a national review hatchet job like this would be predisposed to believe burkett to be correct without having read the book on the basis of the title alone, which is what i was referring to when i said everything about this article relies on prior assumptions about the relationship of writer-journal-audience.
the linkage to a bigger project of revisionist history of vietnam should be self-evident--as should be the claim that the writer is not really that interested in attacking rather's professional conduct in this case of the "wall within" as the end of the article--if she was, the article would not have been cited here at all, i suspect. reporters screw up like this all the time. like irate said, it is good when they get called out on it , and frequently they are--read something like the columbia journalism review sometime...but this national review article uses rather and questions about his professional conduct for bigger purposes. if you cant see that, then there really is nothing more to be said.
as for the tone of my initial post--it must have slipped away from me a little, because there was nothing angry in it.
at least not insofar as the tone of a post reflects the state of mind in which it was written.
i found the article tedious, as i find almost all articles of its type, as i find the national review in general, as i find revisionist projects about vietnam to be inevitably.
maybe it was the word bullshit that gave you the idea i was angry, or that the post was angry. i dont know. or maybe ustwo misread it, and then that misreading was echoed. i have no way of knowing.
for the record, i rarely get angry in here--i get exasperated from time to time, but rarely angry. this is more a chess game, political debates, even in here, whether the quality of debate varies not a little.
mostly, posting in politics is something i do while i am drinking coffee in the morning and trying to screw up the energy to leave my apartment. it is a diversion.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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