With all the time I spent typing while trying to listen, I may have missed it, but I didn’t hear anything from any member of Congress during the day that suggested they had moved an inch in their feelings about Iraq as a result of the Petraeus and Crocker testimony. I take we ended up right where we started. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has quickly announced that the Democrats weren’t buying:
“The president promised the American people that this surge would be a short-term effort to provide space for political reform and national reconciliation in Iraq,” Pelosi said. “Today, despite overwhelming evidence that neither goal has been achieved, General Petraeus testified that the surge would last at least until next summer. This is simply unacceptable.”
On the other hand, I didn’t hear much new wobbling coming from Republicans on the committee.
The work of the blogosphere, but also the mainstream media, in aggressively fact-checking and bluntly disputing the testimony suggests something else, some kinda inspiring.
The mendacity of the Bush administration on the subject of Iraq has created a moment when skepticism of statements coming from even the highest figures of the government and the military is no longer mistaken for lack of patriotism.
Compared with the early Bush years, more and more Americans have discovered the benefits of asking tough questions.
It would be wonderful if such a thing could last, not because partisanship or suspicion are so wonderful, but because critical thinking is.
Still, I suppose there were comparable moments when Vietnam had eroded LBJ’s credibility and when Watergate had done the same to Nixon. But it passes.
Cross-posted at Minnesota Monitor.
I’m all for critical thinking, but if I wanted examples of it it seems to me the LAST place I would look would be the Congress!
Unquestioned, unthinking and unscrupulous opposition with no respect or concern for the truth is no more “critical thinking” in my view than slavish mouthing of the “party line” — both of which seem to me the predominant characteristics of current Congressional blather from both sides. Neither sheds any light on the true facts of an issue.
Peering back through the mist of the past half century, however, I find precious few such moments in our political wastelands. Still, there have been a few, like jewels flashing in the midst of the mud.
“Critical thinking” means to me approaching each affirmation with inquiring skepticism, and attempting to penetrate below the words to the speaker’s real intent — and then testing it against the hard-to-find facts (not just the at least equally suspect statements of others). Most often the result is a determination that the affirmation is partly true. The devil is in what parts are untrue, and that is where discriminating evaluation takes place.
“Critical thinking,” in my opinion, is nothing at all like what we see fulminating daily from politicians of every stripe.