Word: sobering
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...that we in the media have slipped our normal rules as well. Usually when a candidate tells something less than the truth, we mince words. We use euphemisms like mendacity and inaccuracy ... or, as the Associated Press put it, "McCain's claims skirt facts." But increasing numbers of otherwise sober observers, even such august institutions as the New York Times editorial board, are calling John McCain a liar. You might well ask, What has McCain done to deserve this? What unwritten rules did he break? Are his transgressions of degree or of kind...
...good news is that the vile times may be ending. The coming debates will decide this race, and it isn't easy to tell lies when your opponent is standing right next to you. The Wall Street collapse demands a more sober campaign as well. But these dreadful weeks should not be forgotten. John McCain has raised serious questions about whether he has the character to lead the nation. He has defaced his beloved military code of honor. He has run a dirty campaign...
...illness. Hearing the same rumor repeatedly tends to increase belief in that rumor along a "diminishing-returns" type of curve: One repetition increases belief the most, a second repetition increases belief next most, a third repetition increases it next most, and so on. These results are a cause for sober pause - merely hearing a rumor leads to increased belief...
...false rumor, especially if you hear it repeatedly, makes you more familiar with the rumor. All other things being the same, we seem to use a rule of thumb "if it sounds familiar, it is more likely to be true." Again, this finding should give us cause for a sober pause. What we hear often may in fact seem more plausible simply because we hear it often...
...probably be relegated to what Trotsky dubbed “the dustbin of history.” The standard by which he will ultimately be judged is his character and political commitment. Thus it is critical that we temper our paeans to this hero of the gulag with a sober analysis of his legacy both as an advocate and as a human being. There is no doubt that Solzhenitsyn’s novels played a dramatic role in disabusing the left of its residual romanticism for the Bolsheviks. But as Theodore Dalrymple observed in a recent article for City Journal...