More Twittering from Aaronovitch in the last hour or so, in reply to an interlocutor called Bensix. (I've removed all the twittery bits, placed 'tweets' in order, and joined them where they are clearly intended to be continuous):
BENSIX: Tim Wilkinson vs. @DAaronovitch...http://tinyurl.com/37vbrkn
DA: Yes, I particularly like the bit where Wilkinson suggests that Tom Mangold is a security service agent. Thanks for the spot.
BENSIX: Yes, hadn't noticed that and don't endorse such speculations. OTOH, he offers valid points: the Times letter-writers are neither nuts nor nit-pickers, and their claims should be addressed.
BENSIX: New: If That's Occam's Razor I Suspect He Wore A Handsome Beard...http://tinyurl.com/27k2q4t
DA: You mean apart from calling Tom Mangold an agent, the guy has a point? Nope. He's one of those 'just sayin'' plausible kooks.
BENSIX: To be specific, I agree with him that your "legal purist" aside was unconvincing. The letter was challenging the stated cause of death, not quibbling at the edges. This should be considered, even if the "blood", "knife", "dead man" combo appeals to our intuition. Parsimonious theories take note of all the data. And if one considers Prof. Forrest's opinion to be meaningful one has to establish why it's more so than similarly accredited figures (ie. the "medical experts" crew). Just sayin'... ;o)
DA: Have you actually read either my Saturday Kelly piece in full or the Kelly chapter in my book in full?
BENSIX: Have read the book. Quite agree that Baker's theory seems unlikely. (That's as far as I can go - haven't read 'iz tome.) OTOH, you quote Prof. Forrest on pg. 270 and suggest his opinion's telling. ("Had Baker shared [his] view, the impression would...have been dissipated". The views of authorities should guide our opinions, yes, which is why I think there's good reason to be intrigued by the Doc/Prof's letter. I wish they'd expand, and they could well be wrong, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss their points because they don't align with my - rather intuitive - view. If Tim didn't quote all of your Sunday piece then I might well have missed something. Am a skinflint; thus, no subs. Sorry if that's the case.
DA: So you wasted my time and yours asking questions that I have already answered cos you can't be arsed to read or pay? Wot r u?
BENSIX: Er, no, I assumed he'd quoted all your piece (900 words - seems fair enough) and tried to offer reasons why one...may find the letter compelling. Think that's time-wasting then by all means ignore. What am I? Jus 'zis guy, you know...
The main thing to notice here is that Aaronovitch immediately sniffs out and latches onto a remark of mine - in comments - in which I mention Tom Mangold's motives for his dishonest and overly enthusiastic weighing in on the Kelly debate in its early stages. I even refuse to dismiss the possibility that he may be a friend of one or both of the main secret services.
I did have slight misgivings - for exactly this reason - about failing to rule out such - entirely reasonable - speculation, for speculation it is. But I naïvely supposed that just as one speculates about motives, conflict of interest etc. in all other areas of life, there's no sane reason to refrain from doing so when someone is obviously entangled to some degree with the espionage and security 'community'.
I actually think it more likely that Mangold was intervening off his own bat, perhaps hoping to curry favour with his sources - and demonstrate how safe his hands are - or just relishing the idea of getting involved.
But to Aaronovitch, this is a perfect opportunity. It seems my remarks cross a red line into the realm of the unsayable, so A can leap on that comment, and ignore the entirety of the article. It works tolerably well - Bensix seems slightly abashed, and hastens to distance himself from these mad ravings about the insane idea that a man who is closely connected to the secret services, and whose profession involves receiving favours from members of it, might actually do some favours in return, even if unsolicited.
However, Bensix is not to be deflected - he points out that the article makes good points. Aaronovitch, intransigent: 'Nope. Plausible kook.' He seems to agree that what I say is plausible. But the 'kook' label, applied on such flimsy grounds, has stuck, at least as far as Aaronovitch is concerned, and trumps mere plausibility.
Bensix persists. So Aaronovitch tries another favourite tack: 'have you read the whole of the article, and the whole chapter of my book? If not, end of discussion.
Bensix says yes, he has read the book, and he had assumed that the whole of the article was quoted in my post. (He was correct to do so: everything is in there, even photo captions.) So the answer to both questions is yes, but Aaronovitch, who would surely have recognised that his whole article was quoted had he read my post rather than trawling the comments for slightly dubious remarks to shriek about, thinks he has uncovered enough uncertainty here to dismiss Bensix with some contempt.
[Update : and he actually claims that he has answered all Bensix's questions, seemingly intending to suggest that there are parts of the article that I haven't quoted, which would be a lie.]
And throughout the exchange, he has not addressed a single one of the many points in the post that destroy his article. Piss and wind indeed.
While fiddling about with those tweets, I also noticed the following little progression. Aaronovitch seems insistent that bellacaledonia should go beyond the evidence to construct and adopt a specific conspiracy scenario. At which point he can go on the attack, and complain that BC is going beyond the evidence to construct and adopt a specific conspiracy scenario:
[update: I've reversed the order so it's chronological]
# @bellacaledonia A critical culture is a vital thing. Unfortunately what you're talking about is a stupid culture. 11:10 AM Aug 17th via TweetDeck in reply to bellacaledonia
# @bellacaledonia No point in carrying this on at a level of generality. Be specific about what you want to say - ie Blair offed Kelly. 11:13 AM Aug 17th via TweetDeck in reply to bellacaledonia
# @bellacaledonia So what are you saying? That rogue elements in security services bumped Kelly off? How? Name one particle of evidence. 11:20 AM Aug 17th via TweetDeck in reply to bellacaledonia
I didn't try and follow the full conversation - life's too short, and Twitter's too poorly designed.
I recall a similar insistence from a certain Phil D'Bap, a regular commenter on Aaronovitch Watch who is indistinguishable in every way from Aaronovitch himself:
Can we dispense with some of the nonsense here? You think that many/several of the conspiracy theories that Aaro debunks are true, don't you? Isn't that the real issue?
Phil D'Bap
This kind of counter-attack is important to Aaronovitch since he has little chance of defending his own ludicrous assertions on a level playing field (as the rest of the thread demonstrates, demolishing as it does the pretensions of his very silly book.)
Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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...It works tolerably well - Bensix seems slightly abashed, and hastens to distance himself...
ReplyDeleteHrm, yes - I was trying to avoid a bunfight but it does read like a virgin faced with a sweaty, hirsute nudist...
Generally I think it's right to assume that one's rhetorical opponents have innoxious motives: 1) because more do than don't, 2) because, as a one-time pseudo-sceptic of the "lolz! Conspiraloons!" variety I know that people often mock theories for purposes of ego - rather than, say, professional - enhancement and 3) as I don't see how one could prove otherwise. I see your point regarding secret services connections, though. They tend to slant a journo's judgement; even if unconsciously.
Still, I don't know Mangold so I'll quietly return to avoiding the point!
Nice analogy, chortle. Yes sorry, the point wasn't that you were in any way at fault for not sharing my suspicions, or for being too conciliatory - it's more that if you hadn't said as you did, it would have been game over even more quickly.
ReplyDelete(And it obviously didn't work as a way of shutting you up altogether.)
I have a nasty feeling Aaro has made a note of the Mangold Rebuttal for future use should I nip his heels again (and I will).
He is already aware of (and I trust a bit irritated by) my existence, but I don't think he's previously managed to winkle anything out of me that he can trumpet as Conspiranoia.
So if my forthcoming controlled demolition of his shitty book gets placed anywhere reasonably prominent, for example, I can perhaps expect this one to be trotted out.
Except that would implicate Aaro in publicising a rumour that Mangold is an 'agent' - one which normal people not in his weird bubble may not have thought about, and may give credence to. Aaro outs MI5 asset - this I must see.
Aaro also seems to imagine I think Mangold is on PAYE and goes for regular martial arts training, or something, rather than the range of much more informal, even unspoken, arrangements I had in mind.
The thing about Mangold is that he actively and with some effrontery sought to intervene in the events, not limiting himself to the TV appearance. (And I'm going to watch that again because I remember thinking it was a bit odd in its vehemence and possibly some of its claims, but I can't remember the details now.)
The very fact of his putting himslef forward for the TV appearance was slightly odd in any case, because Mangold is supposed to be a proper journalist and not openly a chatterer/opinionator/polemicist/propagandist like Aaro et al.
The ridiculous thing about Aaro in relation to this topic (there are many others) is that as far as he's concerned (it's hard and not really necessary to work out how much of his bullshit he actually believes), the very idea that any journalist might ever do favours for, say, MI5 is just as mental as lizards from the 6th dimension, even though it would be utterly ridiculous to suggest that such a thing never happens (the journos, not the lizards).
Indeed a moment's reflection and some fairly basic knowledge, along with indirect evidence like anecdotes relating failed recruitment attempts, should make it clear that there must be at least a few journos on the 5 payroll, for example. The thing is we don;t usually know which ones, though we may have a pretty strong suspicion in some cases, or be able to say we wouldn't be at all surprised in others, etc.
DA: So you wasted my time and yours asking questions that I have already answered cos you can't be arsed to read or pay? Wot r u?
ReplyDelete& im like wtf???!!! @ any r8, it's gr8 2 c r onovich, under pressure, revealing himself so clearly as a boor, a buffoon, and, above all, a bully. Of course, his lip-curling contempt for some damnably impertinent peon interlocutor ("Wot r u?" - cf. Sarkozi's "Pauvre con!") is merely the flipside of his unreflecting power-worship, his automatic faith in the trustworthiness of his Leaders' accounts.
"Wot r u?"
That question is more illuminating than any answer you could have given it. I think it translates as "You're not Tony Blair, you're not Lord Hutton and you're not a brevetted Guardian clerk like me. So who r u? And if you're a mere nobody, how dare you venture an opinion, much less an argument?" In short, he's accusing you of lèse-majesté.
It's no exaggeration to call Aaronovich's attitude proto-fascist, or perhaps neo-feudal. "Nach oben buckeln, nach unten treten." - Bow to your boss while kicking your servant.
"DA: You mean apart from calling Tom Mangold an agent, the guy has a point? Nope. He's one of those 'just sayin'' plausible kooks."
This is just patently untrue, and (as a response to TW's lengthy and carefully-reasoned rebuttal) mere helpless hackery. But who needs reason or fairness when you have Western Civilisation on your side?
"He's one of those"
-that's how to stop an argument before it can even get started: identify the Enemy, categorise him, pigeonhole him, abuse him, ignore him. Because you're either with Us or against Us, you see.
There's a straight line from DA's style of "debate" to Guantanamo Bay.
God help the Enlightenment if Aaronovitch is its best hope. While presuming to pass judgment on what he so sniffily calls "Voodoo Science", he himself displays the debating skills of a headless chicken and the rhetorical power of a vuvuzela.
That's all he needs, though, up there in his Bully Pulpit.
So if my forthcoming controlled demolition of his shitty book gets placed anywhere reasonably prominent, for example, I can perhaps expect this one to be trotted out.
ReplyDeleteOoh, looking forward to seeing that. As far as I'm aware - excepting blog-based blasts from myself, Splintered Sunrise and Aarowatch - nobody reviewed it in the slightest detail. Still, AC Grayling was a fan so who are we to judge!
Bensix - yep, read and liked SS's, yours, and on Aaronovitch Watch, BB's prescient one and the guest appearance from the estimable Robin Ramsay, who of course has been talking sense about this kind of stuff for decades...
ReplyDeleteThere's also this rather good one - from a JFK researcher (nasty JFK researcherses - we hates them).
Paid journos and reviewers all just treat it as automatically a Good Thing (it refutes 'the conspiracists', doesn't it?), and so endorse it without paying much attention to what it actually says, and often, it appears, without reading it.
Even those who provide the odd discordant (though muted) note of disagreement don't always seem to notice they are doing so, or else do so tokenistically or, like Johann Hari, for reasons that are only tenuously related to the content, localised to a particular pre-existing point of disagreement, and surrounded by glowing praise.
But then it's not meant to be read, only to be brandished, kept on a shelf or even just known reassuringly to exist. We debunk conspiracy theories, so you don't have to.
Or as The Vitch puts it:
Part of the motivation for writing this book was the light-hearted aim of providing a useful resource to the millions of men and women who have found themselves on the wrong side of a bar or dinner- party conversation that begins, 'I'll tell you the real reason...' and have sat there, knowing it was all likely to be nonsense, but rarely having the necessary arguments to hand.
Now all those long-suffering folk who like Aaronovitch are sure, without even scrutinising it, that [the conspiranoid's] evidence [is] wrong can just wave their hand in the general direction of Voodoo Histories, and get back to acting out a Bremner Bird and Fortune sketch.
Qlipoth - where does "Nach oben buckeln, nach unten treten" come from?
Qlipoth - while I agree with your description of DA's attitude, on the specific point about 'wot r u?', I had it down as a reference to the drill sarnt's insistence that the butt of his insults also endorse them:
ReplyDelete'You're an 'orrible, disgusting little smear of shit! What are yew?'
'An orrible disgusting little smear of shit, sarnt.'
"Qlipoth - where does "Nach oben buckeln, nach unten treten" come from?"
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know it has no identifiable author. I think it's truly proverbial, i.e. it embodies a widespread and accurate working-class recognition of the way middle-class careers & reputations (and fortunes) are generally made. Heinrich Mann's Der Untertan is a memorable study of the type in pre-WW1 Germany, but of course that type can be found anywhere and at any time, as Aero, Rentoul et al amply demonstrate.
Approximate English version (Anon.):
The working class
Can kiss my arse:
I've got the foreman's
Job at last.
Approximate American version (Upton Sinclair):
"It is hard to get a man to understand something when his job depends upon him not understanding it."
One of Chomsky's chapter-titles is "The Bounds of the Expressible". Aero and his employers and most of his readers know exactly what their jobs and reputations (and fortunes) depend upon, which is why he's happy to lie and they're happy to be lied to. Because, after all, there are limits, and why bite the hand that feeds you? For all his smug conceitednes, he is, as you say, all piss and wind. Challenge his threadbare pseudo-arguments with a rational response and he's reduced to unleashing his inner foreman, or his inner sarnt major.
This is great:
But then it's not meant to be read, only to be brandished, kept on a shelf or even just known reassuringly to exist. We debunk conspiracy theories, so you don't have to.
Or as The Vitch puts it:
"Part of the motivation for writing this book was the light-hearted aim of providing a useful resource to the millions of men and women who have found themselves on the wrong side of a bar or dinner- party conversation that begins, 'I'll tell you the real reason...' and have sat there, knowing it was all likely to be nonsense, but rarely having the necessary arguments to hand."
Now all those long-suffering folk who like Aaronovitch are sure, without even scrutinising it, that [the conspiranoid's] evidence [is] wrong can just wave their hand in the general direction of Voodoo Histories, and get back to acting out a Bremner Bird and Fortune sketch.
Right on the money.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBack in 2006, in the depths of the Bush era, Alexander Cockburn released his own inner sarnt major at Counterpunch, where he fulminated at length about "kooks" and "nuts" and their ridiculous "cynicism re government" (sic). I blogged this somewhat testy response:
ReplyDeleteSuffering Cockburn: 9/11 and the Left's Collective Unconsciousness
http://qlipoth.blogspot.com/2006/09/suffering-cockburn-911-and-lefts.html
Lord Cockburn did not condescend to reply.
Qlipoth - where does "Nach oben buckeln, nach unten treten" come from?
ReplyDeleteI think the US equivalent is 'Kiss up, kick down'
[redpesto]
Word verification; 'bushdom'. Coincidence...or something more sinister? ;-)
Thanks for the link to Green's review. I'm clueless on JFK, but it seems incisive nonetheless.
ReplyDelete"The detail is overwhelming," he complains. [9] Yes, it is; such is the price for doing the investigative work.
Yes - I got the feeling, reading Voodoo Histories, that he wasn't keen on the idea of analysing data before coming to the simple, elegant conclusion.
More of the same from @Daaronovitch (again can't be arsed to, and needn't, track down the whole exchange):
ReplyDelete@bellacaledonia If you want to say something, bc (such as 'Swedes are in on get-Assange plot"), say it. U can't look any more of a dick.
Tom's cracked it
ReplyDeleteTurns out his long term pal was so sensitive he would rather kill himself than bear criticism.
I always thought Walter Mitty characters were too much in a world of their own to worry about such things.
Why does Tom Mangold always describe himself as a 'close friend' and 'longtime pal' of David Kelly, when he only met him for the first time in 1998, and by his own admission, he saw him maybe twice a year tops and always in a professional capacity?
ReplyDeleteI can't help feel Mr Mangold is not actually very qualified to offer an insight into the mind of a man, who in reality he actually didn't know that well at all.
Some excellent work on this subject recently Tim (and Ben Six).
ReplyDeleteThere's one aspect of the Kelly case I have rarely seen discussed but it continues to niggle away at me.
Here he was, at the center of arguably the biggest international political and intelligence storm of recent times, it seems unthinkable to me he wouldn't have been under surveillance by someone.
I'm no expert on these matters, but I assume his house was bugged at least (isn't there a report that detectives stripped his wallpaper when he was reported missing?) and it also seems reasonably likely he was under live surveillance too.
Which if true, might turn the whole sorry story on its head.
I love this, from Littlejohn...
ReplyDeleteHaving never been much of a conspiracy theorist, I've always assumed that Dr David Kelly took his own life.
Right - he knows fuck all about poor Dr Kelly's end but because he's "not a conspiracy theorist" he'll just trust the official verdict. Then again, Littlejohn knows fuck all about anything...
Any thoughts on the recent comments by Hunt re. "textbook suicide"? This is now doing the media round to dampen down the recent stories re. Kelly.
ReplyDeleteHunt's comments are curious to say the least. I mean, 'textbook' suicide? Even the layman knows that slitting your wrists outside in a wood is quite unlikely to kill you, and what with the supposed multiple complicating factors it seems quite an atypical case, hardly 'textbook'.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for Hunt, well using his words as the final verdict on this doesn't really work - a bit like asking a settling a court case entirely because the accused said he was somewhere else when the crime was committed.
Hunt, as a man for whom reputation is all important, is hardly likely to come out now after all this time and if you pardon the expression, commit professional suicide by admitting incompetence/negligence is he?
A bit more on the crazed 'US military establishment accused of standard-issue smear campaign shock' conspiracy theory that Aaro was trying to twitter someone into over-egging.
ReplyDeletePresumably Flying Rodent thinks this is yet another silly distraction from spending every waking hour denouncing the war in studiedly general terms.
(I generally approve of the Rodent's stuff, btw, and sympathise with his concerns, but think he concedes far too much rhetorical ground to the Aaronovitch etc tinfoiling tendency. There needs to be some degree of solidarity in repudiating this kind of smeary bullshit - without necessarily committing to any elaborate theories, of course - otherwise issue after issue gets picked off, dismissed as conspirasaurian confabulisticism.)
I take my hat off to your stirling work. The term 'conspiracy theorist' is still, I would say, an effective smear, but is losing power, like antibiotics, through chronic over-use.
ReplyDeleteAll the best to you.
Peter Hitchens on David Kelly.
ReplyDeleteAny thoughts on this? Baler does mention him v. early in the book as a sceptic.
Ooops - here is the link:
ReplyDeletehttp://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2010/08/-the-david-kelly-conundrum.html
Hi there.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Henderson: Any thoughts on the recent comments by Hunt re. "textbook suicide"?
soilysound: Hunt's comments are curious to say the least. I mean, 'textbook' suicide?
Just out of interest, did Nicholas Hunt ever actually say Dr Kelly's death was a "textbook suicide"?
This is the phrase that seems to be repeated endlessly but I have only been able to find a Daily Mail article in which it is the Mail's paraphrase that it was a "textbook suicide".
I think this might be causing a lot of confusion because as far as I have seen Dr Hunt was referring to the wounds on Dr Kelly's wrist which he said:
"It was an absolute classic case of self-inflicted injury. You could illustrate a textbook with it."
Later:
Dr Hunt says he found up to a dozen cuts on Dr Kelly's wrist, each around 2in to 3in long, one of which opened the ulnar artery. 'Some cuts were very shallow, some were deeper and deeper, which is typical of someone feeling their way. You have a knife, apply light pressure and realise that it actually takes a bit more effort and you get more bold as your resolve increases. It's one of the classic features of self-inflicted injury.' He adds that there was clear evidence Dr Kelly repeatedly dislodged clots or scabs to ensure he continued bleeding. 'His wrist was red so he must have been doing this for some time.'
He may have used the phrase "textbook suicide", which would be a very different thing to referring to the wounds on his wrist as textbook examples of a self-inflicted wound, but I haven't seen that anywhere.
Far be it from me to accuse the Daily Mail of cynical sensationalism but might it not be a case of cynical sensationalism on the part of the Daily Mail?
Take a look a this, which shows that Tom Magold is a bit of a conspiracy theorist himself...
ReplyDeletehttp://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/14618/1/WPCC-Vol5-No3-David_McQueen.pdf
Pre-War
A key aspect of the framing of the Iraq war was the use of fear. This was evident from the earliest Panorama report which dealt with Iraq, ‘Bin Laden’s Bomb’ (transmitted in October 2001) which made a link (later shown to be false) between
the Iraq regime and Al Qaida operatives. The introduction sets the scene
TOM MANGOLD: The fear is as old as history. The plague doctor of the
middle ages helpless in the continent where disease killed millions. Today the images have returned and with them the fear that disease may walk the land once more.
Evidence brought forward in this programme of meetings between the 9-11 plotter and Iraqi officials has subsequently been denied by the CIA and widely discredited, but in 2001 it is presented in Tom Mangold’s report as fact:
MANGOLD: […] The reason we know the terrorist and the Iraqi spy met
here at Prague Airport on at least one occasion is because they were
photographed together by the Czech Security Services on the day that Atta flew to the United States. But what was Mohamed Atta plotting, and why did he have to come so far out of his way just to meet the man who was
Saddam Hussein's station chief in Prague?
JIM WOOLSEY
Director, CIA, 1993-95
It looks extremely suspicious and I doubt very seriously if Mr Atta was in that lovely city of Prague as a tourist and just happened to chance upon an Iraqi intelligence officer as his tour guide on two occasions, and I also, I rather doubt that his interest in crop dusting was at that point because he was interested in a second career. He knew he had no second career. Those are both extremely suspicious acts on his part.
Angysoba, not sure you can blame the Mail entirely for this one, if you do a new search you'll see virtually every outlet used the phrase textbook suicide in their headline - http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=textbook&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=nws:1&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wn
ReplyDeleteAnd if its just the wrist cut that was textbook, again it'sa funny textbook. A right handed man cutting his left wrist, yet he misses the obvious artery to cut completely in favour of the ulnar?
Hitchens has 'no doubt' it was suicide, like all the other commentators who assert categorically that they know what happened. Lucky they're opinionisers and not reporters, or this approach would get them in trouble pretty quickly.
ReplyDelete'No doubt'.
E.g. the latest from Mangold, who come to think of it is supposedly a reporter, though he seems to think he can get away with a pretty elastic approach to the facts when it comes to his relationship with Kelly. (And he is right that he can get away with it - so far as the 'mainstream' media is concerned.)
PHitchens latest:
ReplyDelete"Mr Dodd says of Dr Kelly's suicide that ‘the "severing of the ulnar artery" and "pill-swallowing" theories seem to have been discredited by persons with far more medical knowledge than he and I possess?’
I think the word 'seem' is important here. Presumably (for otherwise his remarks are alarming) Mr Dodd is unaware of the statement made by the pathologist in the case (Nicholas Hunt) at the weekend.
Mr Hunt, whose statement was widely reported and can easily be found on the Internet, does not accept the theory that Dr Kelly did not kill himself. His account shows that a relevantly qualified scientific person, who also has more medical knowledge than I or Mr Dodd possess, who actually examined the body, and was wholly open to the possibilities of foul play, completely disagrees with these 'persons'. Need I say more?
If scientists disagree, then laymen are entitled to choose between their opinions using reason, probability etc, and on the scientist's direct knowledge of the subject under discussion. (For instance, medical qualifications do not stop a person from having naive opinions about social policy.) I choose Mr Hunt's, not least because I can conceive of no reason why anyone would have wanted to murder Dr Kelly. But I can easily conceive of reasons why he might wish to end his own life, as explained in my posting."
What did Hunt say re. the ulnar artery that gives PHitchens such confidence?
Yes P Hitchens is sometimes reasonably bold in pointing out some of the idiocies of receieved opinion. Of course he's a prety marginalised figure, which means he has less to lose than some, and seems to have resigned himself to a Sisyphean cycle of self-parody at the Mail, even though some of his less thoughtless writing is quite good (e.g. among the ramblings in his book he has stuff on corrupt 'lunches' between hacks and politicos, and a good chapter on the railways that harks back to the pre-Thatcher near-consensus).
ReplyDeleteBut even he finds any expression of doubt about Kelly a bit rich for his blood. Note, after his fine words about assessing the opinions of experts (caveat: he seems to think Hutton + press stories make an acceptable forum for proper expression of medical opinion), he says I choose Mr Hunt's, not least because I can conceive of no reason why anyone would have wanted to murder Dr Kelly.
So in fact intractable and intangible evidence based on supposition about motives comes in to guide his sober deliberation about expert opinion. This is 'nemine bono': the converse of the cui bono heuristic so often excoriated by Aaro etc when used (quite legitimately) by 'CTists' to idnetify prima facie suspects. In the case of the anti-CT brigade, it's treated as dispositive - exactly the sin 'CTists' are so often (and so often falsely) accused of should they dare to invoke cui bono.
Still, you can't really blame Peter for a certain slant in putting (and possibly forming) his opinion. Here's Rentoul:
it has been a truly depressing August for anyone who cares about journalistic integrity. The Mail’s deranged campaign has dragged in all sorts of politicians and journalists who ought to know better.
Even for someone with as low an opinion of Michael Howard as me (since his 2005 election stunt of saying that Tony Blair lied in making the case for war, but that he would still have voted for it had it been phrased differently), it came as a shock to see him lending his name to the bananas brigade in the Mail on Sunday.
And to see the Daily Mirror put its reputation for combining populism with good sense in the bin on Tuesday (above) was a shame. As it was to see Paul Routledge, a once fine journalist on The Independent on Sunday, put his byline on such nonsense.
Even Agence France-Presse, the longest-established world news agency, has taken to writing of Kelly’s “apparent suicide”.
Only a wholehearted and unequivocal renunciation of the heretical doctrines will do for Rentoul and the rest of the pack.
I don't think rentool and aaro will be happy until we say sorry, get on our knees and swear never to do it again. One can't help feel they have some sort of personal stake in the official narratives.
ReplyDeleteI wish I knew Mangold's role here.
ReplyDeleteIn his piece in the Indy, he writes
in true Sylvie Krin style:
"However, late in the morning, according to his wife, Kelly suddenly became withdrawn, silent, and thoughtful. With her keen sense of his unspoken moods, she felt so ill at the change that she went upstairs to throw up and then lie down"
"I was physically sick because he looked so desperate ... I think he had a broken heart."
(Note use of Kelly, not David or, as Mangold knew him so well, Dai)
Yet Mrs Absolom the neighbour noticed his mood as his normal self despite being loaded up with blunt knife, 30 coproxamol tablets and bottled water as he strode out up the lane a few hours later...
The duties of Coroners and protection of family members,made in a comment by Nick Evans on this Jack of Kent blog might be worth commenting on, Tim.
Incidentally there is a short burst of Aaronics on a recent posting of the same blog, including some quite irrelevant point about suicides and faith (but fitting in nicely with his tunnel view of the Kelly affair).
Peter Simplex
Angysoba, not sure you can blame the Mail entirely for this one, if you do a new search you'll see virtually every outlet used the phrase textbook suicide in their headline - http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=textbook&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=nws:1&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wn
ReplyDeleteAnd if its just the wrist cut that was textbook, again it'sa funny textbook. A right handed man cutting his left wrist, yet he misses the obvious artery to cut completely in favour of the ulnar?
That's not the question I asked.
I will repeat it because anything else I ask will only likely cause confusion:
did Nicholas Hunt ever actually say Dr Kelly's death was a "textbook suicide"?
That wasn't the point of my question. how many people decided to parrot it
"It was an absolute classic case of self-inflicted injury. You could illustrate a textbook with it."
ReplyDeleteOK. But not such a textbook piece when no fingerprints are left on the knife which, by definition, Dr Kelly must have used in his suicide.
One may speculate that it was a classical case of inflicted injury disguised to mimic a self-inflicted one.
OK. But not such a textbook piece when no fingerprints are left on the knife which, by definition, Dr Kelly must have used in his suicide.
ReplyDeleteOne may speculate that it was a classical case of inflicted injury disguised to mimic a self-inflicted one.
I think what Dr Hunt said about the injury was that as well as the cut that may have been fatal there were several others around it which showed "hesitation cuts" that they were made with progressively more conviction and that this kind of wound is what you might see in a textbook as classic signs.
I haven't seen any other references to textbook by Dr Hunt except in this far more limited context. I could be wrong, and if so I'd be interested in seeing him actually quoted as saying "textbook suicide" but if not then I think we're being misled by sensationalist journalism.
I wonder whether the police even expected to find fingerprints on the knife. It would probably depend on the surface material of the handle.
If it's sensationalist journalism, it's sensationalist journalism that virtually every news outlet in the country indulged in in near identical fashion.
ReplyDeleteCouple of things in today's Independent referring to Kelly, conspiracy theory and imagination. Any thoughts on them?
ReplyDeleteHoward Jacobson: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/howard-jacobson/howard-jacobson-conspiracy-theorists-lack-imagination-2064053.html
And, less literary and more down-to-earth, Richard Ingrams:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/richard-ingrams/richard-ingrams-not-everyone-is-quick-to-condemn-the-church-2064055.html
(2nd segment - tho' rest is worth reading too).
Thanks Tony for the Ingrams link.
ReplyDeleteYes, the role of Mr Hunt is fascinating. He was only on the Home Office roll since 2001, i.e. very junior. The 999 call was made at around 9.35am from the search team, and Mr Hunt arrived at Harrowdown at 12 noon, starting work at 12.15 approx having "watched a video" in the tent.(Hutton transcript)
It is possible that he was the nearest HO Pathologist to be scrambled, though there is the awful cover-up possibility that Dr Kelly's death was known quite a bit earlier than the 999 call. Finally, can anyone say why the rectal temperature was taken (to ascertain time of death) by Mr Hunt at approx 7.15 pm,as reported to Hutton, just before leaving, i.e. 7 hours later. One would think that it ought to be the first thing done at a suspicious death scene. Can anyone throw any light on this procedure (Aaro, Cohen et al, perhaps!)