Thanks for telling it like it is since the naked truth is what the American public needs to hear and know.

http://www.greensrealworld.blogspot.com

These are words the Fourth Estate seems to have run aground on. Rathergate and countless other recent disasters have been predicated on a complete misinterpretation of standard of proof.

As a professional risk manager working for a major financial firm, I work with analysis and investigations that require standards for proof, involve measures for assessing the materiality of false information communicated, etc. I’m repeatedly shocked at how far the media has fallen from even basic principles in investigative reporting.

Recently, Megan McArdle (the Atlantic blogger) contemplated Slate writer Ron Rosenbaum’s suggestions that the best investigative journalists use a sociopathic approach, breaking the foundation of trust with their subject and not hesitating to screw their target over.

I won’t recap all the reasons why this approach is terribly wrong and ensures your analysis is likely to be stuck measuring the noise and not the data. Instead, TNR’s meltdown places this on a level similar to the intentional, material misrepresentations we all experienced with Worldcom, Global Crossing and Enron.

Let me ask, what is different in Foer’s behavior from Jeff Skilling? Why is Skilling condemned to a 24-year sentence while Foer is sipping cocktails? Both intentionally published knowlingly false information, with the intent to manipulate the general public in order to effect a financial outcome. In fact, Foer’s conduct is worse, using his publication to disparage a public institution with false information, while Skilling only sought to prop up his firm’s stock price, allegedly hoping to buy time for a financial miracle.

For Skilling, the target of the false information was Worldcom’s shareholders and debt-holders. For Foer, it was advertisers and subscribers, as well as CanWest’s shareholders and debt-holders. Worse yet, CanWest has refused to provide oversight. Their executives are the Ebbers to Foer’s skilling, whistling past the graveyard.

It’s apparent the media is incapable of self-regulation. I’ve long advocated professional accreditation for journalists in a manner similar to the CFA or CPA Charter, but their industry is too lost to correct their failings independently. Criminal penalties that mirror those prescribed by Sarbanes-Oxley are necessary for the intentional publication of information known to be false, or the publication of information not vetted and verified to be true, or the refusal to immediately correct “at the next publication event following discovery” with due care information later discovered to be false.

Foer and his superiors need to do hard time for this crime against the U.S. Army. Let’s make him the poster boy for Media Reform.

They don’t.

As long as it’s bashing the right, that’s what they want to read.

Nobody cares if it’s true. If it RESONATES … that’s the deciding factor.

You can make a lot of money telling people what they want to believe – whether it’s actually true or not is kind of beside the point.

TNR is a business. It’s in business to make money. If printing fabulous tales sell, they’ll do it. Because they know there’s no price to pay for doing it.

What bothers me about this move is that it signals the end of the “Big Tent” days, and “The Party of Ideas.” When we censor the viewpoints of members of our own party, we contribute to its break-up. While it’s true that RedState is private property, the site is acting unilaterally as a representative of the party itself. The message that just got sent to the nation is: “our way or the highway.” I shudder to think of what would have happened if local stations took measures to censor supporters of Robert Taft or Barry Goldwater.

But this is all cursory to my real problem with this move, which is the fact that whether I agree with him or not, Dr. Paul is bringing new people into the party. I spoke with our local Republican committee chairwoman last week, and was suprised to learn that in a day when Republicans are viewed so negatively, she’s seeing a noticable increase in the registration of young voters like she can’t ever remember, which she attributed to Dr. Paul. That certainly caught my attention, because if we don’t replenish our party with youth, we’re going to have a hard time keeping our own relevancy in an atmosphere which is becoming increasingly socialist.

I diagree with Dr. Paul on the issue of the war, but I have to say, I stand behind his conservative positions on just about every other topic. So I’m at a crossroads at how I define my conservativism. Do I definte it by my position on the Iraq war? Or do I define it by my position on the role of government.

I’m very nervous about the idea that such a popular conservative website wants to chase Dr. Paul out of the party before giving his ideas the opportunity to run their course in the market. The fact is, with his substantial war chest, his ideas WILL get their day in the spotlight. And we should know better than anyone that conservativism sells.

My true fear is that this move is the first shot in the war that splits the Republican party along the lines that I find myself split on. If Dr. Paul were to accept the Libertarian Party nomination, and use his significant new-found fundraising clout to build a base over there, all the work that Reagan did in bringing the Libertarian wing into the Republican fold would be undone.

Like it or not, Dr. Paul has a message that is appealing to conservatives — despite his views on the Iraq war. Surely nobody has forgotten how Nader cost Gore the election: by peeling off enough Democrats who wanted to send a message to their party.

RedState has fired the first shot and sent a message to the nation on behalf of the Republican party. I’m a little more than anxious to find out just how the other foot will drop.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to search for the small government conservative who is willing to go the distance (whatever it may be) in Iraq. But I’m beginning to wonder if there is even such a thing.

Morteza Alavi

But hey, he’s not nuts at all.

I’m aware that it’s neither modern nor ordinary — but then again, neither is this company, which I had the privilege of spending the first 3/4 of August with in the Salman Pak area south of Baghdad.

Thanks for pointing it out, though.

Paul offered his take on why the government seemed to be acting in a deranged and reckless manner on every issue.

Uhh, yes, you would KNOW deranged, wouldn’t you!