Didn’t you watch the whole interview in the link provided on Page 1?
Who says it has to be about a “campaign issue”, and howcum you or he gets to decide what that is? From the very beginning, before the interview even began, she’s talking about the anonymous money flowing into this campaign. She asks if it might trouble him that he doesn’t know who is donating the money, or why. He instantly shifts into subject change mode…“Why doesn’t anyone want to talk about my opponents money…blah blah”
So far as I’m concerned, that is the issue: anonymous money from God knows where. The issue of Oregonians access to camping trips is a distant second.
But note: the first person to try to warp the interview is him: he is asked an entirely legitimate question, and answers an entirely different question. Rather than answer the question, he tries to change the subject. Actually, he does change the subject, by the simple expedient of refusing to answer the question. Within…what? fifteen seconds?..he’s already pissing and moaning about a “smear” tactic, when asked about a fact, a fact that he himself has already admitted is true!
How is that a “smear”?
I agree that the money question is 100% legitimate. But he dodged that like a smart politician should. Because you can’t win. That election is not the only one this year to have that raised. Rove got asked about it on one of the Sunday talk shows. The fact is that it is legal, unfortunate as that may be.
But all that other stuff was Smear City.
I’m not sure what you mean by that. What’s significant about the delay when he stops talking?
She doesn’t interrupt him at all. Here’s a transcript from the YouTube link:
5:08 - 5:14 Robinson: Hormesis is the study of the effects of low level radiation on human health.
5:14 - 5:17 Maddows: And is the idea that this radiation is good for you?
5:15 - 5:18 Robsinson: We live in a sea of… I can’t even get out a sentence!
She clearly begins talking before he does, by about a second. The problem here isn’t that she’s interrupting, it’s that she’s reacting to him as if he were in the room. In a face to face conversation, that would be a normal place to interject a clarifying question. But because of the delay, Robinson doesn’t hear her say it until he’s somewhere around the word “sea” in his own sentence. From his perspective, she interrupted him, but it’s an artifact of the medium.
It seems like she ought to wait longer before interjecting, or something, but like I said, I don’t watch a lot of cable news. Maybe that’s just how satellite interviews work? I’ll have to look out for that in the future.
That said, on the rest of the interview… well, I was wondering about that newsletter Maddow read from, the one about AIDS not being a real disease. I found it here. It’s a cited article, referencing several different publications (all presumably read by Robinson) on the topic, and it’s tone is very favorable towards the findings. On the other hand, it’s a very short article, and if he never wrote anything else about it, I can see him thinking of it as just some minor idea he ran across and wrote about on his blog fifteen years ago, and now he has to defend it on national TV? What the fuck?
On the other hand, if I read a persuasive argument that the government had invented a massive health scare for the purposes of extorting billions of dollars from an unsuspecting public, I think I’d remember that. (I certainly haven’t forgotten about the War on Drugs, for example.) So, the idea that he read what he thought was convincing evidence of a fraud on that scale, thought, “Yeah, that seems likely,” and then forgot all about kind of suggests to me that he frequently comes across ideas like this and finds them convincing. Which is getting into looney territory. And a superficial glance at the rest of the website seems to indicate that Robinson is pretty familiar with the borders of that nation, at the very least.
I also noted this follow up to the article about AIDS. Here’s the thing that caught my eye: the article is written by Paul Cameron. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Paul Cameron, but the man is a first rate scumbag. He’s a Fred Phelps-level homophobe, except instead of torturing the Bible to justify himself, he fabricates psychological studies to get the results he wants. He was kicked out of the APA because of that, and is no longer a licensed psychologist. This happened in 1983, twelve years before Robinson writes approvingly of his study. So, my question is, does Robinson know who Paul Cameron is? If he read a study and was duped by it, that’s one thing (although it does call into question his claim that he’s a “very good” scientist). If he’s familiar with Cameron’s history, and is still parroting his hateful rhetoric, that’s very, very different.
I really would like to know where Maddows was going with these questions, including the hormesis thing. You suggested that Maddows wanted to “get” Robinson, and I think you may very well be correct. However, I don’t think the interview turned out how she wanted. She appears genuinely frustrated by his reactions. I think she had some point she wanted to build to, but was unable to do so because Robinson wouldn’t stop complaining about her “sarcasm.”
You’d think the Eichmann trial would have shown that this defense doesn’t work.
Sorry – “Are you a crackpot?” goes to the top of the actual campaign issues list as soon as there is any indication that the answer might be in the affirmative.
When you two hash this out and reach a consensus, get back to us.
I’m a little surprised at the degree to which people seem to agree that crazy statements from 15 years ago should get a pass. Certainly people should be able to change their minds, and they should be able to explain how and why they’ve done so.
Maybe I’m just getting old, but 15 years really isn’t that long a time, is it? 15 years ago I was getting my Ph.D. Should all the things I believed then be thrown out the window just because they are 15 years old?
If the guy is 30 now, and he was just an adolescent 15 years ago, that’s a bit different. Otherwise, crazy beliefs that you had as an adult should be fair game as to how they do or do not reflect your actual beliefs.
Watching this interview I realized that Maddow is the leftist equivalent of Hannity, as some others here have concluded. I can’t stand either of them.
ETA: They even sort of look alike.
If that’s what he said, he’s wrong.
There is no equivalence there. Not even close.
It’s amazing how folks are walking away from the video having seen two different things. Or not, as this goes on every day all over the US. I guess I hold Dopers to higher standards. I gotta work on that.
If we accept there is this second-and-a-half delay (which I do) then that would explain why there would be uncomfortable silences and instances of people talking over one another as the both begin to speak simultaneously. Right? But, the delay would also delay when a sentence is actually finished. If you were on tape delay and ended a sentence at 3:14 in reality, with the delay I wouldn’t hear it end until 3:15.5. Here why that is important.
He is right in claiming that she interrupted him when he began explaining hormesis. She almost steps on his last word, “health”. She doesn’t quite. But if there is, in fact, this delay that is evident throughout the interview, then she would have heard the word “health” after she began speaking. She would have had to begin speaking a 6 or so words before. So, she actually did interrupt him, but the delay makes it seem not as egregious as it was.
But even if they were in the same room and there was zero delay, I’d still consider what she did a clear case of interrupting. He was starting off to explain this complicated topic. He just got out the very first basic sentence, of what was clearly going to be at least a few, and she cut him off trying to define precisely what she asked him to define. Never letting him get to the next sentence. She had a trajectory she wanted to follow. She wanted to be able to define things in her way, so she could then cobble together a string of crazy. I think she looked like an ass. First, for her low tactics and fullofshitism. Next, because he didn’t allow her to play her little game. Not that I think he came of glowing in any way. But he was clearly being unfairly attacked and deflected it as well as one could.
Wow, I actually listed the campaign I said I would have like to hear about and you just choose to ignore it, as if the words were never written.
Imagine that.
Wait, you’re not Rachel Maddow, are you?
Is to. For all practical purposes, identical.
So, there!
Sorry – ignoring actual campaign issues and reaching back over a decade into the scientific field and trying desperately to paint someone as crazy—and not letting him explain what you claim you want him to explain—is not journalism. It’s jerkism. It’s jerkism when Hannity does something similar and it’s jerkism when she does it.
Hannity doesn’t have the integrity to do research like that, nor does he need to. It’s much easier to just selectively edit more recent quotes to give the impression Obama is saying exactly the opposite of his message.
Here is proof should you doubt me.
Here is the longer segment from the Daily Show, start from 5:28.
[/QUOTE]
No, that’s not right. We know exactly when Maddow heard the word “health.” It’s right there in the video. The camera is in the same room as Maddow, so we’re seeing the conversation entirely from her frame of reference. When we see Robinson start and stop talking is exactly when she hears Robinson start and stop talking. While there is a delay on Maddow’s end, we don’t see that, because we are effectively in the room with her during the interview.
I disagree with that. This isn’t a lecture hall, it’s an interview, and Robinson has already demonstrated a propensity to ignore the actual question asked and go off on unrelated tangents, as he did on the very first question she asked. What you see as interrupting, I see as an attempt by Maddow to keep Robinson on the topic, and prevent him from dodging or obfuscating again.
I don’t necessarily think you’re incorrect, here, I just don’t see that as a failing on Maddow’s part. From looking at the guy’s newsletter, I think there’s a pretty credible charge of crazy to be made here. Exposing the crazy in potential members of Congress is an important part of any journalist’s job.
I challenge anyone to find a single instance of Maddow doing this. And if you cannot, or will not, then your equivalency of Maddow=Hannity is false. Of course, no one will, and the folks that have already made the equivalency will still claim victory, but the rest of us will know the truth of the matter.
We don’t know the monetary advantage that Republicans have over Democrats, because this sort of thing isn’t counted anymore. Say it’s 2:1. Under those circumstances, dropping $150,000 to promote some batshit loon makes sense, if it makes Fazio spend funds to support his campaign and more to the point, get sufficiently nervous so as not to transfer funds to Dems in vulnerable districts.
Then again, I suspect the explanation is simpler. Just as Big Tobacco subsidized researchers who maintained that smoking didn’t cause cancer, so Big Oil props up the C02-is-good-for-the-planet nutjobs. This is probably another aspect of their backscratching. Even if he doesn’t win, they still admire his work. Robinson sure isn’t getting support from Big Pharma.
Somebody thinks that Robinson’s cranky views are worth supporting in a big way.