In my time here at DKos I have written often about the importance of critical thinking. I found DKos because I no longer found traditional media to be credible. I have considered DKos to be a place where readers use critical thinking - a place where we don't just believe what we read on the internet because it was written, or because it's on the internet, or because we "trust" the person writing it. A true critical thinker knows that every writer has an agenda. A true critical thinker knows that you can never believe what you read without question.
Sadly, I see a lot of lazy thinking around DKos lately and for those of you who know me - credibility is important to me. When we value critical thinking and consume the texts we're provided with a critical eye, we gain credibility as a group. DKos becomes known as a place where critical thinking happens. It's a place where credible people congregate - and I certainly hope that continues to be true.
Critical thinking involves logical thinking and reasoning including skills such as comparison, classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning, webbing, analogies, deductive and inductive reasoning, forecasting, planning, hyphothesizing, and critquing.
Earlier this week BarbinMD wrote a piece for the front page called, What Was The New York Times Thinking? Barb essentially lays into the NYT for hiring Jeffrey Rosen, author of the well-known hit piece on Sotomayor, The Case Against Sotomayor.
It was critical thinking that helped a wide variety of folks in the blogosphere prove that Rosen is not only a hack who uses anonymous sources with zero credibility, but that his personal agenda and connections may very well have influenced this piece.
From Balloon Juice:
Via commenter JDM, I see that wingnut welfare enters into it as well: Rosen’s wife works at the far-right Ethics and Public Policy Center (which also employs Rick Santorum) and Rosen gave a speech about SCOTUS nominations there a few weeks ago in 2006.
From Glenn Greenwald (Update #4):
Jeffrey Rosen's brother-in-law is Neal Katyal, the current Deputy Solicitor General in the Obama administration. If Sotomayor's prospects are torpedoed, that could clear the way for one of the other leading candidates to be named to the Court: current Solicitor General Elena Kagan. The selection of Kagan (rather than Sotomayor) would almost certainly result in Rosen's brother-in-law (Katyal) becoming Solicitor General. Additionally, Katyal himself was once a clerk for a Second Circuit judge, obviously raising the question of whether he was one of the anonymous sources for his brother-in-law's hit piece disparaging Sotomayor's intellect and character.
One can question whether this Rosen/Katyal relationship should have been disclosed by TNR (on balance, it was probably unnecessary), but at the very least, these are illustrative of the types of problems that inevitably arise when anonymous sources are used so casually in a political culture rife with incestuous relationships and conflicts of interest.
Anonymous sources, personal conflicts, and craptacular thinking - I'm wondering why Jeffrey Rosen is still employed. The only conclusion I can come to is that The New Republic prizes bad writing, bad journalism, and a poor thinking.
I'm not the only person that comes to this conclusion - many others have come to it over the past few years. There have been loads of diaries here by people saying they've canceled their subscription. And it isn't just TNR, but many other magazines, newspapers, and cable news networks have lost credibility over the last decade (if they had it in the first place - FOX News, I'm looking at you).
I don't read garbage news. There are so many well written articles, blog posts, books, etc. out there that I don't have time to read all the good - so I'm definitely not going to waste my time reading the garbage.
My husband (who I met here on DKos) teases me about my love of chick lit, but he also knows how important it is to me - those chic lit novels are the one type of text where I'm (mostly) able to turn off the critical thinking. I can push the button and turn it off for those few hundred pages. This is valuable to me. Sometimes critical thinking brings me to conclusions I would have preferred to avoid. Sometimes people I genuinely enjoyed reading for years lose credibility over time as they pen more and more pieces making arguments and claims that fall apart, or don't have enough evidence, or because those people use sources that are not credible.
No one is perfect, not even me. I don't expect anyone to be perfect. I do expect that we read critically regardless of the author and regardless of whether or not we agree with that author's opinion.
And now, some Top Comments.
From Dragon5616:
Punsters will love this response from Dump Terry McAuliffe in sheddhead's diary Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jack. demkat620 provides the set up and DTM knocks it out of the park. Prepare to groan.
From Elise:
ticket punch shows us how critical thinking is done.
noweasels also provides a lesson in critical thinking.
kitty brings us a quote from Dr. Warren Hern, who says he's next on the list of the anti-choice terrorists.
The Raven brings us a quote from terrorist, Randall Terry.
Leftie Gunner has a good comment on choice and compromise.
Meteor Blades says not to expect everything on day one. Good luck with that, MB :-)
And brillig is in with the Top Mojo:
Top 30 (Plus Ties) Comments excluding search-identifiable tip jars and first comments:
1) thank you by boilerman10 — 190
2) Sorry, link is up by gokatgo — 179
3) Definitely a huge relief. by askew — 168
4) In a word by vgranucci — 154
5) This is a big deal. by mamamedusa — 133
6) Donate by wiscmass — 133
7) As GM prepares for Bankrupcy, hope they have fun by qmastertoo — 131
8) Horrible, horrible news by Seneca Doane — 118
9) terrorism n/t by wu ming — 112
10) Good God! by ban nock — 105
11) My only comment for the moment: by Meteor Blades — 105
12) This is also horrible because.... by Auntie Neo Kawn — 97
13) Cheney/Bush/Rice left us wide open to 9/11 by Lefty Coaster — 97
14) Perhaps change headline to: by Deoliver47 — 94
15) Bush took over 1/3 of his terms as vacation by Dallasdoc — 92
16) This is nothing short of TERRORISM by Shockwave — 90
17) Mike Hendricks at the Kansas City star by Kitty — 87
18) So much for Cheney's argument that America has... by Jimdotz — 85
19) Cheney avoids strong interviewers by teacherken — 82
20) Now, now...kos specifically mentioned community by SallyCat — 81
21) "Right to life" indeed..... by murrayewv — 80
22) they invite people to assassinate us. by Kitty — 75
23) Sad .... by Bronxist — 74
24) Oh, and Michelle looks soooooo HOT!!!! by qmastertoo — 74
25) Two of my favorite pictures by Diogenes2008 — 74
26) I want to hear the proper term for this act: by SBandini — 74
27) How...appropriate. by mem from somerville — 74
28) He was a hero by Seneca Doane — 73
29) Tell me again what it means to be pro-life. by Setrak — 73
30) not much info yet by bumblebums — 73
31) Send a donation in his honor to by Deoliver47 — 73
Top 30 comments with no exclusions:
1) Remember his work with a donation by loree920 — 501
2) offered for your kind consideration by teacherken — 420
3) I really don't know how he gets away with this. by KingOneEye — 354
4) In the interest of full disclosure... by wiscmass — 328
5) Tips for poets and playwrights by Deoliver47 — 258
6) Tip Jar by Setrak — 251
7) thank you by boilerman10 — 190
8) Sorry, link is up by gokatgo — 179
9) Definitely a huge relief. by askew — 168
10) Thanks for sharing your personal stories by davidkc — 160
11) Beautiful! by Diogenes2008 — 157
12) All hail the Mightly Meteor Blades by GOTV — 157
13) Score One for Holder! by Calfacon — 157
14) In a word by vgranucci — 154
15) This is a big deal. by mamamedusa — 133
16) Donate by wiscmass — 133
17) Tip Jar by sheddhead — 132
18) As GM prepares for Bankrupcy, hope they have fun by qmastertoo — 131
19) Arrrrgh! err, Tip Jar? by PhillyGal — 129
20) Horrible, horrible news by Seneca Doane — 118
21) terrorism n/t by wu ming — 112
22) Tips by ecologist — 110
23) Good God! by ban nock — 105
24) My only comment for the moment: by Meteor Blades — 105
25) Tips by Trix — 101
26) Cheney/Bush/Rice left us wide open to 9/11 by Lefty Coaster — 97
27) This is also horrible because.... by Auntie Neo Kawn — 97
28) Happy Sunday Morning Everybody by webranding — 96
29) May the famlies and friends by roses — 96
30) Perhaps change headline to: by Deoliver47 — 94