Why I save e-mails.

From: Mike <president@whitehouse.gov>
To: Louise  <president@whitehouse.gov>
Sent: Sun, 30 Sep 2018 12:49:14 -0500
Subject: Why I save e-mails.

Not necessarily so much for what I've had to say, but for what Melba and my kids have had to say. Scott, in particular, has written some very informative and interesting e-mails. I got into an e-mail argument with a reporter several years ago. After exchanging several e-mails with her, I asked Scott to write a response to her silliness for me. It's part of this e-mail. 

From: Mike  <president@whitehouse.gov>
To: Mary Beth  <president@whitehouse.gov>
Sent: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 17:19:26 -0600
Subject: Not quite spent yet.

You're being inundated -- going back to the word I used in February.


What's below the line is also by Scott, except for the lead-in. For a while, I held my own in a battle with one Holly J. Fackler, an Ohio journalist. When I found it was taking too much effort (Lacking stamina, I was running out of steam.), I brought in Scott for the coup de grâce.

Listen to www.tinyurl.com/lqh7lh to hear how the French pronounce coup de grâce, not quite the way we said it back in Marshall. If you haven't heard it pronounced "correctly," as Jim would claim, you might be surprised. I'll test Mr. Drumsticks later and see if he comes close. He's good at foreign pronunciations, but I think I might catch him on this one. I still enjoy one-upping him.

Here's the last thing I wrote to the blog Friday before I decided it was time to take a break from complaining and whining.

I told Jim again today that I don't want him feeling sorry for me. That he would come in second best yet again, like he usually did when it came to horseshoes, ping pong, [poker,] and pool.  … And girls. Yeh, that's the ticket. Girls, too. I've had so much practice feeling sorry for myself he can't even come close.

"I apologize for writing a long letter. I didn't have time to write a short one." -- Blaise Pascal.

Yes, I cribbed from myself for the nth time when I brought up the Pascal quotation.

If I can locate it, I'll send you the full exchange with Ms. Fackler. You will see almost first-hand how so many of today's journalists "think." Liberal journalism professors ⇒ liberal journalists. Today's so-called journalists need to take more math, physics, and philosophy courses, particularly courses in logic that might help them improve their critical reasoning powers. 


“Most of life falls in the ambiguous category," said Fackler. Not for me it doesn't. What she said barely qualifies as something that should emanate from a sentient being. Remember my saying, "No one has to tell you when it's right"? If what you're looking for is ambiguity or uncertainty, you can certainly find it. But if you believe, as I do, that there's usually a right answer, you're more likely to come up with it. Just don't jump the gun on what the right answer's going to be: Work it out. Her output is the result of the semi-functioning brains I associate with polyps, possibly as high up the food chain as goldfish. Feelers, not thinkers; perceivers, not judgers. 

The problem? Such folk don't look at the evidence and the facts objectively. Being objective is too much work for them. After all, if you carry out genuine investigations, research, and analysis, you may learn that your foregone conclusions were wrong. Much easier to go in with preconceived notions and look for support for those notions, ignoring evidence to the contrary. What I see are journalists made of the same stuff liberal Supreme Court Justices are made of: that's not the stuff dreams are made of.

Give me a reporter instead of a journalist any day. And please, Lord, give me more Myers-Briggs xxTJ types and fewer xxFP types. 


What's your Myers-Briggs preferred mode of thinking? I'm an INTJ myself, and glad to be one. If you've never gone through an exercise to determine what your Myers-Briggs personality type is, there are plenty of places you can do it online. Just Google «Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator» and Bob's yer uncle. You don't seem to me to be someone who would turn out to be an FP: a feeler-perceiver. I'd almost be astonished if you turned out to be a P rather than a J. FJ is all right with me; so is TP. It seems to be mostly the FPs who see the world so different from the way I see it that we have trouble getting along. If you turn out to be an FP, I suppose I've stepped into it, haven't I? Ah, well, I'll just blame it on a lack of sleep again.


OK, what did you major in? Was it Arkansas College that you were graduated from? (Remember how the word graduate was used when we grew up? We didn't graduate, we were graduated. And we most assuredly didn't "graduate Marshall High School," the way I hear it said a lot.) Did you get married after you finished college? How did you and Gerald meet? … To use the old Lothario's line, Tell me about yourself." You can skip height and weight and measurements -- I've pretty well finally outgrown those.


Jim told me his petite wife introduced herself at a formal military ball this way: "I'm CP. I'm taller than you." I don't know if you remember what Mr. Matthews said when he introduced himself: "My name is Dolan Matthews. I suppose you know yours." My variant of what CP said might go something like this: "I'm Mike. I'm balder than you are. I'm shorter than you are. I'm older than you are. I'm fatter…."


When I stopped by Braum's (ice cream parlor, basically) to get Melba a milkshake Friday, I asked if they had milkshakes for a milkshake diet -- that I wanted to lose about 50 pounds in 90 days with eating milkshakes being the secret. I think they must have run out of that kind of milkshake the day before. The one I got for myself was the richest I've ever had in my life. 


Regards,

Mike 


«Later» 

I talked to Jim right after I left my Mike's happy message for you this morning. He came suprisingly close to proununcing coup de grâce the way the French do. Coodiegrahs is how I hear it. The only noticeable difference to my untrained ear was that he didn't sound as if he smushed the three components together. He ended with an s-sound, one of the keys to the "correct" French pronunciation.

Jim said he's going to fire up his computer, meaning he's going to start using the Internet again. I think your conversation with him on his birthday might have led to his decision. Exchanging a few e-mails isn't going to hurt him. I hope he follows through and doesn't change his mind. (I won't have to print out so much stuff to send to him. I bought a new printer for that express purpose.)

Melba seems to be doing considerably better, but she thinks Dr. Schiller plans to keep her in the hospital another two or three days. (She'll be starting her second round of chemotherapy about the time I'm expecting her to get out.) She went back on solid food at breakfast this morning. Dr. Schiller is having her drink Coca Cola to help digest the bezoar remaining in her stomach. He had read a magazine article saying the bubbles helped aid its digestion. She said he seemed quite pleased with himself for finding that. He was also pleased when she told him I had praised him to high heaven over at UAMS, which is where he went to medical school or interned about 20 years ago. That might have been a bit of an exaggeration, but I definitely told them he was the best diagnostician I've ever encountered.


I left Melba's room when an occupational therapist came in to help her shower and wash her hair. 

I had been reading Bukowski to her. Maybe you should risk scanning one of his books at a bookstore or a library. He's not really that coarse that often, but he does use a few words you'll never hear me say.

I called back to tell her I was going to be out and about for a while. Not for long, since it's so hot. She asked where I was going and what I was going to be doing. I told her the stops I planned to make and went on to say I might be able to snag a fifth-grade girlfriend. She said sternly, "I'd advise you not to." I loved how threatening she sounded.


I confirmed with her nurse that she's being given two units of blood today. Her hemoglobin count had dropped to 8.4, so I'm sure that's why. Over at UAMS the multiple myeloma patients aren't given transfusions until the count drops to <8.0, if I understood correctly. I'm glad it's being done, because it should help her get stronger faster. Still no indication of whether she'll be discharged for home care with physical therapy or to a skilled nursing facility. Fingers crossed, although she definitely wants to come home. Definitely.


In the HMO's computer records, the denial of the Request for Skilled Nursing Facility said ~ Did not meet medical criteria. The HMO's case manager had reported that Melba had shown no progress from July 17 to July 27. The actual physical therapists' reports showed that not to be the case. The denial that came in the mail said a SNF was not a medical necessity. Those are hardly the same reasons for a denial. 


It's been the best day in a long time for me. The highlight was Melba's rendition of "Doggie in the Window" -- especially her ad libs. She also walked 600 feet twice today, something I wouldn't have thought possible a week ago. 


I'm combining this with what I put together after I said I was going back to bed earlier today. I stayed up.


Regards, 


Mike

Why such resistance to a possible Saddam Hussein-Usama bin Laden connection? 


I refuse to discount the information provided in the first post just because it came from the federal government and was printed in the Weekly Standard. Why? Because such a connection does make senseto me. Not all columnists on opinion pages (or posters we read here) care that much about facts or what makes sense. They can be quite happy as long as they get to use a lot of adjectives and adverbs to push their points of view — and a “strong word” such as “slaughter” now and then. My objective is usually to seek the truth; others have as their objective raising doubts. What could they think is so admirable about that?


 After writing some time back to Holly J. Fackler, an Ohio journalist, who published a column that I didn't care for, she responded, “It's an opinion page! Of course it's slanted.” After my reply that “I prefer to see opinions grounded in logic, not emotion, and to have a basis in fact,” she said, “Columnists appeal to all kinds of things, reason among them.” She went on to say that she “didn't choose words carelessly,” andthat hers had been “chosen to raise some kind of doubt” since most of us have no personal experience of “their [the Husseins'] alleged wickedness” or “the country where Hussein MEN did their evil work.” She closed, “Most of life falls inthe ambiguous category, which is why journalism is such an interesting field. Eventually I think you come to hold the opinion that, really, it's almost all spin.” Not me. Her column certainly was that, filled as it was with strong words she chose carefully — my emphases added in the quoted material that follows.


 … having a hard time getting my head around why the Hussein boys warranted any more of my time. I mean, the slaughter of the reportedly wicked brothers was not a triumph of right over wrong or good over evil … deaths were another “cowboy” incident resulting from this deceitfully justified military action … I can't help think that it would have been far better for us all to let justice be dispensed in a court of law … not necessarily one of our shining moments … our government is no longer of the people because the people are, as 27 blank pages demonstrate, being kept in the dark … Our nation bears huge emotional and financial sacrifice in pursuit of questionable goals and with increasingly questionable results … As a nation, the United States has become more like Saddam's Iraq than post-war Iraq has become like the United States … When probed about the Hussein boys' photos, another reporter offered a succinct comeback. The only question regarding our involvement in Iraq that matters to him is this one: “When will we be out?” Copyright ©2003 the BucyrusTelegraph-Forum.


The last e-mail that was sent follows. It was my turn for some adjectives and adverbs and strong words. They were provided for me courtesy of Scott. I can't be sure this is a first draft, but I know he didn't spend much time on it. 

Before spin, there are facts. Sensible people seek the best facts available. When they cannot see for themselves, they rely on those they trust as observers and reporters to gather the facts for them. They then employ their reason to make judgments based on those facts.Their judgments rest on a foundation of belief: belief in the truth of the facts upon which reason operates. Ideally, opinion pages offer journalists and editors the opportunity to marshal the facts they've collected and to make arguments that, were they to appear on other pages, would fall outside the regime of aiming to objectively fold facts into a cohering narrative. I invite you to seek out, in as many quarters and from as many sources as you please, and to go and see for yourself, the truth of these statements:

1. Seventeen times, the UN passed resolutions calling Saddam Hussein into compliance with the collective will of the world's nations on the matter of weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein scoffed at each assertion of authority, each assertion of international law, and each expression of humanity's collective sovereignty. UN weapons inspectors, not a few passionately critical of and opposed to US policies and its protection of its interests, came to believe that the Iraqis were systematically lying, deceiving, and dissembling about biological and chemical weapons, and also about biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs. Bill Clinton continues to believe and assert (at best a suspect source for facts and truth, one must admit) that Saddam Hussein possessed or continued seeking to possess these weapons. This is not reasonably doubted. It is not spin.

2. Usama bin Laden, his colleagues, and followers hate you and are at war with you, personally; and they have nurtured and cultivated the suicidal dedication of TENS of thousands of others — either from or living in the middle-East and Asia — to make war upon you, your family, your friends, your community, your values, your nation, and your multi-cultural culture and the ideas of equality, liberty, and tolerance. This is and will continue to be a war to their deaths ... or to you and your freedom's death, should we lose. The members of Al Qaida and their ilk seek the destruction of the United States Constitution, every state not operating under moslem dictates (exactly as they understand them), and eradication of any element of culture at odds with that in which Arabs lived under Muhammed's rule in the 7th Century middle-East. They want you converted to and enslaved by the Wahhabi interpretation of islam. They want women forever covered from head to foot (no one will have a right to bare arms), forever confined to the home with only domestic employments, without education, and having a choice for only the male company and friendship of relatives. They want there never to be anything different for your daughters or nieces or any human being who is born female until the end of time. The goal that the US government pursues is the defense of your liberty and the marvelous, miraculous inheritance given to you to both enjoy and contribute to the perfection of the rights and responsibilities bestowed by the US Constitution, the civilization from which they sprang, and the culture in which they still endure. This is not (or at least should not be) a questionable or ambiguous goal. It is horrible and unfortunate that a war of annihilation is made upon you and yours, but it is not spin.

3. Hate is often an overriding emotion. Al Qaida's operatives are trained to embrace things odious to their ideology as a means of better making war against all Americans — children, old people, handicapped, or any other. Dealings with Ba'athists, in exchange for access even to just the knowledge of how to make and use devices capable of killing TENS of thousands of Americans, is fully within the character of Al Qaida's members. Expediency is an axiomatic, socio-cultural moral norm in the middle-East: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Ideologically opposed groups and leaders engage in expediency: Stalin made pact with Hitler, though their ideologies were based in conflicting materialisms. This is not spin.

4. Daily, Iraqis and coalition soldiers labor to exhume the bodies of TENS of thousands of Saddam Hussein's victims from mass graves. The smell of murder and sight of broken remains will scour “so-called” from your mind. On streets, Iraqis pass men who until just recently received pay, benefits, and bonuses from the Ba'ath government for their services as rapists, torturers, and murderers. Human beings do these things, and human beings make governments that sanction these things. Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Auschwitz, the killing fields of Cambodia, and the bloody-walled churches of Burundi prove it. There are no Iraqis raped, tortured, or being murdered under state direction or official sanction today in areas of Iraq where Coalition forces have control. This is not a questionable or morally ambiguous result. It is not spin.

5. The sons of Saddam Hussein were human monsters. Perhaps made monsters by their monstrous father, but both monsters and monstrous nonetheless. They raped, they tortured, they killed for pleasure, and they helped operate a state apparatus that daily ground human spirits and human bodies between its vicious wheels to satisfy their lusts and greed. Hundreds of their living victims in Iraq can tell you and show you the scars created at their hands as evidence. Hundreds more cannot tell you, because their tongues were cut out. Still other hundreds and thousands are simply no more. This is not spin.

6. The American military did not shoot first in the military action that caused the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein. Four of the soldiers sent to capture or kill these monsters first rang the doorbell of the residence in an effort to peacefully take men they knew to be armed and dangerous into custody. They were wounded by shots fired by Uday or Qusay or those with them. Loudspeaker appeals to surrender were made in Arabic and answered by more gunfire. Gunfire issued from the house containing these rapists, torturers, murderers for six hours — until those shooting at American soldiers were, by deadly violence, rendered unable to shoot any longer. They were killed because they could not be captured without the cost of an unacceptable number of American lives. That the streets of Iraq and the world are safer without Uday or Qusay alive to walk them is not questionable or ambiguous. It is not spin.

7. Access to and recorded images of the corpses of the Hussein brothers were given to the world media to satisfy the need and demand for proof that Uday and Qusay are dead. Only owners, publishers, producers, and editors of the media made the decision to show the images they came to possess to their audiences — either from motives of journalistic ethic, profitability and market-share, or a combination of both. Censure and criticism for the decision lies with them. This is not questionable or ambiguous. It is not spin.

8. Coalition soldiers daily risk, and some give, their lives to make places like Iraq and Afghanistan Stable, Safe, and Just Enough to deny their territory, people, resources, and wealth to Al Qaida and other Radical islamic ideology groups using terror as a means of war against the United States. This war goes on. The President, charged by events with leading and carrying out the defense of the United States and its citizens, has assessed an advantage in withholding, for now, some 28 pages of the 9-11 Commission's Report and in avoiding a potential factual indictment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's government, either in part or whole, at this point in the war. That there truly are matters of National Security and there are unwanted consequences involved in the untimely release of information is not questionable or ambiguous. It is not spin.

The great journalists, given the opportunity to express their opinions, demonstrate good sense by using the best facts available. They gain their reputations and are considered great because they make worthy judgments into good arguments, based upon fact. Good opinion pieces are good because their arguments are grounded in fact, not because they spin well, which is merely a measure of propaganda's worth.

Ms. Fackler did not respond.

This material has also been sent out in e-mails on the Internet under the name "Betsy Trotwood." For those instances, the copyright notice © 2003 - 2009 Betsy Trotwood has been used. She was a character in Charles Dickens's David Copperfield. Since she was a nice woman, I have used the name for my persona as "the nice editor" at one of my other sites, PseudoDictionary.

To kibitz or not to kibitz

To kibitz or not to kibitz?