I didn't like John Tierney's NYTimes editorial

So I re-wrote it for him, to make it more reflective of reality and far less vomit-inducing.

Tierney is in some ways your typical "just smart enough" contrarian troll who thrives on throwing out quickly-written essays replete with errors, assumptions, and truth gaps, and then chuckles in contempt as people try to argue facts against opinions he's too stupid to actually be informed about enough to know whether he truly believes in them.

One example, which he proudly cites in his biography is his opinion piece entitled Recycling Is Garbage.

For his latest offense against truth and the proper citation of facts and use of supporting arguments, see Where's The Newt?.  Or, if you'd prefer, read my revision of it below, but understand that a pot's only as good as the clay from which it was made, so this is parody (which also sadly involves true events):

We are in the midst of a remarkable Washington scandal, and we still don't have a name for it. Iraqgate, Saddamgate, WMDgate - none of the suggestions have stuck because none capture what's so special about the current frenzy to lock up White House and other public officials.

The closest parallel is the moment in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" when members of a mob eager to burn a witch are asked by the wise Sir Bedevere how they know she's a witch.

"Well, she turned me into a newt," the villager played by John Cleese says.

"A newt?" Sir Bedevere asks, looking puzzled.

"I got better," he explains.

"Burn her anyway!" another villager shouts.

That's what has happened since this scandal began so promisingly two summers ago. At first it looked like an outrageous crime harming innocent victims: a brave President was smeared by vicious left wing malcontents who committed treason by defying the President's war in Iraq, endangering our soldiers in the field.

But if you consider the facts today, you may feel like Sir Bedevere. Where's the newt? What did the witch actually do? Consider that original list of outrages:

The White House felon: So far President Bush appears guilty of telling the American people something he made up completely out of whole fabric, that Saddam Hussein, the President of Iraq, had WMDs and posed a clear and present danger to the United States. But because of creative interpretation of the UN Resolution promising severe consequences if Saddam did not comply and the lack of a clarifying UN resolution, virtually no far right wingnut or person on FoxNews thinks anymore that he violated it. The law doesn't seem to apply to President Bush because he apparently just made a boo-boo and wasn't malicious about it.

The WMDs: Saddam Hussein was compared to Adolph Hitler in the early days of the scandal, but it turns out he had destroyed all of his WMDs years earlier, not exactly a clear and present danger. Since the fall of his country and the revelation that the WMDs were long-ago destroyed as required by the UN, he's hardly been viewed as an evil tyrant who could have put the entire world in any danger.

At the time the lies about WMDs were printed, the truth about Saddam's WMD stockpile was still not that familiar even to most Washington veterans, but that soon changed. When President Bush did his "truth-telling" session in his State of the Union speech and Colin Powell did his attempted Adlai Stevenson moment on the floor of the UN listing incredibly imaginative quantities of WMDs in Saddam's hands, former weapons inspectors Hans Blix Scott Ritter wept with laughter as they told the real story of what Saddam used to have and what they believed he might still possess. Then Bush introduced Blix and Ritter to ridicule.

And then, for any red-blooded patriotic Americans who missed seeing their faces on FoxNews but had an Internet connection, the FreeRepublic also played its part.

The smeared whistle-blowers Blix, Ritter, and Joseph Wilson accused the White House of willfully ignoring their reports showing that Iraq had not been seeking nuclear material from Niger and that most or all of the WMDs were already destroted. But Cheney's manipulation of intelligence concluded that Blix was incompetent, Ritter had other issues, and Wilson's report had yielded little valuable information and hadn't disproved the Iraq-Niger link - in fact, in some ways it supported the link.

President Bush presented himself as a courageous truth-teller who was being attacked by lying partisans, but he himself became a Republican partisan (working with the neoconservatives in his administration) who had a problem with facts. He alleged that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, but the Senate committee on 9/11 found no link.

The left wing's version of events now looks less like a smear and more like the truth: President Bush's WMD allegations, far from being valid and denied by the left wing afraid of its truth, was a complete fabrication of not much interest to anyone outside of those who like cheap, poorly written thrillers written by a first-time novelist with emotional problems.

So what exactly is this scandal about? Why are the Freepers still screaming to "stay the course" in Iraq? Well, there's always the chance that the administration will turn up "evidence" of WMDs or Saddam's intent to manufacture nuclear weapons during the occupation, which would just prove once again that the easiest way to uncover WMDs in Iraq is to create them yourself by investigating nonexistent WMDs.

For now, though, it looks as if this scandal is about a country, the United States, that was not endangered, an administration that lied to the American people and was not smeared, and White House officials who have not been fired for felonies that they probably committed. And so far the only victim is the truth.

It would be logical to name it the Liargate scandal, but I prefer a more simple variation. It may someday make a good trivia question:

What do you call a scandal that's not prosecuted?

Sadgate.

•  Yep

  Nothing to see here. Move along.

  by jorndorff on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 06:30:20 AM PDT

•  I like your diary

  I like it that you titled it "I didn't like John Tierney's NTTimes editorial"  Now, send a letter to the editor NYT and try to get this printed.

  (Don't use term like "Freepers" though, they won't print blog-ese.)

  by suskind on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 06:54:08 AM PDT

•  I'm no fan of Tierney, but

  I can't find anything that looks inaccurate in the "Recycling Is Garbage" column you linked. Maybe you know something I don't.

  by BrianK on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 07:03:10 AM PDT

  •  I liken it to some of the alternatives proposed

    for affirmative action, a more hot-button issue.

    Calm, rational recommendations that tend to circle around the issue and make the debate the issue, rather than the issue the issue, and so no resolution really occurs.

    You can also Google the "Recycling is Garbage" and see what various folks on all sides of the issue have said since the article came out in 1996.

    As with affirmative action or even the focus on cleaner, alternative forms of energy and more energy independence which Jimmy Carter brought to the forefront of public thought almost 30 years ago, both sides make compelling arguments and in a lot of ways perfect sense.

    But while the debate is engaged, the issues remain unresolved.

    by cappy on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 07:21:29 AM PDT

    •  The sites I got just had easily disproven b.s.

      It's not about clean energy or energy independence, it's about supporting scientifically founded, reality-based environmental measures. Most implementations of recycling failed that test long ago.

      I don't really want to get into a debate here, I just think you should look into it first if you have doubts.

      by BrianK on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 07:57:55 AM PDT

      •  Likewise, it makes more sense to drive

        a regular car than a hybrid.  It's simple math to weigh the higher outlay for a hybrid against a few years of higher gas costs for the regular vehicle.

        And yet people push for hybrids.  

        Current methodologies for hydrogen cells and some other alternative fuels also utilize more energy than what is created.  

        Affirmative action hasn't particularly had the progressive results that were originally envisioned.  

        I think the reason people want to bother with things like recycling, alternative forms of energy, affirmative action, or a host of other progressive agendas that seem to have little or no value in the present against their costs of implementation is optimism, and a belief that if you keep pushing at something, eventually you come up with solutions that actually make the progressive agenda economically sound.

        For a lot of people who support these kinds of progressive agendas, it's an emotional issue.

        For me, frankly, I've seen the compelling evidence on both sides of these issues, the compelling evidence on both sides of global warming, the compelling evidence of peak oil against the compelling evidence presented by some that oil is actually a constantly renewing resource and there's no need to conserve or supplant because we can't possibly use it up.

        And I take away from all that only my opinion, which anyone can feel free to share or disagree with:  I think it makes sense to conserve, to find new use for old things, and to diversify energy alternatives.  

        I work in the energy industry and am aware for example, that natural gas prices have risen 300% in 5 years and what crude oil is doing.  I know how emissions credits work and the economic incentives behind them, as well as the arguments that emissions caps were implemented poorly and place economically and competitively unsound restraints in addition to being moot since they don't address the rising pollution levels occurring in places like China, southeast Asia, and Russia (home to the majority of the most heavily polluted cities in the world).

        Hydrogen fuel cells probably aren't the answer to a replacement for gasoline-powered vehicles, at least not in their current form.  But they're quite possibly a vehicle for finding an answer.  Recycling likewise has gone through several incarnations throughout its history.  As you've noted and Tierney acknowledged, some work and make sense, some don't.  

        The problem with Tierney's article on recycling is that, condensed to its main points, it appears on the surface to be an in-depth look at recycling's costs and benefits (about 75% of the long article), then cleverly steers things to suggest that perhaps New York City could do what a lot of places already do, which is put the garbage collection costs somewhere other than property taxes and to charge for excessive trash pickups, not necessarily a revolutionary or original idea.

        But then it finally settles down to his main point toward the end - environmentalists' real agenda which is to place responsibility in the hands of the government rather than the hands of individuals, where it belongs, and to fatten their own pockets by creating a crisis where none exists and becoming the paid experts, consultants, and attorneys on the whole issue. Also belittles them a little by pointing out that the other main benefit is it gives environmentalists a false warm, fuzzy feeling inside as they engage in self-congratulatory slaps on their backs.  Sounds a lot like your typical criticisms from opponents on global warming or any other environmental issue.  

        I understand your point of view, and I do not necessarily think you're wrong even though I disagree.  Your argument is correct in that some forms of recycling have failed so far to produce economically viable benefits.

        My argument is that I have to agree with some who believe that government regulations are required to incentivize when economic reasons alone fail to suffice.  I think Tierney is an apologist, and I don't accept his crocodile tears, nor those of folks in the energy industry for example, of how much suffering occurs because of these proven-useless programs.  

        by cappy on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 09:18:31 AM PDT

        •  Tierney is absolutely a hack

          but an article that serves mainly to debunk a common wasteful superstition is a terrible example of that.

          You see it as a stepping stone towards environmental unaccountability, and Tierney and others may well use it for that purpose elsewhere, but it's also the truth. And decades of environmental science have unequivocally proven that. I'm more worried about the reality-based community becoming apologists for pseudo-science that can undermine the genuine causes of environmentalism.

          The bottom line is with few exceptions, like scrap metals, recycling has been proven time and again to cost more in terms of energy, manpower, etc then the alternative, and with negligible side-effects that are meaningful only as excuses.

          A good source on this is actually Penn & Teller: Bullshit (s2e5 if you want to look for the torrent).

          by BrianK on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 10:28:02 AM PDT

          •  Damn good post

            And like most of your posts, more succinct than my own typical post (I admire succinctness, since I rarely do it so well myself).

            I see your point of view, I think, which is to basically fight battles you can win and not get focused on issues where the ice you're standing on is thin and can undermine the greater goal.  I tend to concur with that viewpoint in general.

            But I don't think recycling really falls as an example of that.  While recycling hasn't, as I've said, proven to be as cost-effective as it was once envisioned, I think what's surprised everyone on both sides is the success it's had in being embraced as "just something that is" - regardless of how much economic value derives from it.  I daresay healthy recycling programs might be as much of a mainstay in suburban, affluent, Republican-dominated enclaves as it is in their liberal counterparts.  

            From that standpoint, I'm not sure recycling is really an issue that weakens overall environmental initiatives.  For all intents and purposes, it's become entrenched in much of our society, and would probably be considered one of the least likely success stories stemming from the environmental and conservation movements (and as you note, more symbolic of a victory than actual).

            On the other hand, you tend to see a lot of turmoil raised when someone's 100-acre plot ends up being declared a sanctuary for a rare and endangered frog species, and it's harder for environmental proponents to get the public worked up about the benefits of saving the last 200 members of a localized species of frog indistinguishable from others by most people.

            I don't have an answer on all this, only opinions, take them for what they're worth.  I think Tierney could build a better case taking on snail darters and spotted owls than recycling, if he's going to take shots at environmental movements.  A lot of affluent areas that are Republican enclaves tend to believe that their recycling programs are cost-effective or even revenue-producing - even if the true costs are actually being borne further down the recycling food-chain, out-of-sight, out-of-mind just like many landfills.

            by cappy on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 11:20:01 AM PDT

•  Nice

  I enjoyed and will link to it on my blog.

  by holycheebis on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 07:03:23 AM PDT

•  Minor peeve

  You are talking about a "column," not an "editorial." An editorial is typically unsigned and reflects the opinion of the newspaper's management -- in some papers that opinion is determined by the editors, in some by the publisher. Often editors get to determine the paper's position most of the time, but the publisher steps in for candidate endorsements.

  I've seen half a dozen posts by different people misusing the terms...

  by Elwood Dowd on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 07:13:02 AM PDT

  •  My head is bloody and bowed

    by cappy on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 07:22:49 AM PDT

    •  Why care?

      Stupid, incendiary columns are a sign that a newspaper is trying to generate some controversy.

      Stupid, incendiary editorials are a sign that a newspaper is trying to change public policy.

      by Elwood Dowd on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 07:49:23 AM PDT

•  That makes two...

  ...million of us. :)

  by cskendrick on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 07:28:26 AM PDT

•  Tierney is illegitimate

  He and Jon Last of the NRO endorsed the Galactic Empire over the Rebel Alliance, and then claimed that Lucas was trying to distort "the truth."

  That's all you need to know.

  Neither one of them can write anything worth reading after those misbegotten columns.

  That said, what Tierney is trying to do in his column is have someone else undercover step forward and articulate how his or her career has been damaged by Novakula et al.'s treason.  Or produce dead bodies of agents, thereby compromising the intelligence network further.

  There's only one explanation.  Conservative columnists are working for the Communist Chinese or Al Qaeda or both.  They are screaming for the further compromising of the CIA.

  Since Mr. Tierney is such a big fan of Star Wars, my money is on Al Qaeda.  After all, Count Dooku may be a horrendous terrorist and an evil fanatic, but he's just trying to help Chancellor Palpatine by giving him ample justification for the New Order.

  by Ptolemy on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 07:36:26 AM PDT

•  The guy is the shallowest thinker...

  ... on the NYT editorial page.

  He has all the depth of Paris Hilton, but my guess is his ass isn't as good.

  by Bob Johnson on Sat Jul 16, 2005 at 12:26:36 PM PDT