3/30/2007 10:32:00 AM
Snopes.com is guilty of its own crime: glurge
Barbara and David Mikkelson, creators of snopes.com
If you can get past the sixth-grade composition class that precedes every UL description, snopes.com ain't half bad. For the most part.
But occasionally their political bias seeps through, and - like when a toddler plays innocent after stealing away with a cookie - the whole show can be pretty funny to witness.
In the site's "what's new" section, the Mikkelsons have posted yet another letter wherein a GI's inability to distinguish between reality and his own predispositions front as propaganda. In this latest "urban legend," some chaplain complains that news media and politicians "are making it sound like Walter Reed is a terrible place and the staff here has been abusing our brave wounded soldiers."
The problem is, no politician, nor anyone in the mainstream media is saying what this officer claims they're saying. The news organizations breaking, and then covering, the Bldg 18 story have been quite responsible in clarifying the facility in question is actually outside of the WRAMC. And no politician living with 50 miles of DC could get away with such an obvious slipup.
Neither the chaplain nor the Mikkelsons are perceptive enough to have noticed the difference between their own inferences, and others' observations.
It's a lot like the Bernard Goldberg "stuff I remember noticing" brand of objectivity. For me this sort of thing underscores what I already know about the right wing - they're empirically challenged.
No mainstream news outlet has said about the Walter Reed facility what the chaplain has apparently inferred from his observations of the story. But, that doesn't matter to the Mikkelsons. They've found another path for their cookie stealing. By elevating Chaplain Kallerson's letter to "urban legend" status, the dynamic duo at snopes have allowed themselves a pattern of weaselness they probably aren't aware many of us can see right through.
..!..
Barbara and David Mikkelson, creators of snopes.com
If you can get past the sixth-grade composition class that precedes every UL description, snopes.com ain't half bad. For the most part.
But occasionally their political bias seeps through, and - like when a toddler plays innocent after stealing away with a cookie - the whole show can be pretty funny to witness.
In the site's "what's new" section, the Mikkelsons have posted yet another letter wherein a GI's inability to distinguish between reality and his own predispositions front as propaganda. In this latest "urban legend," some chaplain complains that news media and politicians "are making it sound like Walter Reed is a terrible place and the staff here has been abusing our brave wounded soldiers."
The problem is, no politician, nor anyone in the mainstream media is saying what this officer claims they're saying. The news organizations breaking, and then covering, the Bldg 18 story have been quite responsible in clarifying the facility in question is actually outside of the WRAMC. And no politician living with 50 miles of DC could get away with such an obvious slipup.
Neither the chaplain nor the Mikkelsons are perceptive enough to have noticed the difference between their own inferences, and others' observations.
It's a lot like the Bernard Goldberg "stuff I remember noticing" brand of objectivity. For me this sort of thing underscores what I already know about the right wing - they're empirically challenged.
No mainstream news outlet has said about the Walter Reed facility what the chaplain has apparently inferred from his observations of the story. But, that doesn't matter to the Mikkelsons. They've found another path for their cookie stealing. By elevating Chaplain Kallerson's letter to "urban legend" status, the dynamic duo at snopes have allowed themselves a pattern of weaselness they probably aren't aware many of us can see right through.
..!..
