People who disagree with Mitch are invariably poor spellers.

Or as Mitch will not doubt translate this post: Peepol who dizagrea wid Midge can't spel so gooode.

In the Internet world in general, spelling on both the Left AND Right can often be utterly appalling. As someone who edits as part of my profession, reading comment threads and forums can be the equivalent of fingernails drawn across a chalkboard. It's frightening to think these people graduated from high school or, more likely, are in the process of trying to graduate from high school.

"People who disagree with Mitch are invariably poor spellers."

This from the guy whose stereotype of anyone between the Alleghenies and the Sierra Madre involves toothlessness, banjo-playing and inbreeding?

Yu wer naught supposed to print that!! It wus a privat email yo scrfs!!!!!

U shud nevr env thnck of baning Angree Klown. Ill tel U Y.

When the day comes when we can no longer look to his points, and pick out and recognize when he has devolved into mere repetition of the Kos/DU/Kerry "I Hate Bush" talking points, and then come up, in our own minds, at least, with the factual basis and the resulting rational argument as to why he is wrong, we'll start getting lazy.

And, when he raises good points, that are NOT just the result of the List of Chants that the strange left has crafted, that really do make us rethink what we're saying, we need to be reading them.

No one is always right . . . er . . correct. While he does spend far too much time parroting the Dean party line, the flagrant-lies-but-maybe-dumb-voters-will-be-taken-in sort of things (that have to hurt his pride when he raises them - he doesn't appear to be so dumb as to believe some of them), he does raise good points that need to be dealt with, addressed, or at least acknowledged.

Because we're not crafting a political philosophy so that we can win. We're trying to win because we believe our political philosophy is the best for our society. The difference is that we need to be willing to adopt and accept thoughts, brought up by the likes of AC, that make sense. And, (much as it pains me to say this), some do.

Mitch,

The context of your posts undoubtedly left a bit out. You left out that you were attempting to create a contrast between M1 and seemingly other programs that were accused of being:

Too Complex
Too Easily Overwhelmed
It will never work
Too Expensive

Those were your words. Jack Anderson was a voice in the wilderness at the time of his complaints. M1 was in production, and Anderson's complaints primarily lay in the sand filtering concerns and jet engine performance. The first was correct the second was not. So what.

As far as I can find, Anderson never said the program would never work, he never said it would be overwhelmed, those were distortions by you to create a synergy between M1 and what exactly? Based on the responses it looked like your readership assumed Star Wars. The M1 program is so different from Star Wars that any comparison is foolhardy. Using M1 to mischaracterize one person's complaints as instructive historical context to what has been said about Star Wars is like comparing the Santa Maria to the Nimitz. Star Wars has been a dismal failure, managing only to get to the point of intercepting a pre-plotted missile after more than 20 years of work. The key complaints about Star Wars, made in 1983, have yet to be addressed even a little. Those complaints about being overwhelmed, about being too costly to be cost effective are as true today as they were in 1983. Perhaps you didn't intend to make that comparison, but your readers sure seem to think you meant it.

In relating what Anderson and similar critics said, you should also be clear about what he specifically said, not just use generalities to avoid having to defend his complaints as accurate. Specifically, the criticisms of the late 70's were that yhe engine and sand filtering systems were too complex and that the tank was costly. Two out of three were right, but no real conclusion can be drawn from M1 and applied anywhere else unless that conclusion is that sometimes failed programs lead to successes later on. What you can't conclude is that the failures of Star Wars or any other highly questionable program are going to miraculously turn around.

The fact is the primary complaints about M1 came from well before Anderson's articles. By the time of his writing the majority of the Corporate Media had already signed off on the M1, it was in production after all. Saying that Anderson represented a mainstream view is dubious and while you didn't say it directly you gave the impression that "investigative journalism" held this view. If one person or a handful hold a view does that mean painting in generalites is a good tactic? By that sort of logic, the majority of the rightwing thinks the world is flat, only 50,000 years old and that nothing ever evolves. Taking the comments of one small group of people and suggesting it represents a widely held opinion or even suggesting it, is deceptive. Anderson's view was hardly the norm and if your e-mailer said the primary complaints stemmed from MBT-70 was accurate then he or she was right.

MBT-70 was cancelled. The real complaints about M1 came from before it evolved into M1. The larger, mainstream complaints were accurate when considered against MBT-70 and that program was a failure. You conveniently left that out and instead focused on complaints from a small set made after the program had been approved to it would appear make the claim that we shouldn't write off Star Wars or if not Star Wars then what?

Mitch,

Was that really the quality of the spelling in that first e-mail you received? You didn't change it did you? If you did, wouldn't that constitute a deception or was it a joke? If it was a joke, for what purpose? To incorrectly reflect your critics are stupid?

Not laughing

"The context of your posts undoubtedly left a bit out. You left out that you were attempting to create a contrast between M1"

Actually, I was satirizing a real letter by a real reader who castigated me for "lying" for not explicating the entire history of the MBT70/M1 projects, when I was in fact discussing in the original post how the media frequently doesn't understand how complex systems are developed.

"Was that really the quality of the spelling in that first e-mail you received? You didn't change it did you? If you did, wouldn't that constitute a deception or was it a joke?"

Er, none of them were actual emails...

" If it was a joke, for what purpose? To incorrectly reflect your critics are stupid?"

I'm not sure where you'd get that conclusion. I am showing/satirizing some of the feedback I get - and caricaturing it, to some extent.

Caricaturizing it? Apparently extending to implying they can't spell and are stupid.

Why not just represent directly what they said?

Your characterization of those who gave you feedback looks like you have thin skin and a desire to make points by artificially portraying them as dim. What was the need to make them look dim beyond the words they used?

I think that would be called a deception. Satire is when you have the original example to compare it to, this wasn't satire, it was a purposeful insult.

The comparative complexity of the M1 is a pretty good example of how programs can fail and then be resurrected. Your post reflected it as a program that was under considerable rebuke but succeeded, in order to say that complex programs sometimes succeed? What a concept! Alert the media! Sometimes programs succeed! The poor part is that this really wasn't the case, the M1 program, by the time of Anderson's articles had been well proven that it would work in general, though be costly. Your blog was both pointless and then attempted to create an false perception of wider discord regarding a successful program. It seems creating false perceptions is something you like to do.

I agree with Ted. There's nothing, other than your overreach on the misspellings, that would lead someone to believe you weren't quoting actual e-mails.

urg.... Must.... resist....

Must.... bite.... tongue....

Can't.... take.... it.... Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Come on, Doug, speak your mind!

"I agree with Ted. There's nothing, other than your overreach on the misspellings, that would lead someone to believe you weren't quoting actual e-mails. "

I find that very hard to believe - or, perhaps, conveniently easy.

"I find that very hard to believe - or, perhaps, conveniently easy."

Well, Let's see...

There's the fact that you went to the effort of indicating that the senders name was being redacted and also that you responded directly to your phantom emailer's query...

Must have been an inside joke with the graduating class of 1981.

Even if we buy your explanation, Mitch, it's pretty weak. Arguing with silly, illiterate critics that you made up yourself.

Pretty weak is pretty kind Angryclown.

You presented e-mails with names redacted, giving the complete appearance that they were from actual people. What exactly were you satarizing, and to who's entertainment? Your own private little dig at someone?

What you did was present what would be taken as factual and you probably guessed would be, and then when challenged decided it was best not to directly lie. Trying to deceive people is the same thing and so is not caring if people are fooled. You said they were e-mails from your readers, why would we believe otherwise? I guess the "go through e-mail from my readers" comment was really false too? What was the need to purposefully mispell anything, exactly? If it was simply to give the uncorrected appearance that your critics are stupid then you openly insulted all of them with a made-up "satire" of nothing? Nice.

Your words are no longer believable and now I am not sure they ever were.

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