Are you afraid to be wrong?

[underpants]

For all the talk about playing on fears, that I have read, little has been said about the crushing tactic of simply playing on people's fears of being wrong. Sure playing on their fears of death and the death of their loved one is the main reason we stop from calling out the broad wild accusations of someone especially those in power. There is also that fear, no matter how right you know that YOU are and no matter how consistently wrong a source may have been when they are talking about death or your nation's defeat you give pause, you don't want to be wrong.

That may be the case for you and me. But it ain't for them.

Watch Bill Kristol here. They have no fear of being wrong. None.

With VIDEO
Top Intel Analyst Says Surge Is Failing, Kristol Counters It’s Going ‘Better Than Anyone Expected’

Yesterday, Thomas Fingar, the top intelligence analyst in the Office of the National Intelligence Director, stated that “the most optimistic” assessment of the increase in troop numbers in Iraq is that it has not had a “significant” effect in reducing the violence:

The surge that began a few months ago is having an effect, it has not yet had a sufficient effect on the violence, in my judgment, to move the country to a place that the serious obstacles to reconciliation can be overcome.

The most optimistic projection is that it will be difficult and time-consuming to bridge the political gulf when violence levels are reduced, and they have not yet been reduced significantly.

This morning on Fox and Friends, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol ignored the intelligence assessment, instead offering his unfounded view that the “military situation is better than anyone expected”:

The truth is if you look concretely on the ground in Iraq, the military situation is better than anyone expected. Better than David Petraeus expected. Better than those of us here at home who supported the surge expected six months ago. … And we’re going to win the war. I think we’re going to win this war if we just don’t lose our nerve here at home.

Watch a compilation:


Kristol concluded that if Bush can hold off Congress, “I think Gen. David Petraeus could go down in American history with an amazing performance. … This could be a Ulysses S. Grant situation where Bush finally found the right general.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/12/fingar-v-kristol/

[ananda]

1. Sure but that's never stopped me yet!

lol

[Virginia Dare]

2. Bill Kristol gets paid to be wrong...

unfortunately most of the rest of us don't. Nice work, if you can get it..:shrug:

[Warpy]

3. On the contrary, I would be thrilled to be proven wrong

but then, I do tend to be a pessimist.

I would have been thrilled had Nixon really had a plan to end the Vietnam War instead of dragging it out and more than doubling the number of casualties before he left office.

I would have been thrilled had Ford waited until Nixon got charged before he issued a pardon that set a terrible precedent.

I would have been thrilled had Reaganomics worked the way they sold it to the peasants.

I would have been thrilled if turning health care over to profit motivated B school graduates had resulted in a streamlining of care that was available to all of us.

I would have been thrilled to find out Stupid was the moderate he campaigned as.

I will be thrilled if Stupid hasn't set the stage for another great depression.

I will be thrilled if Stupid hasn't set the stage for another big, world wide war, one that this country will have to sacrifice greatly to avoid.

I will even be thrilled to see the Rapture, because that will mean we'll finally be rid of the religious right.

I just don't expect to be thrilled.

[underpants]

4. I wish I could nominate a post

but then, would that be wrong?

:bounce:

great post