Today, Howard Kurtz quoted a story about the discovery of the remains of Howard Dean’s brother in Laos. He then commented:
I wonder if the remains would have been found if Dean wasn’t running for president.
I have been trying all day to imagine what Kurtz could have meant by that, but everything I come up with is ludicrous. Suggestions are more than welcome. (via Atrios)
Howie finds the following story plausible:
Becoming a Presidential candidate gives one superhero like powers, including the power to travel back in time. Howard Dean used this new power to travel back to try and save his brother. But we all know that although time travellers can visit the past, they cannot change it, so tragically Charles Dean still died. Howard, however, saw what happened, and when he returned to the present was able to alert the authorities to where his brother’s remains would be. Hence they were found, but wouldn’t have been if not for candidate Dean’s superpowers.
I have others, but they are less charitable towards Howie.
If you want to be very charitable, it would awfully poor phrasing, and what he meant was that the find of a little-known US soldier in Laos would not have been reported in the media.
But the more likely interpretation is that it is a knee-jerk reaction by a Dean-hater.
Kurtz’ writings become more coherent if one reads them assuming that he’s a press critic in the same way that an official of one-party state would be a press critic of the state run media. His job is to provide a potemkin criticism, so that people are decieved into thinking that there’s actually free speech and open debate. However, most of the criticism is fluff, and the rest is designed to bolster the official party line.
In short, he should be writing for AstroturfHHH^^HH Tech Central Station.
Well I’ve thought all of three seconds, and here’s my take.
The report doesn’t say whether the body was found because people went looking for it or by accident. If by accident, then Kurtz is all wet. If people went looking for it (because they knew that the body would be in some particular region), then one could surmise they only did so because Dean is now somebody important. And if those people worked for an organization which has scarce resources, then one can always ask why the search for this body got (say) preferential treatment over the search for somebody’s else lost relative. And that still doesn’t mean Dean himself did anything wrong to get preferential treatment; it could be someone just heard about the case because Dean is in all the papers and then tried to do something about it.
Well that’s a lot of “ifs”, but that’s the take I can provide. Given all the “ifs”, Kurtz’s ruminations are best called “innuendo” if not “slander” (unless he has information which he did not supply in his column).
Everyone knows the really important part of that Kurtz article is when it mentions me way down at the end. Best media critic ever.
Andrew,
I thought about that- that Kurtz was implying that extra attention is a perk that comes with political celebrity. But I don’t think it works for a few reasons:
- Howard Dean was a governor while Clinton was president. He would have had a lot more pull in the 90s, under a sympathetic Administration, than right now, while actively campaigning against the Administration.
- The PMAC is in charge of finding MIA/POWs, and Charlie Dean wasn’t in the military. The report that I read made it sound like they found him while looking for the remains of soldiers. (That could be wrong, of course.)
- Charlie Dean disappeared 30 years ago. I’m not sure that the search teams could have concentrated excessively on a specific individual, even if they wanted to.
It’s better than the superhero theory, but it’s still not very good.
Oh, it’s not just me then [she said stupidly]. I’ve disliked Kurtz for years - thought he was a sort of pretend-media critic who was actually as ‘mainstream’ and conventional and conventional-wisdom-loving and tame as it was possible to be. Yet another of those phenomena that are so familiar in US culture, where various people and institutions have reputations as wildly lefty and extreme and flaky and out there when in fact they’re not even left of center and can be relied on to sneer at anyone who is. The NY Times springs to mind, followed closely by the Washington Post and NPR.
But, so, apparently that’s common knowledge about Kurtz, and I just haven’t been paying attention. Well that’s good - that other people have been, I mean.
When love begins to sicken and decay,
It useth an enforced ceremony.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith;
But hollow men, like horses hot at hand,
Make gallant show and promise of their mettle;
But when they should endure the bloody spur,
They fall their crests, and, like deceitful jades,
Sink in the trial. Comes his army on?
Perhaps Kurtz is merely inviting us to contemplate the ultimate serendipity of life, by way of a little koan.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review